Quantum computers will not replace supercomputers in 2026, let alone reach industrial scale. And yet investor interest in companies chasing the elusive quantum advantage hasn’t eased—it’s increased.
Quantonation Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on quantum and physics startups, has closed its overwritten second fund at 220 million euros, or about $260 million. That’s more than double his inaugural fund and comes with additional signals that quantum winter is not yet upon us.
While some warned that too much quantum hype and a lack of tangible results would eventually cause funding to collapse, the opposite has happened. Take the prediction that quantum will eventually break modern encryption: that moment has no clear timeline, yet governments have joined Big Tech in the race.
In the years since Quantonation launched in 2018, the quantum technology sector has become less of a startup, with 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” for its second fund, Quantonation partner Will Zeng told TechCrunch.
One example is what Zeng describes as a “pick-and-shovel” opportunity where companies develop technologies that support the quantum industry. He cited the example of Dutch startup Qblox, a long-backed company that sold quantum control hardware and software to Quantonation portfolio companies before the VC firm co-led its 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 emerged.
“VCs realize that it’s not easy to invest in this field at an 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 firm’s thesis is to invest early to get more value; but a handful of quant companies have already gone public, and their shares have soared in recent months. According to Bloomberg, this “quantum frenzy” is fueled in part by Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang declared in June 2025 that “quantum computing is reaching an inflection point.”
Despite the fact that quantum chips have yet to outperform classical computers outside of purpose-built benchmarks, there is a growing consensus that real-world applications are just years away, from life sciences to new materials. This is partly due to advances in error correction – the ability to correct errors that quantum systems are prone to.
Google’s Willow chip was a 2024 bug-fixing landmark, but no architecture has yet won, and smaller players are still in the race. Zeng noted that a surprising number of companies have joined the DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative. He also believes that in addition to the excitement of the public market, “there are exciting technologies that are currently private.”
For Quantonation, these private opportunities cover a wider canvas than the quantum chips themselves. Fund 2 has already invested in 12 startups with a target portfolio of around 25, covering not only the software and industrial layers needed to realize the quantum advantage, but also adjacent physics-based technologies such as photonics and lasers.
This widespread thesis is supported by both old and new investors. According to the firm, the main investors from the first year, including Singapore’s Vertex Holdings and Bpifrance Fonds National d’Amorchage 2, returned for the second fund, with new limited partners including the European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners and Toshiba.
The geographic scope of quantification is equally international. With dual headquarters in Paris and New York, the firm has backed French quant companies including Pasqal and Quandela, but has also made bets in Asia and North America – and will continue to do so.
“In many of the areas we invest in, there is no clear regional winner yet (…) and a lot of the research comes from universities in many places,” Zeng said.