Cambridge-based Riverlane, a quantum engineering company, announced that it has raised £15M (approximately €16.98M) in a Series B round of funding. The startup says that the funds will boost the company’s valuation as well as carry it to a cash flow break-even.
According to Boston Consulting Group, the quantum computing sector is expected to generate up to $850B in economic value over the next 15-30 years.
To bring transformative new applications in fields such as medication creation, material science, aerospace, and climate change, quantum computers will need to be able to conduct trillions of high-speed operations consistently and without interruption.
Building the operating system for quantum computers
According to Riverlane, current quantum computers can only carry out a few hundred quantum operations before failing. This is because the nature of all sorts of qubits results in a high error rate.
In order to be functional, quantum computers must be able to identify, diagnose, and fix quantum faults as they arise, allowing them to grow from a few hundred error-free quantum operations (QuOps) today to a trillion (TeraQuOps).
This is the number of operations needed to run the majority of known quantum algorithms. And this is where Riverlane steps in.
The company is developing qubit ‘Control’ and error ‘Decoding’ hardware and software to handle the TeraQuOp problem. The words ‘control’ and ‘decode’ are essential components of Riverlane’s quantum operating system, Deltaflow.OS.
Riverlane revealed the world’s fastest Decode solution in November 2022, allowing Deltaflow.OS to accommodate more qubits than was previously possible.
By 2025-end, the company says its Decode solution will be developed into a chip-based ‘TeraQuOp’ decoder capable of processing up to 100TB of data per second – the equivalent of processing as much data as Netflix streams globally.
“To solve this problem, we must design and engineer the dedicated chips that every quantum computer will need,” says the company.
Riverlane founder and CEO, Steve Brierley, says, “Solving quantum error correction – one of the defining scientific challenges of our times – will enable quantum computers to accurately simulate the true complexity of nature.”
“Armed with useful quantum computers, humans will enter the Quantum Age, where we go from slow trial and error to solve complex problems to an era of rapid design using quantum computers. We haven’t even begun to imagine the many ways such technology will positively transform our world,” adds Brierley.
In order to meet these challenges, Riverlane is working with a third of the world’s quantum hardware companies. These include Infleqtion (formerly Cold Quanta), Qolab, Quera, Seec, Rigetti, and Universal Quantum.
Additionally, the company is also working with some of the top academic research institutions in the world, including the University of Wisconsin, Duke University, University of Oxford, and University of Innsbruck.
Riverlane also collaborates with industry leaders including AstraZeneca, Merck, Astex, Rolls Royce, and Johnson Matthey to better understand the applications employing error-corrected quantum computers.
About Riverlane
Riverlane aims to make quantum computing much more quickly than was previously thought possible – “To fully unlock the massive potential of quantum computing, we need a huge increase in the size and reliability of quantum computers.”
The company is developing Deltaflow.OS, an operating system for quantum computers that converts a large number of unstable physical qubits into error-free logical qubits, allowing users to develop dependable applications.
Currently, the company has 100 engineers and scientists working from offices in Cambridge, UK, Boston, and San Francisco.
Investors in this round
The round was led by Molten Ventures along with participation from simulation, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence leader Altair.
Existing investors Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), Amadeus Capital Partners and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) also invested in this round.
As per the deal, Altair’s CEO and founder, James R. Scapa, will sit on the Riverlane board.
Scapa says, “Riverlane’s ground-breaking technology provides a critical common software platform including error correction across all quantum hardware architectures to accelerate the impact and scale of quantum computing.”
Error correction is the main technological issue for quantum computing to attain the scale and dependability required to actualize its transformational potential.
“Altair has a long history of creating and investing in HPC technologies. Collaborating with Riverlane allows Altair to stay ahead of the curve of transformative technologies to help our customers fast-track their innovation,” adds Scapa.
Capital utilisation
Riverlane says it will use the funds to accelerate the development of its operating system for error-corrected quantum computing, Deltaflow.OS.
The UK-based startup is already working on Deltaflow with several of the world’s premier quantum hardware firms, academic laboratories, and government organisations.OS with a variety of qubit kinds.
Amelia Armour, partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, says, “We are proud to carry on our support for Riverlane, helping the company continue its vision, to design and engineer the complex chips that every quantum computer will need to control the qubits and simultaneously decode the errors that quantum computers produce.”
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