Q-CTRL raises US$290 million Series C and becomes a quantum unicorn

Salesforce Ventures led[1]. Q-CTRL's new investors are Affinity Partners, AMD Ventures, EDGE Group, MPower Partners, Australia's National Reconstruction Fund Corporation and SPARX Asset Management[1][2]. Returning investors are Alpha Edison, Alumni Ventures, Bullhound Capital, DCVC, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Main Sequence, Ridgeline, Salesforce Ventures, Salus Ventures and Square Peg[1][2]. Quartz, citing Bloomberg, identifies Affinity Partners as Jared Kushner's firm[4].

Forbes Australia reports that the Australian taxpayer holds A$70 million in equity through the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, and that Q-CTRL is the fund's fifth quantum investment[2].

Biercuk said the syndicate shows the company's technology, its revenue growth and its fit with sectors from AI to aviation[1]. Robert Keith, a partner at Salesforce Ventures, said the hard problem in quantum "is not building the machine, it is getting useful output from it." He cited a materials simulation on IBM hardware that developers can call from the IBM Quantum Platform, and what he called the first quantum navigation system qualified for safety of flight[1]. Per Roman, founding partner of Bullhound Capital and a Q-CTRL board member, said the company is "one of the few quantum companies with real customers and real revenue."[1]

Q-CTRL describes the business as "AI for quantum" infrastructure software: the layer it says is critical to running quantum computers in data centres and to put quantum sensors on vehicles for autonomy and commercial aviation[1]. The company says the platform is hardware-agnostic and is used in computing, sensing and health[1]. Professor Michael J. Biercuk founded it in 2017, and it operates from Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Huntsville, Berlin and Oxford[1]. Forbes Australia reports that Biercuk joined the University of Sydney in 2010 and started Q-CTRL there in 2017 as a university spin-out, choosing software that would work whichever hardware design won[2].

Ironstone Opal is the navigation product. Q-CTRL says it is unjammable, unspoofable and undetectable, and that it works when GPS is unavailable or denied[1]. The company says software-ruggedisation lets the sensors perform in the field 100 times better than the best alternative, and that the system is being deployed on commercial aircraft with Airbus, on autonomous platforms with Lockheed Martin, and on unmanned drones[1]. Quartz reports the Airbus and Lockheed Martin deployments[4].

Biercuk told Forbes Australia that, by April 2025, a magnetic-field version flown on an aircraft had beaten the best existing backups to GPS, not GPS itself, with positioning a hundred times better than that alternative[2]. An evaluation kit is on sale now, he said, and a production version is due in early 2027[2].

On computing, Forbes Australia reports that in March Q-CTRL's software on an IBM quantum computer simulated how interacting electrons behave inside a material, more than 3,000 times faster than the best available conventional method[2]. The quantum run took about two minutes, against more than 100 hours for a leading classical technique, and Q-CTRL said the answer was within 1 per cent. The company called it practical quantum advantage[2]. Biercuk told Forbes the same software suppresses errors in both the sensors and the computers, and that Q-CTRL licenses it to clients in logistics, stock picking and biopharma. He did not give revenue[2].

Q-CTRL says it will press further on software, cement its lead where AI and quantum meet, and scale globally for customers from finance to energy, while it continues major autonomy and aerospace programmes[1]. Quartz reports the company describing that plan[4]. Kathy Matsui and Kazuhiro Hosaka of MPower Partners said they want to expand Q-CTRL's footprint in Japan, which they called a natural hub for quantum commercialisation because of industrial demand and a sovereign commitment[1].

Forbes Australia's headline calls Q-CTRL Australia's first quantum unicorn, and the article says the round values it as Australia's first quantum computing unicorn[2]. With the raise, Forbes writes, Q-CTRL joins PsiQuantum, QuEra, Photonic, Nord Quantique, Xanadu, IQM and SandboxAQ. PsiQuantum has two Australians in its founding team and is building a utility-scale quantum computer in Brisbane with almost A$1 billion of combined federal and Queensland support, and Xanadu's founder and chief executive, Christian Weedbrook, is Australian[2].

Q-CTRL's account is that the money follows software already tied to customers: navigation on commercial aircraft, autonomous platforms and drones, and control software for quantum computers in data centres[1]. Axios puts the commercial point directly. The quantum market is potentially huge, it writes, but realising that potential means making the technology work in the real world[3].