VC World Fund leads 128 million Euro Series A2 for quantum computer IQM

Espoo (Finland) and Munich (Germany) — IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters (IQM), Europe’s leading company for buil­ding super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters, has raised €128 million in a Series A2 finan­cing round. The lead inves­tor is Europe’s largest climate tech venture capi­ta­list World Fund from Berlin. IQM intends to use the money to further expand and inter­na­tio­na­lize its leading role in Europe with offices in Espoo, Finland, and Munich, Germany, among others. “This round of funding shows the importance of our mission: to deve­lop quan­tum compu­ters for the well-being of huma­nity. It also shows confi­dence in our busi­ness model and in our team’s ability to shape the future of quan­tum tech­no­logy,” says IQM’s German foun­der and CEO Dr. Jan Goetz.

This funding round is the largest ever recei­ved by a Euro­pean quan­tum compu­ting company.

The finan­cing follows a Series A1 finan­cing of EUR 39 million in 2020 and includes the EUR 35 million risk loan from the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) announ­ced in early 2022. Bayern Kapi­tal, EIC Acce­le­ra­tor, OurC­rowd, QuIC SPV, Tofino and Varma as well as exis­ting inves­tors MIG Fonds, Tesi, Open­O­cean, Maki.vc, Matadero QED, Vsquared, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capi­tal GmbH and Tencent parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

Commen­ting on the round on behalf of the inves­tors, Dr. Sierk Poet­ting, CEO of IQM, said: “This finan­cing round is very important for the company. It is confir­ma­tion of the tech­no­lo­gi­cal mile­sto­nes achie­ved so far and will signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate future deve­lo­p­ment. We are grateful for the rene­wed confir­ma­tion from exis­ting inves­tors and welcome the new inves­tors in this strong round.”

Euro­pean pioneer of quan­tum technology

Since its foun­ding in 2018, IQM has become the world’s fastest growing quan­tum compu­ting company and has soli­di­fied its posi­tion as the Euro­pean leader in buil­ding super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters. IQM is the only Euro­pean company alre­ady supp­ly­ing complete quan­tum systems. The part­ners include a leading global auto­ma­ker. In doing so, IQM pursues an inno­va­tive co-design stra­tegy in which it works closely with indus­trial custo­mers to deve­lop appli­­­ca­­tion-speci­­fic processors.

Accor­ding to the Boston Consul­ting Group (BCG), quan­tum tech­no­logy could create up to $850 billion in value globally over the next 15 to 30 years as it scales and impro­ves accu­racy and stabi­lity. Quan­tum compu­ting is a foun­da­tio­nal tech­no­logy that has extreme speed advan­ta­ges over any super­com­pu­ter for certain calcu­la­ti­ons. It has great poten­tial for areas such as drug disco­very, encryp­tion, and more accu­ra­tely predic­ting move­ments in finan­cial markets. Google announ­ced back in 2019 that a quan­tum proces­sor they deve­lo­ped comple­ted a calcu­la­tion in 200 seconds that would have taken the world’s fastest super­com­pu­ter 10,000 years.

Quan­tum compu­ting can help solve the climate crisis

Since its foun­ding, IQM’s goal has been to contri­bute to social progress with its own tech­no­logy, which includes helping to address the climate crisis. There is great poten­tial here for quan­tum compu­ters because it can be used to model solu­ti­ons that are not possi­ble with the current compu­ting power of clas­si­cal compu­ters. Accor­ding to McKin­sey, climate tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped using quan­tum compu­ting can reduce CO2 emis­si­ons by seven giga­tons per year by 2035.

The poten­tial of IQM’s tech­no­logy lies, for exam­ple, in the opti­miza­tion of energy networks or climate mode­ling. The company is alre­ady conduc­ting basic rese­arch for signi­fi­cantly better rech­ar­geable batte­ries as well as on comple­tely new methods for desig­ning materials.

A key metric used by lead inves­tor World Fund in its invest­ments is Climate Perfor­mance Poten­tial (CPP). The compa­nies and tech­no­lo­gies inves­ted in should have the poten­tial to avoid at least 100 million tons of CO2 emis­si­ons each year until 2040. The Fund’s CPP calcu­la­ti­ons show that IQM’s tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to exceed this thres­hold based on impro­ved battery perfor­mance and utiliza­tion alone.

