IQM, Europe’s first public quantum company, acknowledges that the future of the technology is uncertain

IQM, an integrated quantum company from Finland, went public on the Nasdaq on Thursday through a SPAC merger valued at about $1.9 billion. But stock prices did not rise. They spent most of the day at below their IPO price — a lukewarm welcome.

SPAC mergers are often not very popular with retail investors these days. But this failure was arguably due to IQM’s admission in its prospectus that “large-scale commercial traction of quantum computing technology may never happen.”

In fairness, this warning applies to all quantum companies. However, this has not stopped the industry, including TQM, from gaining customers who use the technology as it is today for tasks such as simulations and improvements. IQM, which sells physical computers, as well as a cloud service, has clients such as the VTT Technical Research Center in Finland and the Leibniz Supercomputing Center in Germany.

“We sell computers in advanced supercomputing centers and data centers, and we sell compute time through the cloud,” CEO and co-founder Jan Goetz told TechCrunch.

Growing from 8 clients in 2024 to 22 clients in 2025 is a fair cause for celebration in IQM circles, especially when two of the new clients are from the private sector. But it also suggests that demand will not expand until “quantum advantage” — when quantum chips begin to outperform classical computers at a greater range of complex and lengthy tasks, opening the door to use cases from biotechnology to fintech, with the potential to upend cryptography.

But no one, not even a company that makes quantum computers, can say when that might happen.

This has not stopped investors from doubling down on public and private quantum companies, and they have been encouraged by President Trump’s recent executive orders to accelerate the quantum timeline. In response, the US Department of Energy has committed to deploying “the world’s first fault-tolerant, scientifically significant quantum computer” by 2028.

While this follows similar announcements from France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Trump’s orders carry additional weight for IQM, which recently established a quantum technology center in Maryland and deployed a computer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is part of the Department of Energy. “We can benefit from it directly,” Goetz said.

Unlike other European sole companies, IQM does not shift its center of gravity to the other side of the Atlantic. In line with its IQMX index in the US, where most of its quant peers are listed, it is set to make its debut tomorrow on the Nasdaq Helsinki exchange, where it expects continued support from the likes of Tesi, the Finnish sovereign wealth fund.

The story of IQM cannot be separated from Finland. It was founded there in 2018 as a branch of Aalto University in Espoo, a quantum technology hub near Helsinki where two-thirds of its staff still work. But another hundred of its 420-person team are based in Munich, while the rest are split into different locations to help the company with its global deployment roadmap.

In its prospectus, IQM noted that this duality appealed to RAAQ, the blank-check company that helped IQM go public via a SPAC. “As demonstrated by the public support of over €200 million for IQM, sovereign European countries and companies have supported IQM’s emergence as a prominent quantum computing company in Europe. IQM has also demonstrated its ability to operate beyond Europe,” according to the RAAQ Board of Directors.

Despite global ambitions, Goetz expressed pride that IQM has become the first European quantum company to list in the US — a very short distance away, as French rival Pasqal has also announced plans to go public via a SPAC. “It’s always good to be first and pioneer, but ultimately it’s about long-term success,” Goetz said.

This operation will generate new liquidity for TQM – approximately €198 million after costs, or $226 million. But the company already raised $300 million last September. “It’s a huge success that was raised very soon after a Series B,” Goetz said. This also reflects that IQM’s main goal was to position itself more prominently in a race still full of unknowns.