ZuriQ Raises $25.5 Million in Seed Funding

(CONNECT) ZuriQ secured $25.5 million in new capital in a seed funding round. According to a press release, the Zurich-based quantum computing company plans to expand its team and invest in research and development. The funding round was led by Quantonation. Other participants included Forward.one, Extantia, Firgun Ventures, and all investors from the previous round. As early as 2025, the company—a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH)—had secured $4.2 million in pre-seed funding.

Quantum computers do not work with bits like conventional computers, but with quantum bits or qubits. Like a bit in a classical computer, a qubit can assume either the state 1 or 0, but it can also assume an infinite number of states in between. Qubits can also communicate with each other, i.e. be quantum entangled. One approach to "connecting" qubits is the so-called ion trap technique. Until now, these ion traps have been based on one-dimensional ion chains. ZuriQs has developed a technology using a combination of electric and magnetic fields to trap ions in a two-dimensional grid. To this end, the company has developed a demonstrator that demonstrates how the technology works in a 3x3 array—that is, with nine ions. The manufacturing processes are now to be scaled so that the increased number of ions will enable the construction of a commercially viable chip. “The companies that kicked off the race with ion traps started with one-dimensional designs, which, while useful intermediate steps, do not address the real challenge: successfully transitioning to two dimensions in order to scale up production,” Pavel Hrmo, CEO of ZuriQ, is quoted as saying in the press release. "This funding enables us to translate our technological momentum into commercial scaling." ce/eb