Co-leading $34m Series B for quantum software startup Phasecraft

View profile for Ian Hogarth

founder and investor

Plural is co-leading a $34m Series B for quantum software startup Phasecraft, alongside Peter Barrett at Playground Global and Novo Holdings. Europe needs to define new branches of the tech tree if it is to create generational companies to rival the US and China — here’s why I think Phasecraft could be one of those businesses. The team has already made big breakthroughs in accelerating the journey to scientific quantum advantage, which will be the watershed moment when a quantum algorithm running on quantum hardware can do something scientifically useful that was not previously possible on a classical computer. This will allow us to optimise complex systems like financial models and energy grids, and gain much more creative control over biology and material science, helping us solve really important problems, from developing new superconductors to new battery materials. One way to get there is improving the performance of quantum hardware, and the second is what Phasecraft does - using software and algorithms to get more performance from the qubits you have. There's a proliferation of hardware approaches, and within each there are multiple competing players, from the biggest tech companies in the world like Google and Microsoft to startups like PsiQuantum and QuEra. We still don’t know which hardware approach will be best so Phasecraft is giving the industry a hardware-agnostic software layer they can build on, regardless of how the hardware race plays out, and the startup has partnerships with leading players in each category. And, with far less capital than it takes to develop quantum hardware, Phasecraft’s algorithmic improvements have already made a big impact, in one case reducing the complexity and demands on quantum operations for a modelling task by 43,000,000x. This is all down to a founding team of some of the top quantum scientists globally in Ashley Montanaro, Toby Cubitt and John Morton, who have won multiple prestigious prizes between them while each heading up major UK quantum research labs. They have also attracted other extraordinary scientific peers like Professor Steve Flammia who leads their US office, having joined from AWS. It’s time for Europe to stand up tall, show we can grow new branches of the tech tree and contribute to global prosperity by ushering in a new era of scientific progress. Read more about why I’m investing in Phasecraft here: https://lnkd.in/eCJvBFrw And in The Times: https://lnkd.in/edZAx98T

Tanvi Karambelkar

VC / Impact investing at Wilshire I Oxford MBA I MSc (Finance) I MA (Intl. Relations)

2w

Congratulations! Fantastic stuff 

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Tirthankar Das

Advocate,Solicitor,Broker,Networking entrepreneur, over 29000+ Linkedin connections... Unity is strength...

2w

Awesome and inspiring 

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Tirthankar Das

Advocate,Solicitor,Broker,Networking entrepreneur, over 29000+ Linkedin connections... Unity is strength...

2w

Ian Hogarth  meet Animikh Roy   Wishtales AI .. Expand in UK EU GCC NORTH AFRICA.....

Chris Perry

General Counsel @ Plural

2w

🚀 🚀 🚀

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