Riverlane, which is building technology that helps quantum computers make fewer errors, has raised $75m in a Series C equity funding round to improve the performance of its product as it faces growing demand from companies building quantum devices.
It brings total funding for the UK-based startup to about $125m and makes for Europe’s first Series C in quantum computing. The company says it has received a “significant uplift” from its Series B valuation, which stood at $200m.
The round was led by new backer Planet First Partners, a growth firm that focuses on sustainable investments, with participation from climate fund ETF Partners and Singaporean investor EDBI.
It also included previous investors Cambridge Innovation Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners, the UK’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), and high-performance computing company Altair. NSSIF is an investor in a number of other UK-based quantum computing startups, including Nu Quantum and Oxford Ionics.
What does Riverlane do?
Scientists expect that quantum computers, when they are fully developed, will unleash unprecedented computational power — meaning they will be able to resolve previously intractable problems, such as drug discovery or new material design.
But scaling up quantum computers to that point is proving difficult because qubits — the quantum equivalent of bits in a normal computer — are prone to errors. For now, quantum computers are stuck in the NISQ era (Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum), where these errors significantly limit computers’ size and capabilities.
“The best quantum computers today can perform about 1k operations before errors overwhelm the computer,” says Steve Brierley, Riverlane’s CEO.
“Applications like drug discovery, material design or climate change need the quantum computer to do about a trillion error-free operations. That’s the scale we want to get to.”
Riverlane produces a chip that sits inside quantum computers and runs software to carry out quantum error correction. The company says the device can identify the qubits’ errors and send corrective instructions in real time.
For now, the startup’s chip can support up to 1000 qubits — which aligns with the latest generation of quantum computers unveiled by manufacturers like IBM or Pasqal.
Brierley says the objective is to release a next-generation chip by the end of 2026, which will be 10 times larger and could support up to 10k qubits.
“Our next-generation chip will support 1m error-free operations,” says Brierley. “That’s a big inflection point where quantum computers can go beyond supercomputers and unlock big applications.”
Many of these applications are likely to concern climate change, from developing better fertilisers to enabling the decarbonisation of industries.
“[Climate change] requires innovation that is very hard, and a new type of computer could help that,” says Brierley. “But they require error correction to get there.”
“This is why two climate funds joined the round.”
Partnering with hardware producers
Brierley says Riverlane has secured partnerships with a dozen companies building quantum computers, including publicly-listed businesses like California-based Rigetti, private companies like US scaleups Infleqtion and QuEra, and national labs including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre.
Riverlane sells its technology to these partners, bringing in revenue in the “low millions,” according to Brierley.
The CEO says that as hardware companies build larger devices and focus on moving on from the NISQ era, demand for quantum error correction has been on the up in the past year — and he expects to see sustained interest in the future.
“We’re seeing a huge increase in demand for error correction, which is why we took the opportunity to raise a round,” he says.
Just this year, Riverlane inked partnerships with French quantum computing company Alice & Bob, as well as US startup Atlantic Quantum.
The startup faces competition from other companies, such as Canada-based Nord Quantique, which are also tackling quantum error correction. But the biggest competitors, Brierley says, are hardware providers themselves — who might decide to build the technology in-house.
“Of course they can do that, but it’s more economical and efficient to buy a solution from us,” says Brierley.
“It’s super hard to build a quantum computer. There are so many problems — so when we come along with error correction, [manufacturers] are grateful that they don’t have to solve this problem themselves.”
What’s next?
Riverlane, which was founded seven years ago, currently has a team of about 100 people. Brierley says that the team includes former AWS and IBM employees who specialise in quantum error correction, as well as ex-Arm and Qualcomm engineers that focus on chip design.
The company is planning to increase its headcount slightly, although most of the Series C investment will go towards product development.
Riverlane will also consider expanding its presence internationally, says Brierley, with a possible focus on Singapore or Australia.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/riverlane-raise-series-c-news/
