The company says its Series A is the largest Series A raised by a UK-headquartered quantum firm.
A UK university spinout building large scale quantum computing systems for real-world use has raised $100m in funding, which it says it the largest Series A raised by a UK-headquartered quantum firm.
Founded in 2018 as a University of Sussex spinout, Universal Quantum’s point of difference to some of its peers is its commitment to scale.
While many quantum startups chase near-term breakthroughs or develop quantum software that runs on someone else’s hardware, Universal Quantum is tackling a key bottleneck: how to build fault-tolerant quantum computers with millions of error-corrected qubits; economically, reliably and at scale.
Universal Quantum will use the funding to speed up its global expansion in the United States, Japan and across its German hub in Hamburg, as well as the development and commercialisation of its technology, it said.
The company, which has raised over $125m in total and has won contracts with the German government, highlighted the geographically and strategically diverse investors involved in the Series A round. The round was co-led by DCVC, the Silicon Valley venture firm, and Firgun Ventures, a quantum-focused investor.
There was also participation from EDBI, the Singapore-based sovereign investor, Integral GlobalTech, a Japanese asset manager, along with NGS Super, IAG Capital, EdenBase, Eigenstate Holdings, SiteGround Capital and Dave Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox, as well as other existing and new strategic investors including Nauta Capital and The Venture Collective.
Doctor Sebastian Weidt, CEO and co-founder of Universal Quantum, said: “Universal Quantum’s progress reflects our partners’ belief that we represent one of the most credible paths to quantum computing at scale. This round unites an extraordinary group of investors from the world’s most important pools of capital around a single mission: delivering utility-scale quantum computing.”
Universal Quantum is not located in the tech clusters of Oxford, Cambridge or Bristol but is headquartered in Haywards Heath, Sussex, a commuter town halfway between Gatwick Airport and Brighton.
Its solution starts with the iQPU, or integrated Quantum Processing Unit—a proprietary trapped-ion chip designed from the ground up for manufacturability and performance. Each chip is fabricated on a standard 200mm commercial foundry line, a decision that makes industrial scaling feasible.
The iQPU itself hosts hundreds of ion qubits on a die larger than 400mm², making it the most spacious chip of its kind in development. Critically, the chip uses global microwave control rather than relying on traditional laser-based systems. This removed much of the optical complexity found in competing designs and simplifies the overall architecture.
To stitch multiple iQPUs together, UQ developed UQConnect, a proprietary interconnect system that links chips at a rate of 2,424 connections per second, with an ultra-high fidelity of 99.999993%.
This modular and tileable approach allows the system to scale organically, without the bloated infrastructure or exotic cooling requirements found in other platforms. Unlike superconducting quantum systems, Universal Quantum’s machines can operate at room temperature in standard laboratory conditions, sidestepping the need for refrigeration.
The company has adopted a full-stack strategy, designing not just chips but the entire computing environment around them. That includes low-level firmware, quantum circuit optimisation tools, error correction protocols and even application-layer software tailored to industries such as logistics, materials science and pharmaceuticals.
This end-to-end integration ensures coherence across hardware and software layers, enabling meaningful partnerships with companies such as Rolls-Royce, which is working with the company to apply fault-tolerant quantum computing to computational fluid dynamics (CFD), a core challenge in aerospace engineering.
In 2023, it was awarded a €67 million contract from the German Aerospace Center (DLR)—the largest ever granted to a UK-based quantum startup.
In the UK, the company has won multiple Innovate UK-backed projects and contributes directly to national strategy conversations. It has operations in the US, Germany, Japan, Denmark, and Australia.