Quantum News Nexus

IBM Ventures has invested in Syracuse, New York-based BQP, which describes itself as a “physics acceleration” company working on quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms and simulations. Most of that work thus far has been in the aerospace and defense arena for US military branches and the US Space Force, and with partners like Nvidia and Intel, but BQP is looking to expand its horizons.

The investment brings BQP’s total funding to $8 million, and comes more than a year after the firm, formerly known as BosonQ Psi, announced a seed round of just under $5 million. 

BQP said the new funds will finance expansion of its BQPhy platform “from engineering design into operational deployment, scaling delivery and go-to-market as BQP expands beyond aerospace and defense.” Venn10 Capital and existing investor Monta Vista Capital also participated in the funding.

BQP claimed that since last year’s seed round it has grown contracted and committed revenue 8x, tripling its customer base and growing platform users 20x.

Abhishek Chopra, Founder and CEO of BQP, said, “An engineer with a deadline doesn’t care where the answer came from. They care that it arrived in time and that the physics is right. The industry spent years treating this as a hardware problem that warranted faster chips, more of them, and eventually a quantum one. But it was always a software problem.” 

He continued, “We spent those years earning our way into engineering workflows, so when the quantum machines are ready, nothing about how those teams work has to change. That’s the path IBM has watched us build since 2023, and this investment says it’s the right one.”

Emily Fontaine, Global Head of IBM Ventures, added, “What stood out with BQP is that users don’t have to change how they work to get quantum-accelerated results. Their proven track record of developing software that helps enterprises build a practical path toward hybrid quantum-classical computing is what gives IBM Ventures confidence in making this investment.”

IBM also posted a long piece by Fontaine that went deeper in explaining who IBM Ventures invested in BQP. IBM Quantum has of course focused a lot of its time and resources on developing its quantum hardware, (most recently exhibited in release of the Nighthawk r2 processor) though it certainly has done its share of software R&D of industry-wide significance. IBM Ventures, meanwhile, has invested in multiple smaller software-focused firms, including Cambridge Quantum Computing (before it merged with Honeywell’s quantum unit to form Quantinuum), QunaSys, QEDMA, SQK, QodeX Quantum, and now BQP. 

Image from freepik, generated by AI.

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.