Universal Quantum

Quantum Computing · Deep Tech

Funding

Universal Quantum raises over $100M in UK's largest-ever quantum Series A

The trapped-ion startup is betting that linking many small quantum chips together beats building one giant processor for fault tolerance.

• Universal Quantum raised over $100 million in a Series A co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures, the largest Series A ever raised by a UK-headquartered quantum company.
• Founded in 2018 as a University of Sussex spinout by physicists Sebastian Weidt and Winfried Hensinger, who co-published the first blueprint for large-scale trapped-ion quantum computers in 2017.
• The capital will fund expansion into Singapore, where the company is opening its first R&D center outside Europe, plus growth in the US, Japan and its German hub in Hamburg.
• Its modular architecture tiles together many small trapped-ion chips via a patented interconnect, a strategy meant to cut the engineering risk of scaling to millions of error-corrected qubits.
• Universal Quantum has now raised over $125 million total and holds contracts with the German government, but CEO Sebastian Weidt declined to disclose the company's valuation.
• The round lands amid a 2026 European quantum hardware surge: seven comparable firms have raised roughly €714 million this year, including Oxford Quantum Circuits' €301 million and QuantWare's €152 million rounds.
• Sovereign funds, deep-tech VCs and tech billionaires piling into a single trapped-ion bet signals investors increasingly see fault-tolerant quantum hardware as an investable category, not just a research moonshot.