Daria Saha­rova, co-foun­­der of the World Fund, said.: “Quan­tum compu­ting has the poten­tial to be a driving force behind the breakth­roughs we need to solve the climate crisis. We are proud to lead this round of funding and support IQM’s ambi­ti­ons to create a quan­tum advan­tage for climate and sustaina­bi­lity goals. This invest­ment is in line with our commit­ment to only support compa­nies with the highest possi­ble Climate Perfor­mance Poten­tial (CPP). The goal is for the compa­nies we fund to save a total of two giga­tons of CO2 annu­ally by 2040 — that’s four percent of all current global emis­si­ons. IQM has alre­ady succee­ded in buil­ding a strong busi­ness focu­sed on high-perfor­­mance data centers and rese­arch labs. We look forward to being part of their growth on the path to global market leadership.”

First invest­ment of the Bava­rian ScaleUp Fund laun­ched in 2021

The eight-figure invest­ment by Bayern Kapi­tal, the venture and growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, is the first invest­ment of the ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria, laun­ched in 2021 for stron­gly expan­ding high-tech compa­nies with invest­ments between 10 and 25 million euros. “Quan­tum compu­ters are a key tech­no­logy of the future today and Bava­ria, with its outstan­ding compe­ten­cies in science and indus­try in the field of quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies, is excel­lently posi­tio­ned here,” said Bava­rian Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger: “IQM is an active part­ner of Munich Quan­tum Valley and is making an important contri­bu­tion to inte­gra­ting quan­tum compu­ters into an envi­ron­ment of high-perfor­­mance compu­ters and making these compu­ting capa­ci­ties available to users in science and industry.”

“For the first invest­ment with the ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria, we could hardly have wished for a better company with a signal effect for the entire region,” says Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. IQM’s presence includes the new quan­tum compu­ter at the Leib­niz Compu­ting Center (LRZ) in Garching near Munich.

About IQM Quan­tum Computers

IQM is the pan-Euro­­pean leader in buil­ding quan­tum compu­ters. IQM provi­des super­com­pu­ting data centers, labo­ra­to­ries and enter­pri­ses with on-site instal­la­tion of quan­tum compu­ters and allows full access to this hard­ware. For indus­trial custo­mers, IQM offers a quan­tum advan­tage through a unique appli­­­ca­­tion-speci­­fic co-design approach.

IQM is buil­ding the first commer­cial 54-qubit quan­tum compu­ter in Finland toge­ther with the non-profit Tech­ni­cal Rese­arch Centre of Finland (VTT), the largest contract rese­arch orga­niza­tion in Nort­hern Europe. The IQM-led consor­tium Q‑Exa is buil­ding a quan­tum compu­ter in Germany. This compu­ter will be inte­gra­ted with a high-perfor­­mance super­com­pu­ter to acce­le­rate its rese­arch perfor­mance. IQM employs more than 180 people and has offices in Munich, Paris, Madrid and Espoo.
www.meetiqm.com

About World Fund

World Fund is the largest Euro­­pean-focu­­sed climate venture capi­tal fund and was foun­ded by Daria Saha­rova, Dani­jel Više­vić, Craig Douglas and Tim Schu­ma­cher. From energy, food, agri­cul­ture, and land use to buil­ding mate­ri­als, manu­fac­tu­ring, and trans­por­ta­tion, the World Fund is inves­t­ing in Euro­pean climate tech­no­lo­gies with a Climate Perfor­mance Poten­tial (CPP) of at least 100 million tons of CO2 emis­si­ons saved per year. As an inves­tor, the World Fund argues that start­ups with an appro­priate CPP will be among the most valuable compa­nies of the coming decade. www.worldfund.vc

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 700 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 370 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 300 inno­va­tive tech­­no­­logy-orien­­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Bayern Kapi­tal has supported the compa­nies EOS Elec­tro Opti­cal Systems, conga­tec, Morpho­Sys, voxel­jet, parcel­Lab, SimS­cale, proglove, Sirion Biotech and many others, some of which are listed on the stock exch­ange and are now market leaders in their sectors, from an early stage in the realiza­tion of their projects and also in large-volume finan­cing rounds. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable companies.