US and Ukrainian-based Haiqu, a startup building software to enhance the performance of quantum processors, announced on Tuesday, June 6, that it has raised $4M (approximately €3.74M) in a pre-seed round of funding.
The round was led by MaC Venture Capital with participation from Toyota Ventures, SOMA Capital, and a group of Ukrainian firms u.ventures, SID Venture Partners, and Roosh Ventures.
The round also saw private contributions from Paul Holland, Alexi Kirilenko, and Gordy Holterman.
Jim Adler, founder and general partner at Toyota Ventures, says, “We’ve been watching the quantum computing space for years, but the hardware and hype has kept us just watching. Haiqu caught our attention with their optimisation software that boosts quantum hardware to solve practical industry problems.”
Capital utilisation
Haiqu says it will use the funds to fuel its R&D activities and forge strategic partnerships in order to get its product to the market.
Richard Givhan, co-founder and CEO at Haiqu, says, “We are accelerating the timeline to practical quantum computing by developing novel software that can extract value out of clumsy near-term quantum hardware, enabling quantum applications that were previously impossible.
“We are proud to be backed by investors with remarkable deep-tech ecosystems and a track record of supporting the commercialisation of breakthrough tech.”
“Careful software for clumsy quantum computers”
Haiqu was founded in 2022 by Richard Givhan, a Stanford alumnus and former EIR at Mitsubishi Electric, and Mykola Maksymenko, a former researcher at the Max Planck Society and the Weizmann Institute of Science and head of R&D at global consultancy SoftServe.
It aims to create tools that will improve the efficiency of current quantum hardware.
The startup solves the fundamental hurdles preventing quantum application adoption: a limited number of qubits and the high noise sensitivity of near-term quantum computers.
Haiqu creates platform-independent technology that increases quantum hardware capacity by orders of magnitude and allows a larger set of practical use-cases in finance, chemistry, life sciences, mobility, and other fields.
Maksymenko says, “We leverage our expertise in quantum complexity, AI, and high-performance computing to create a product that we believe can streamline the entire industry.”
“With past experience in building and scaling deep tech R&D in large corporations, we appreciate the challenges of bringing a complex technology to market. We are eager to get our tech into the hands of users as soon as possible.”
Haiqu began as a remote collaboration of the co-founders and is now a worldwide company with offices in the US, Ukraine, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland.
