Every few years, venture capital rediscovers quantum computing.
For most of the last decade, the reaction from generalist investors was predictable: fascinating science, huge market, impossible timelines. Quantum was the sort of thing that governments, universities, corporate labs and patient deep tech funds could afford to care about. Traditional VC, especially early-stage VC, largely stayed on the sidelines.
That may be starting to change.
In the past 18 months, quantum has moved from “interesting research frontier” to a more investable strategic category. The change is not because a useful, fault-tolerant quantum computer has suddenly arrived. It hasn’t. The change is that the industry is starting to look less like a collection of lab experiments and more like an emerging stack: hardware, control systems, error correction, compilers, quantum software, security, sensing, networking, cloud access, and eventually applications.
The latest signal came from Europe. In one week only, four quantum computing startups raised a number of mega rounds: Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) raised a $350 million Series C, France’s Quobly announced a €115 million Series A, and Finland’s IQM upsized its PIPE financing to $146 million ahead of a public-market transaction. The headline number in some reports was close to $1 billion of quantum funding in a week, though that should be treated carefully, as some coverage appears to count OQC and Oxford Quantum Circuits separately when they are the same company.
Even with that caveat, the direction of travel is clear: quantum is attracting serious capital again.
At the same time, McKinsey’s 2026 Quantum Technology Monitor argues that quantum has reached a “commercial tipping point,” with more than 300 organizations globally engaging with quantum computing and over $1 billion in quantum-computing revenue generated worldwide in 2025. The U.S., France, the U.K., the EU and China are all treating quantum as a strategic technology. Public funding, defence procurement, national security concerns and private capital are converging.
The question for venture investors is no longer whether quantum is scientifically important. It is whether now is the right time to invest.
The venture case for quantum
The strongest argument for quantum is simple: if it works, it changes what is computationally possible.
Quantum computers are not “faster laptops.” They are a different model of computation. Their promise is to solve certain classes of problems that are extremely difficult, expensive or impossible for classical computers to solve efficiently. That could matter in drug discovery, chemistry, materials science, logistics, financial risk, machine learning, cryptography and national security.
That “if it works” is doing a lot of work.
Quantum remains technically hard. Error rates are high. Scaling is difficult. Timelines are uncertain. Hardware approaches are fragmented: superconducting qubits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, photonics, silicon spin qubits, topological qubits and others. It is still unclear which architectures will win, or whether the future will be heterogeneous.
But this is also why the venture opportunity exists.
When a technology is obvious, derisked and close to revenue, it is usually too late for venture-scale returns. The role of venture is to fund the uncomfortable middle: after the science has become credible, but before the market has fully formed.
Quantum may now be entering that middle.
Several things have changed:
First, the technical roadmaps are getting more credible. Google’s Willow chip showed progress in quantum error correction. IBM has published a path toward fault-tolerant systems by the end of the decade. Microsoft, despite continued scientific debate around its topological approach, is also pushing toward a 2029 target. Startups such as Quantinuum, IonQ, PsiQuantum, IQM, OQC, QuEra, Alice & Bob and others are increasingly judged not only on papers, but on systems, customers, deployments and integration.
Second, quantum is becoming part of the AI infrastructure conversation. AI has reminded the market that compute is not a solved problem. As AI models become more expensive, energy-intensive and constrained by hardware bottlenecks, the search for new computing paradigms becomes more urgent. Quantum will not replace GPUs, but hybrid quantum-classical systems could become part of the future high-performance computing stack.
Third, governments are behaving like strategic customers. Quantum has implications for national security, encryption, defence, sensing and sovereign computing capacity. This matters for venture because government capital can extend runway, validate roadmaps and create early demand in markets that are too early for normal enterprise budgets.
Fourth, the investable surface area is expanding. Investors no longer need to bet only on “the company that builds the quantum computer.” There are opportunities in picks and shovels: control systems, cryogenics, lasers, photonics, chip design, error mitigation, software abstraction layers, compilers, developer tools, post-quantum security and vertical applications.
That is where Israel becomes interesting.
Why Israel is a good place to look for Quantum
Israel is unlikely to outspend the U.S., China or Europe on national quantum infrastructure. But Israel has rarely won by outspending larger markets. It wins when deep technical talent, military-grade problem solving, strong academia, entrepreneurial urgency and global capital collide.
Quantum fits that pattern.
The Israeli quantum ecosystem is still small, but it is unusually dense. A 2025 map by Earth & Beyond Ventures and Deloitte Catalyst identified nine core Israeli quantum-computing startups that had collectively raised around $650 million, including more than $300 million raised in 2025 alone. That is a meaningful amount of capital for a country of Israel’s size.
Israel has already produced globally relevant companies in quantum control, software, photonics, trapped ions, error mitigation and neutral atoms. The ecosystem has academic depth, national urgency, engineering talent and a growing investor base. It also has a history of turning constraints into advantage. The emerging Israeli stack includes:
Quantum Machines – building control and orchestration systems for quantum processors. This is a classic Israeli wedge: not necessarily owning the whole machine, but controlling a critical layer of the stack.
