Quantum News Nexus

SBQuantum, a Canadian quantum sensing company, announced a $4 million seed funding round, a new CEO, and a new US-based “sister” firm whose aim is to sell its products into the US security and defense markets.

How’s that for a busy day?

The oversubscribed seed round for the Sherbrooke, Quebec firm was led by Paris-based Quantonation, which arguably is the leading quantum-focused venture capital firm, and Quantacet, according to SBQuantum’s press release. The latter is a Sherbrooke-based VC firm which also has invested in Nord Quantique (another resident of the fast-growing Sherbrooke quantum hive) and several other quantum technology firms, including another Canadian operation named Phantom Photonics that counts quantum sensing among its talents.

Investissement Québec also participated in the seed round, which represents the first private investment in SBQuantum since the company was founded in 2017. 

As for the new CEO, Eric Giroux takes over the top job from company co-founder David Rot-Guay, who will continue as CTO. Giroux has been involved in sensors for the security and defense sectors as CEO of RaySecur, Inc., so he looks like a seamless fit for SBQuantum.

And that brings us to the most intriguing part of this announcement: SBQuantum is establishing what it described as a sister firm called Zero Drift Technologies, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Giroux, whose LinkedIn profile puts him in “Greater Boston,” will lead both organizations. Zero Drift will sell products based on SBQuantum’s technology, such as its quantum diamond magnetometer, into the US security and defense markets.

As the press release explains, “This structure was deliberately chosen to preserve and strengthen the company’s strong Canadian engineering base and intellectual property while creating a dedicated US entity dedicated to serving American government customers and major defense prime contractors. Rather than relocating or consolidating, the companies will operate in parallel, allowing each to focus on its respective market.”

That’s an interesting way to put things. SBQuantum did not need a US sister firm to forge a long relationship with the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency that recently resulted in its quantum magnetometer being the first such device launched into space. While it didn’t say so in so many words, this move reads like a measure to appease American defense buyers that really want to–or have been strongly advised to–buy American. Considering that Zero Drift may run up against bigger and well-funded US-based competitors like IonQ and Infleqtion as it competes for US business, it could prove to be a very smart decision.

Image: Quantum magnetometer (Source: SBQuantum)

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.