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, investor appetite for companies seeking the elusive quantitative advantage has not diminished, but rather increased.

Quantonation Ventures, a venture firm that invests in quantum and physics-based startups, has closed its second fund, which was oversubscribed at €220 million, or about $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-established startup that was selling quantum control hardware and software to Quantonation portfolio companies before the venture capital firm co-led its Series A.

This growing ecosystem also explains why Quantonation has multiplied its backers, and why other dedicated quant funds like QDNL and 55 North have emerged.

“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 being fueled in part by Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang announced 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, 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’s Willow chip was a debugging milestone in 2024, but no architecture has won yet, and smaller players are still in the running. A surprising number of companies have joined DARPA’s Quantitative Benchmarking Initiative, Zeng noted. 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 invest in, there is still no clear regional winner; […] “A lot of the research has come from universities in many places,” Zeng said.