Classiq – building quantum software and tools that help developers design quantum algorithms and applications without needing to work at the hardware level.
Quantum Source – developing photonic quantum computers, a route that could potentially offer advantages in scaling and data-center integration.
Quantum Art – building trapped-ion quantum systems, with ambitions to deliver full-stack quantum computing.
Qedma – focused on error suppression and error mitigation, one of the hardest and most commercially relevant problems in making quantum useful.
QuamCore – working on scalable superconducting quantum architecture.
Q-Factor – a newer entrant building neutral-atom quantum computing, backed by investors including NFX, TPY Capital, Intel Capital and others.
Quantum Transistors – pursuing diamond-based and photonic approaches to quantum processors.
This matters because Israel is not producing only one kind of quantum company. The ecosystem spans hardware, software, photonics, control, error correction and architecture. That diversity is important because, at this stage, nobody knows which approach will dominate.
Israel also has several structural advantages.
- Academic depth. Quantum companies are often born out of physics, electrical engineering, computer science and materials science departments, not from weekend hackathons. Israel has strong research institutions, including the Technion, Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University, with a history of turning deep science into startups.
- National security relevance. Quantum sensing, secure communications, cryptography and high-performance computing are not abstract commercial categories. They are strategic capabilities. Israel’s defense and intelligence ecosystem has historically created talent and urgency in areas where technical advantage matters.
- Israel’s semiconductor and systems heritage. Quantum is not just physics. It requires electronics, control systems, software, materials, packaging, lasers, cryogenics and manufacturing know-how. Israel has decades of experience in chips, communications, cyber and systems engineering. That combination is useful in quantum, where the bottleneck is increasingly shifting from theory to engineering.
- Founder mindset. Quantum founders need scientific credibility, but they also need commercial aggression. The best Israeli startups tend to be good at turning technical depth into global go-to-market motion. That will be critical in quantum, where early customers may be in the U.S., Europe, Japan and government-backed research programs.
- The presence of specialist capital.
A small ecosystem can become powerful when it has repeat founders, repeat investors and repeat technical talent. Israel’s quantum market is not there yet, but the ingredients are visible.
What should investors look for?
For early-stage investors, the most interesting quantum companies will likely share a few traits:
- A wedge into today’s market. The company should not depend entirely on a 2035 quantum breakthrough. It should have a path to sell something useful earlier: control systems, developer tools, simulation, security, benchmarking, optimization, sensing, or infrastructure for quantum labs and enterprises.
- A credible technical founder-market fit. In quantum, technical depth is not optional. The team needs to be world-class scientifically, but also capable of productizing complexity.
- A clear architecture bet. Founders should be able to explain why their approach can scale, what the key technical bottlenecks are, and how they will prove progress over time.
- A non-dilutive capital strategy. The best quantum startups will often combine venture money with government grants, research partnerships and strategic capital. That is not a weakness. In deep tech, it can be a feature.
- A commercial bridge. Even if the big market is years away, there should be a path to near-term engagement with customers: pilots, paid research, hardware access, cloud deployments, licensing or strategic partnerships.
- A defensible layer. In AI software, moats can erode quickly. In quantum, defensibility can come from patents, know-how, hardware integration, scientific talent, manufacturing process, data, partnerships and long technical roadmaps.
Quantum will not be a quick flip. It will require patient capital, technical humility and a willingness to back teams before the market is fully legible.
But that is exactly where venture is supposed to operate.
The next computing platform will not be built overnight. It may not even look like the platforms we know today. But if quantum becomes part of the future compute stack, the best time to build positions may be before the category becomes obvious.
Is now the right time?
Quantum is not a normal SaaS category. It does not fit neatly into the standard pre-seed checklist of MVP, early users, fast iteration and short sales cycles. Like many other deeptech investments, the best quantum companies may require longer timelines, more non-dilutive capital, deeper technical diligence and more patience than the average venture-backed startup.
That makes quantum a poor fit for tourist capital. But it can be a strong fit for investors who understand three things.
First, the market will not arrive all at once. The first venture-scale returns may not come from the final universal quantum computer. They may come from enabling layers: software tools, control systems, integration platforms, error mitigation, simulation, quantum-safe security, sensing and hybrid quantum-classical workflows.
Second, the customer set is different. Early customers may be governments, national labs, cloud providers, pharma companies, banks, defense contractors, semiconductor companies and industrial giants. Selling into that world requires credibility, partnerships and patience.
Third, the timing of infrastructure markets is strange. The best time to invest is usually before the market is obvious, but after the enabling conditions are in place. In quantum, those enabling conditions are increasingly visible: large public programs, more credible technical roadmaps, serious private rounds, early enterprise budgets, and growing geopolitical urgency.
The venture question is not “will quantum be huge?” It probably will. The better question is: “Which parts of the quantum stack can become valuable companies before fault-tolerant quantum computing is fully mature?”
He is a former General Partner at Google Ventures (GV) in Europe, former head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe, and founding head of Campus London, Google's first startup hub. Eze writes on Israeli tech, venture capital, artificial intelligence, and founder strategy.
He is also the founder of Techbikers, a nonprofit that brings together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read.
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