Tel-Aviv Startup Classiq Receives $10.5 M Series A Round for Quantum Software Development Platform

(TechCrunch) Classiq, a Tel Aviv-based startup that aims to make it easier for computer scientists and developers to create quantum algorithms and applications, announced that it has raised a $10.5 million Series A round led by Team8 Capital and Wing Capital. Entrée Capital, crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and Sumitomo Corporation (through IN Venture) also participated in this round, which follows the company’s recent $4 million seed round led by Entrée Capital.
The idea behind Classiq, which currently has just under a dozen members on its team, is that developing quantum algorithms remains a major challenge. “Today, quantum software development is almost an impossible task,” said Nir Minerbi, CEO and Co-founder of Classiq. “The programming is at the gate level, with almost no abstraction at all. And on the other hand, for many enterprises, that’s exactly what they want to do: come up with game-changing quantum algorithms. So we built the next layer of the quantum software stack, which is the layer of a computer-aided design, automation, synthesis.
The team plans to use the new funding to expand its existing team, mostly on the engineering side. A lot of the work the company is doing, after all, is still in R&D. Finding the right software engineers with a background in physics — or quantum information experts who can program — will be of paramount importance for the company. Minerbi believes that is possible, though, and the plan is to soon expand the team to about 25 people.
Classiq CTO Dr. Yehuda Naveh also noted that the company is already working with a number of larger companies. These include banks that have used its platform for portfolio optimization, for example, and a semiconductor firm that was looking into a material science problem related to chip manufacturing, an area that is a bit of a sweet spot for quantum computing — at least in its current state.