Sherbrooke, Que.-based quantum hardware company Qubic has raised $2.5 million USD ($3.5 million CAD) in seed funding to commercialize its signal amplifiers, which boost the signals from qubits used in quantum computing.
The news: Qubic announced on Tuesday morning that it raised a seed investment led by Two Small Fish Ventures, with participation from the University of California’s UC Investments, Sherbrooke-based quantum investor Quantacet, and the University of Calgary’s investment fund UCeed.
The funding will help Qubic—which is a spin-off of the Institut quantique in Sherbrooke and the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing—complete the development of its cryogenic amplifiers, scale up its manufacturing capacity, and use the complete amplifier to build a radio-frequency quantum sensing platform.
From the source: Qubic has raised nearly $10 million CAD in combined equity investment and non-dilutive grant funding. It plans to triple its team to complete its goals, aiming to have 30 employees by the end of 2027, a company spokesperson told BetaKit.
Following the thread: The quantum computing world runs on qubits, a unit of quantum information that, unlike a traditional computer bit—which can be either a zero or a one—can exist in multiple states at once. Qubic claims its low-noise, cryogenic amplifiers are purpose-built for reading superconducting qubits without introducing as much heat as standard semiconductor amplifiers.
Final thought: Qubic CEO and co-founder Jérôme Bourassa said there is an increased appetite for the company’s technology, and that it’s scaling up its manufacturing capacity to meet a growing demand from quantum computing and defence customers. In May, Qubic secured a contract with its first customer for its cryogenic amplifiers, US-based Quantum Machines, which will benchmark it and compare it to competing solutions.
Feature image courtesy Qubic.