Deeptech company Quanfluence has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Chiratae Ventures, a technology-focused venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups.
Pi Ventures, an early-stage fund focused on deep tech and AI, returned after leading Quanfluence’s 2024 seed round, while Rainmatter by Zerodha also participated.
Founded in 2021 and incubated at the IIT Madras Incubation Cell, Quanfluence is developing quantum computers that use photons, or particles of light, to process quantum information.
Its founders include engineers and academics with experience spanning semiconductors and quantum optics. Three previously built Silicon and Beyond, a semiconductor intellectual property company that was acquired by Synopsys.
Quanfluence said it plans to use the new capital to build a full-stack photonic quantum computer. That means combining its own photonic chips, control electronics and software into one system rather than developing the components separately.
The company noted its roadmap targets early processors in 2027 and larger, scalable machines by 2029.
The Pune-based firm said it has already designed and fabricated multiple photonic integrated circuits and electronic integrated circuits, developed low-loss methods for coupling chips to optical fibre, and demonstrated the generation of quantum light states. It has also advanced work on photonic chips for light-matter interactions.
Alongside research, Quanfluence has productised a photonic Ising machine, a specialised system used for optimisation problems, and says several of its quantum devices are commercially available.
Co-founder and chief executive officer Sujoy Chakravarty said the company’s goal has “never been to build a better experiment,” but “to build a useful quantum computer.”
Source link
