Quantum Machines, an Israeli startup building classical hardware and software infrastructure for quantum machines, today announced a $50 million Series A investment.
Red Dot Capital Partners led today's round with support from Exor and Claridge Israel, Samsung NEXT and Valor Equity Partners. Atreides Management, LP also participated, along with TLV Partners. Battery Ventures, 2i Ventures, and other existing investors. Crunchbase data shows that the company has raised $83 million.
Quantum Machines is still in the early stages of quantum computing. However, they have created a niche market by creating a hardware-software system called The Quantum Orchestration Platform. This platform helps to run the growing quantum machines and allows it to continue growing as the industry evolves.
Itamar Sivan (Quantum Machines CEO and co-founder) sees the immense potential of quantum technology. He has worked in quantum for his entire career. Quantum computers promise to speed up computations that would otherwise take a lot of time using classical computers. This is the reason quantum computers are so popular right now. He stated that Quantum Machines' vision is to make quantum computers ubiquitous across all industries and be disruptive.
The company created a system that uses classical computers to power quantum computer development. The company has created its own silicon, but it is not making quantum chips. Sivan explained that the classical computer has two layers, but quantum computers have three. The quantum hardware is the heart and the classical hardware on top. And then there's software.
These layers are what we focus on. The software that runs it and classical hardware. The core of our hardware actually consists of a classic processor. He explained that this is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating parts of the quantum stack.
He claims that the interaction between quantum computing and classical computing is fundamental to the technology and that it will continue well into the future. Quantum Machines is creating the classical cloud infrastructure needed to run quantum computers.
Sivan reports that the QMs approach is working well so far. He says governments, researchers and universities, as well as hyperscaler operators (which could include companies such Amazon, Netflix, and Google) all have an interest in the technology. The company currently has customers in 15 countries and is currently working with large entities it cannot name.
This round validates what the company has done and allows it to build out its solution. It also invests heavily in research and developing. This is important as the industry is still very young and will change.
With just 60 employees, they were able create this solution. The new funding will allow them to expand the team significantly in the future. He claims that he is a diversity expert because he was educated in an academic environment. This knowledge has been passed on to his company, as he continues to hire new employees. He says that the pandemic allowed him to hire people from all over the world and that the company has taken full advantage of this.
First, we are not only hiring in Israel. We also hire globally and do not limit ourselves to specific geographic areas. He said that we have people from a variety of countries. He said, "Dignity for me personally means including as many people in the hiring process." This is the only way you can ensure diversity.
The hardware team met in person at the office during the pandemic with all necessary precautions. However, most employees continued to work remotely. This is an approach that he will continue to use even when it is safe to return to office.
It is likely that there will be a lot of remote work in the post-COVID age. We anticipate that people will be able to work remotely from [our] headquarters.
