Munich-based planqc, a company developing quantum computers, announced on Wednesday that it has raised €4.6M in a fresh round of funding.
The company was founded by a team of scientists from the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) and Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, and is the first startup to emerge from the Munich Quantum Valley, one of the leading quantum technology hubs in Europe.
The funding round was led by UVC Partners, a Munich and Berlin-based early-stage VC firm, and Austrian VC fund Speedinvest, which backs tech startups in pre-Seed, Seed, and early-stage rounds.
Benjamin Erhart, Partner at UVC Partners, says, “Quantum computers have the potential to change entire industries and we are convinced that the team can win the global race of building the first scalable quantum computer that operates at room temperature.”
Capital utilisation
planqc says the funds will help the company to develop a scalable quantum computer operating at room temperature, and is based on atoms trapped in optical lattices.
Co-founder of planqc, Alexander Glatzle, says, “Once our quantum computers demonstrate a quantum advantage for an industry-relevant problem, they will have a massive social and economic impact.”
“Creating quantum computers atom by atom”
Founded in April 2022 by Alexander Glätzle, Sebastian Blatt, Johannes Zeiher, Lukas Reichsöllner, Ann-Kristin Achleitner, and Markus Wagner, planqc is building quantum computers that store information in individual atoms – nature’s best qubits.
These qubits are arranged in highly scalable arrays and are then handled by precisely timed laser pulses to process quantum information. planqc claims that its “unique” combination of quantum technologies is the fastest way to scale to thousands of qubits – a prerequisite for industry-relevant quantum advantage.
Co-founder Johannes Zeiher says, “Our atoms are more than a million times colder than deep space and over a thousand times colder than superconducting qubits used by IBM or Google, and yet we can run our computers in a room-temperature environment due to the near-perfect isolation of our qubits from the surrounding. We already routinely trap and control more than 2000 atoms in our optical lattice simulators at MPQ.”
planqc’s founding team combines decades of international research on neutral-atom quantum technologies at world-leading institutions like Harvard University, University of Oxford, the University of California Berkeley, University of Colorado, University of Innsbruck, CQT Singapore, and MPQ.
About the investors
UVC Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in European B2B startups in the areas of enterprise software, industrial technologies, and mobility. Its portfolio companies benefit from the investment and exit experience of the management team, as well as from the close cooperation with UnternehmerTUM, Europe’s leading innovation and business creation centre.
Speedinvest is an early-stage VC firm with more than €600M AUM and 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. It has backed more than 250 companies, including Wefox, Bitpanda, TIER Mobility, GoStudent, Wayflyer, Open, CoachHub, and Twaice, among others.
Rick Hao, Partner at Speedinvest, says, “We have tracked this technology for a long time and planqc’s notably different approach to scaling quantum computing appealed to us immediately. Alexander, Sebastian, and Johannes have brought together an impressive team of experts who share a passion for driving innovation in quantum. We’re thrilled to support them in the next phase of their development.”
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