Quantum computing will not replace supercomputers in 2026, let alone reach industrial scale. And yet, investors’ appetite for companies that pursue the elusive quantum advantage it has not decreased — it has increased.
Quantonation Venturesa venture firm that invests in quantum and physics-based startups, has closed its oversubscribed second capital at 220 million eurosor about $260 million. That’s more than double the size of its initial fund and comes in addition to other signals that quantum winter has not yet arrived.
While some warned that too much quantum hype and insufficient tangible results would eventually cause funding to collapse, the opposite has happened. Take the prediction that quantum will eventually break modern encryption: that time has no clear timetable, and yet governments have joined Big Tech in the fray.
In the years since Quantonation launched in 2018, the field of quantum technology has become less nascent, with both technological breakthroughs and early demand from academic and industrial labs. As a result, there has also been a “shift in the types of investment opportunities that are available” in its second fund, Quantonation partner Will Zeng told TechCrunch.
One example is what Zeng describes as the “pick and shovel” opportunity, with companies developing technologies that support the quantum industry. He cited the example of Dutch startup Qblox, a long-standing leveraged company that sold quantum control hardware and software to Quantonation portfolio companies before the VC firm concluded Series A.
This growing ecosystem also explains why backers are doubling down on Quantonation and why other dedicated quant funds like QDNL and 55 North have arisen.
“VCs recognize that this is not an easy field to invest in at the early stage. The technology is very specific and complex, the markets are often new, and so are the teams,” Zeng said.
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The company’s thesis is to invest early to gain more value. but some quantum companies have already gone public and their shares have risen in recent months. According to Bloomberg, this “quantum frenzy” is in part supplied from Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang declared in June 2025 that “quantum computing is reaching an inflection point.”
Although quantum chips have yet to surpass classical computers outside of targeted benchmarks, there is a growing consensus that real-life applications are just a few years away, from the life sciences to new materials. This is due in part to advances in error correction — the ability to correct errors that quantum systems are prone to.
Google’s Willow chip was a milestone for bug fixing in 2024, but no architecture has won and even smaller players are still in the race. Zeng noted that a surprising number of companies have entered DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative. He also believes that beyond the excitement of the public market, “there are more exciting technologies that are currently private.”
For Quantonation, these private opportunities cover a broader canvas than quantum chips alone. Fund two has already invested in 12 startups, with a target portfolio of around 25, covering not only the software and industrial layers needed to make quantum edge a reality, but also neighboring physics-based technologies such as photonics and lasers.
This extended thesis is supported by old and new investors. According to the firm, major investors from its first vintage, including Singapore’s Vertex Holdings and Bpifrance’s Fonds National d’Amorçage 2, have returned for the second fund, with new limited partners including the European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners and Toshiba.
Quantonation’s geographic scope is equally international. With dual headquarters in Paris and New York, the company has backed French quantum companies including Pasqal and Quandela, but is also betting on Asia and North America — and will continue to do so.
“In many of the sectors we invest in, there is still no clear regional winner, […] and a lot of the research came from universities in many places,” Zeng said.
