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10 Dec 2025
Oversubscribed funding round thought to be the largest ever for a pure-play quantum networking company.
Nu Quantum, the University of Cambridge spin-off developing photonic networking hardware designed to enable distributed quantum computing systems, has raised $60 million.
The series A funding round led by National Grid Partners - the venture wing of the firm that operates the UK’s nationwide electricity network - will help drive Nu Quantum’s next phase of product development and deployment, and support further international expansion.
The firm claims that the latest support represents the largest financing round ever raised by a pure-play quantum networking company, and the largest series A in the UK to date in quantum technology.
“The funding will accelerate Nu Quantum’s mission to reach fault tolerance by interconnecting quantum processors into a more powerful distributed quantum computer, unlocking the projected $1 trillion quantum computing market,” it stated.
Distributed quantum
In principle quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that will always be beyond the reach of any classical supercomputer, for example optimization of systems with millions of interdependent parameters - one potential application being electric power grids.
Thus far the quantum computing industry has focused on improving individual quantum processors, whereas achieving genuine utility and fault-tolerant operation is expected to require scaling systems with thousands of times more qubits than exist in current quantum computing hardware.
Nu Quantum’s photonic quantum networking technology enables a different approach, where quantum computers can scale by connecting individual processors into a modular, distributed computing fabric - imitating the way that the classical computing industry has developed massively parallel architectures for cloud systems, AI data centers, and high-performance computing.
“Nu Quantum’s belief is that the mass commercialization of quantum computing will happen via distributed architectures in quantum data centers, underpinned by Nu Quantum’s networking infrastructure - the ‘Entanglement Fabric’,” states the company.
“Crucially, Nu Quantum’s architecture is adaptable to support scaling for multiple different qubit modalities.”
Quantum networking unit
Founded by CEO Carmen Palacios-Berraquero in 2018, Nu Quantum raised $7 million in a “pre-series A” funding round just over two years ago, following success in development projects backed by the UK’s billion-pound National Quantum Technologies Programme.
“When we launched seven years ago, very few were thinking about networked or distributed quantum computing as a strategy for scaling, but we saw it as one of the most urgent and challenging outstanding problems in the industry, and set out to solve it,” Palacios-Berraquero said.
Key hardware developed by the firm includes optical switching and detection units built around photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that are able to create and distribute quantum entanglement across computing nodes.
Since that initial funding Nu Quantum has collaborated with the likes of Cisco Systems and Quantinuum to establish the Quantum Data Centre Alliance (QDA), and is also taking part in one of the UK’s quantum “missions”, a £2 million effort known as Project HyperIon.
Also involving Cisco, alongside Infineon Technologies and the University of Sussex, the aim is to demonstrate Nu Quantum’s photonics technology for interconnecting trapped-ion quantum computers - potentially paving the way to commercial designs and robust mass production of qubit-photon interfaces.
Earlier this year the startup also launched what it says is the world’s first industrial-style unit to combine a dynamic entangler system with a real-time quantum network orchestrator, seen as an essential building block for scaling quantum data centers of the future.
The 19-inch, rack-mounted prototype is designed to entangle a cluster of four trapped-ion quantum processors with optical connections. It features a “photonic dynamic entangler” system capable of creating real-time heralded entanglement between photons from any two nodes.
Getting closer to market
The startup’s series A fundraising is set to drive the next phase of product development and deployment, plus further international expansion in Europe and the US.
Nu Quantum opened an office in Los Angeles in 2024, and since then has made some key hires to its US-based strategic advisory board, including long-time IBM quantum computing expert Dr. Robert Sutor, former Cisco CTO Roland Acra, and Richard Moulds, who previously headed up Braket, the Amazon Web Services “Quantum Computing as a Service” platform.
Alongside National Grid Partners, the series A venture round attracted support from Gresham House Ventures and Morpheus Ventures, with further participation from existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital, Ahren Capital, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, East Innovate, NSSIF, and Sumitomo (Presidio Ventures).
Steve Smith, the chief strategy and regulation officer at National Grid - and also the president of National Grid Partners - commented:
“We are closer to quantum computing having an impact on businesses and lives than many people think. Nu Quantum is at the forefront of bringing this powerful technology closer to market and using it to solve real-world challenges today.”
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