Quantum computing will not replace supercomputers in 2026, much less reach industrial scale. Still, investor appetite for companies pursuing that elusive quantum advantage has not waned, but has increased.
Quantonation Ventures, a venture firm that invests in quantum and physics-based startups, has closed its second oversubscribed fund with €220 million (approximately $260 million). This is more than twice the size of the original fund and comes in addition to other signs that quantum winter is not yet here.
While some have warned that too much quantum hype and not enough tangible results will ultimately lead to a funding disaster, the opposite is actually happening. Consider the prediction that quantum will eventually crack modern codes. Governments are also joining the Big Tech race, although there is no clear timeline for that moment.
Since Quantonation was launched in 2018, the quantum technology field has moved beyond its nascent stage due to both technological breakthroughs and initial demand from academic and industrial research institutes. As a result, “the types of investment opportunities available have changed” for the second fund, Quantonation partner Will Zeng told TechCrunch.
One example is what Zeng describes as a “grab-and-dry” opportunity by companies developing technology to support the quantum industry. He cited the example of Dutch startup Qblox. Qblox is a long-running and successful expansion company that sold quantum control hardware and software to Quantonation's portfolio companies before co-leading its Series A.
The growth of this ecosystem also explains why backers are doubling down on Quantonation, and why other dedicated quantum funds such as QDNL and 55 North are emerging.
“VCs recognize that this is not an easy space to invest in at an early stage. The technology is very specific and complex, the market is often new, and so are the teams,” Zeng said.
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The company's philosophy is to invest early to capture more value. But several quantum companies have already gone public, and their stock prices have soared in recent months. Part of this “quantum craze” is being driven by Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang declared in June 2025 that “quantum computing has reached an inflection point,” according to Bloomberg.
Despite the fact that quantum chips have yet to outperform classical computers outside of dedicated benchmarks, there is a growing consensus that real-world applications, from life sciences to new materials, are only a few years away. This is also thanks to advances in error correction, the ability to correct errors to which quantum systems are prone.
Google's Willow chip was a breakthrough in error correction in 2024, but no architecture has won yet, and smaller companies are still competing. Zeng pointed out that a surprising number of companies are participating in DARPA's quantum benchmarking initiative. He also believes that beyond the excitement of the public markets, “there is much more exciting technology that is currently private.”
In the case of Quantonation, these private opportunities extend far beyond quantum chips alone. The second fund has already invested in 12 startups, with a targeted portfolio of around 25 companies, covering not only the software and industrial layers needed to realize the benefits of quantum, but also adjacent physics-based technologies such as photonics and lasers.
This expanded theory is supported by investors old and new. The company said key investors from the first vintage, including Singapore's Vertex Holdings and Bpifrance's Fonds National d'Amorçage 2, have returned to the fund for the second time, with new limited partners including the European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners and Toshiba joining.
Quantonation's geographic scope is equally international. The company, headquartered in Paris and New York City, has backed French quantum companies such as Pascal and Quandera, but it has also bet on Asia and North America and will continue to do so.
“In many of the areas we invest in, there are still no clear regional winners. […] And a lot of the research comes from universities all over the place,” Zeng said.