Quantum News Nexus

France’s Pasqal has become the second European quantum computing firm in the span of two weeks to announce a plan to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, as a trend once associated primarily with US companies continues to expand elsewhere.

Pasqal, a seven-year-old developer of neutral-atom quantum computers, said it is merging with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II (NASDAQ: BBCQ), a SPAC that is backed in part by former Softbank and Sprint chief Michel Combes. The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year, and the resulting combined company will be listed on Nasdaq. Pasqal’s plan does not come as a complete shock, as it had been widely viewed as a likely candidate for a SPAC merger or IPO in the months before the announcement was made.

The deal values Pasqal “at $2.0 billion pre-money, and contains $200 million in committed capital via convertible financing, which will allow Pasqal to deliver on its quantum roadmap and technology deployment, accelerate the Company’s efforts in demonstrating quantum advantage and accelerate international commercial and organizational growth,” according to a Pasqal statement.

This week’s announcement follows the news from late February that IQM Quantum Computers, based in Finland, is planning to go public via a SPAC merger.

SPAC mergers have been the most popular method of choice among quantum computing companies going public. IonQ, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Arqit Quantum, and most recently, Infleqtion, all went public through such deals. All of them are listed on US stock exchanges, and with the exception of London-based Arqit, all of those firms are US-based. 

But in recent months, we have seen Canada’s Xanadu Quantum Computing and Singapore’s Horizon Quantum Computing announce plans to go public via SPAC mergers and now, with IQM and Pasqal, two European companies following the trend. All four of those announced, but yet to be completed deals will result in Nasdaq listings. Pasqal also will pursue a Euronext listing either this year or in 2027.

SPAC mergers have been viewed as controversial in part because some have come with wild price fluctuations upon their public debuts and high shareholder redemption rates, resulting in gross proceeds that fell short of expectations. For example, Rigetti reportedly reaped around $200 million less than the $458 million it had expected from its SPAC merger and public listing. IonQ, D-Wave, and Rigetti all received a great deal of criticism around their deals, and both D-Wave and Rigetti eventually faced de-listing warnings, though both later saw their share prices head higher.

Quantinuum is the only other quantum company besides those listed above to announce plans to go public, and it is doing so through a traditional IPO.

Pasqal claims to have seven quantum computers deployed to date, with at least three more in production. The current deployments include at a handful of European high-performance computing centers, among those a recent installation in Italy. The company also late last year announced with longtime partner Saudi Aramco that it had deployed the first quantum computer in Saudi Arabia.

In its SPAC announcement, Pasqal said it achieved “approximately 100% revenue growth in 2025 (unaudited) and approximately $80 million in booked and awarded business including grants, representing potential multi-year value customer contracts expected to be realized over time.”

The Paris firm also is a member of the IBM Quantum Network, and an Nvidia partner, having announced last fall that it was using Nvidia’s new NVQLink platform to link its QPUs with GPUs and CPUs. 

Quantum News Nexus is a site from freelance writer and editor Dan O’Shea that covers quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum networking, quantum-safe security, and more. You can find him on X @QuantumNewsGuy and doshea14@gmail.com.