IQM: Secures €128m Round Led by World Fund to Help Tackle Climate Crisis

IQM Quantum Computers (IQM), a European leader in the manufacture of superconducting quantum computers, announced that it has raised in a Series A2 funding round led by World Fund 128 million euros ($128 million), which will be used to expand the company’s international business and accelerate product development to solve pressing problems facing the world. This round is the largest ever raised by a European quantum computing company, following the €39 million ($39 million) Series A funding announced in 2020, partly funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced earlier this year. EIB) 35 million euros ($35 million) venture loan. Participating investors in the round include Bayern Kapital, EIC Fund, OurCrowd, QCI SPV, Tofino, and Varma as well as existing investors Maki.vc, Matadero QED, MIG Fonds, OpenOcean, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capital GmbH, Tencent, Tesi and Vsquared.

Groundbreaking quantum hardware for future computing

Since its founding in 2018, IQM has become the fastest-growing quantum computer company and has cemented its position as the leading European manufacturer of superconducting quantum computers. IQM is also the only European company already delivering a full-stack quantum system. As the technology scales and improves in accuracy and stability, it has the potential to generate up to $850 billion in global value over the next 15-30 years, according to Boston Consulting Group. The enabling technology, capable of delivering super-power and precision computing power far more advanced than any supercomputer, promises to improve drug discovery, revolutionize encryption and data protection, and predict financial systems. For example, for a problem that a supercomputer would take 10,000 years to solve, a quantum computer would take only 4 minutes.

IQM has one of the largest teams of world-class quantum experts in Europe. Research labs and supercomputing centers use IQM’s in-house quantum computers to solve difficult problems in healthcare, finance, logistics, and chemistry. IQM’s innovative co-design strategy also enables industry customers to work closely with IQM to realize the quantum advantage of application-specific processors.

Quantum’s breakthrough potential in addressing the climate crisis

Since the company’s inception, IQM’s mission statement has been to harness technology for the benefit of humanity, and this extends to addressing the climate crisis. The weak efforts of governments and global businesses to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050 have made it increasingly clear that drastic action is needed to find a truly planet-changing Solutions Program. In the future, quantum computing could become an integral part of finding solutions to climate problems, as the technology is able to simulate solutions that are impossible with current levels of computing power. McKinsey predicts that climate technologies developed using quantum computing could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 7 billion tons per year by 2035. This could include helping to reduce the carbon content of energy and fuels, reshaping industrial operations, and reforming food and forestry.

With this new investment, IQM will also dedicate resources to co-design quantum computer processors that improve lives around the world by providing solutions to the climate crisis and promoting sustainable development. As IQM’s quantum computers will greatly facilitate leaps in computing power, its technology will lead to innovations in areas such as energy grid optimization and climate modeling. The company is already working with a leading automaker to explore new ways to develop better battery solutions, as well as breakthrough approaches to new material designs and quantum algorithms that can be used to address climate concerns. This is just the beginning of IQM’s climate goals. The World Fund invests only in technologies with Climate Performance Potential (CPP), i.e. that can remove 100 million tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere by 2040. The fund’s CPP calculations show that battery performance and pervasive use cases alone can push IQM’s technology beyond this threshold.

A decade of quantum technology

The next decade is expected to be the decade of quantum technology, and governments and organizations are investing now to prepare for the quantum future. IQM has partnered with companies such as Atos, VTT, and Infineon to develop solutions that take advantage of this transformative technology. Funds from the new round will be used to expand IQM’s international business operations, accelerate research, and pioneer new product development to continue advancing its work.

Dr. Sierk Poetting, Chairman of IQM Quantum Computers, said: “This funding round is an important milestone, acknowledging our recent technological milestones and helping to accelerate IQM’s development efforts. We value the continued participation of our existing investors and welcome new investors to this powerful consortium.”

Dr. Jan Goetz, CEO, and co-founder of IQM Quantum Computers said: “Our mission is to ‘build quantum computers for the well-being of humanity and this funding round underscores the importance of that mission and demonstrates the interest people have in our business model. confidence, and continued trust in our team’s ability to build the future of quantum technology. I am confident that we will continue to achieve all of our product and business milestones and deliver world-class quantum computers to our customers.”

Daria Saharova, Founding Partner of the World Fund, said: “Quantum computing has the groundbreaking potential needed to drive solutions to the climate crisis. We are proud to lead this investment round, supporting IQM’s ambition to deliver quantum advantage for the climate and sustainable development goals. This investment is in line with our commitment to support only companies with the highest climate performance potential (CPP), thereby reducing our portfolio by 20 million tonnes per year by 2040 – equivalent to 20 million tonnes of all global carbon emissions by Four percent. We are very excited to support the excellent IQM team and its founders who meticulously continue to build IQM with a strong internal business model focused on the High-Performance Computing Center and National Quantum Laboratory. We look forward to participating in IQM In the process of growing into a global leader.”

About IQM Quantum Computers:

IQM is the pan-European category leader in building quantum computers. IQM provides in-house quantum computers for supercomputing data centers and research labs and provides full access to their hardware. For industrial customers, IQM offers a quantum advantage through a unique, application-specific co-design approach. IQM is currently teaming up with VTT to build Finland’s first 54-qubit quantum computer. In addition, an IQM-led consortium (Q-Exa) is building quantum computers in Germany that will be integrated into HPC supercomputers to create quantum accelerators for future scientific research. IQM has offices in Paris, Madrid, Munich, and Espoo and employs more than 180 people.

About World Fund

World Fund is a large-scale climate venture capital fund focused on European companies established by Daria Saharova, Danijel Višević, Craig Douglas, and Tim Schumacher. From energy, food, agriculture, and land use, to building materials, manufacturing, and transport, the World Fund invests in climate technologies in Europe that have Climate Performance Potential (CPP) and save at least 100 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Startups with this CPP technology will be the most valuable companies in the next decade due to the need to decarbonize the economy.