Cambridge’s Nu Quantum lands £7m early-stage funding

Quantum computing today has limited capabilities, with the fundamental building blocks – qubits - extremely difficult to bring together in big enough quantities to solve valuable problems. Rather than trying to assemble the requisite number of qubits in a single core, Nu Quantum is looking to multi-core technology, with individual cores containing 10s to 1000s of qubits linked by a Quantum Networking Unit (QNU).

According to the company, it is developing hardware solutions to create entangled qubit networks, including a unique high-speed computer network interface, photonic switching fabric, and control systems that will enable multi-core quantum supercomputers and quantum data centres.

“Large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing will bring about the technological revolution of our generation,” said Dr Carmen Palacios, founder and CEO of Nu Quantum.

“We have built an exceptional team dedicated to the mission of building the quantum networking infrastructure necessary to make this a reality. We are grateful to the investors who share our vision for their support as we scale and commercialise our solution.”

The £7m injection - labelled as pre-Series A funding - follows an earlier seed round of £2.1m in September 2020. This latest round was led by Amadeus Capital Partners, Expeditions Fund, and IQ Capital, with continued commitment from seed investors Ahren Capital, Seraphim Capital, the University of Cambridge and Martlet. New investors in the round include Presidio Ventures backed by Sumitomo Corporation, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), and Deeptech Labs.

“The ability to apply quantum computing at scale is what’s needed to unlock the potential of this revolutionary advancement in processing power,” said Dr Manjari Chandran-Ramesh, partner at Amadeus Capital Partners.

“Nu Quantum’s systems architecture approach, driven by quantum entanglement, is unique in the market today and has great commercial potential. Further, its product solution is poised to be able to adapt to any type of qubit technology, which makes the impact far-reaching. We are delighted to grow this partnership and work with new and existing investors on this next exciting chapter of Nu Quantum’s journey.”