Quantonation’s second double-sized box shows that Quantum still has believers

Quantum computing will not replace supercomputers in 2026, let alone reach industrial scale. However, investors’ appetite for companies seeks to achieve elusive results Quantum advantage It did not diminish, but rather increased.

Quantity projectsan investment firm that invests in quantum and physics-based startups It closed its second fund, which was oversubscribed at 220 million eurosOr approximately $260 million. This represents more than double the size of its inaugural fund, and comes in addition to other signs that quantum winter is yet to come.

While some warned that too much quantitative hype and not enough tangible results would eventually lead to a collapse in funding, the opposite has happened. Take, for example, the prediction that quantum will eventually break modern cryptography: that moment has no clear timeline, yet governments have joined Big Tech in the race.

In the years since Quantonation’s launch in 2018, the quantum technology sector has become less young, with both technological breakthroughs and early demand from academic and industrial laboratories. As a result, there has also been a “shift in the types of investment opportunities available” for its second fund, Quantonation partner Will Zeng told TechCrunch.

One example of this is what Zeng described as a “pick and shovel” opportunity, where companies are developing technologies that support the quantum industry. He cited the example of Dutch startup Qblox, a long-time venture capitalist that had been selling quantum control hardware and software to Quantonation portfolio companies before the venture capital firm. Co-lead the Series A.

This growing ecosystem also explains why Quantonation has multiplied its backers, and why other dedicated quant funds e.g QDNL and 55 North appeared.

“Venture capital firms realize that this is not an easy space to invest in at an early stage,” Zeng said. “The technology is very specific and complex, the markets are often new, and the teams are too.”

The company’s thesis is to invest early to capture more value; But a handful of quantum companies have already gone public, and their shares have soared in recent months. According to Bloomberg, this “quantum madness” is partly due to this stock From Nvidia, run by its CEO Jensen Huang Announce In June 2025, “quantum computing reaches an inflection point.”

Despite the fact that quantum chips have yet to outperform classical computers outside of purpose-built benchmarks, the consensus is growing that real-life applications are only a few years away, from life sciences to new materials. This is thanks in part to advances in error correction, that is, the ability to fix errors to which quantum systems are susceptible.

Google Willow Slide It was a milestone to right the wrongs in 2024, but no architectural design has won yet, and smaller players have won Still in the race. A surprising number of companies have entered, Zeng noted DARPA’s Quantitative Benchmarking Initiative. He also believes that in addition to exciting the general market, “there are more exciting private technologies out there right now.”

For quantization, these special opportunities extend to a broader range than quantum chips alone. The second fund has already invested in 12 startups, with a target portfolio of about 25 companies, covering not only the software and industrial layers needed to make quantum advantage real, but also adjacent physics-based technologies such as photonics and lasers.

This expanded thesis is backed by investors old and new. According to the company, major investors from its first fund, including Singapore’s Vertex Holdings and Bpifrance’s Fonds National d’Amorçage 2, have returned to participate in the second fund, with new limited partners including the European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners and Toshiba.

Quantonation’s geographical scope is also international. With dual headquarters in Paris and New York City, the company has backed French quantum companies, including Pascal and Quandela, but has also bet in Asia and North America, and will continue to do so.

“In many of the areas we are investing in, there is still no clear regional winner,” Zeng said. “And a lot of the research is coming from universities in many places.”