Classiq Announces $33m In New Funding, Accelerating Its Journey To Become The Leading Quantum Software Development Platform.
HPE’s Venture Arm, Phoenix, Spike, Samsung NEXT, and Chip Design Titans Lip-Bu Tan and Harvey Jones Join Existing Classiq Investors in One of the Largest Quantum Software Rounds to Date.
TEL-AVIV – February 17, 2022 – Classiq, which provides a revolutionary platform for Quantum Algorithm Design, has secured $33 million in a Series B investment, indicating that the world is moving from quantum discovery to quantum production – and that quantum software creation is a critical ingredient in attaining quantum advantage.
Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, the venture capital program of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE); Phoenix, a $60-billion insurance company; Spike Ventures, a Stanford alumni investor group; and Samsung NEXT, the investment arm of Samsung are new investors in the company. This round also included personal investments from Lip-Bu Tan and Harvey Jones, joining existing investors Wing VC, Team8, Entrée Capital, Sumitomo Corp. (through IN Venture), and OurCrowd. This new round brings Classiq’s total funding to $48 million in 20 months of existence.
“We welcome our new investors and are grateful for the continued support of our existing ones. Together, we are paving the fastest way towards quantum advantage and the only way beyond it,” said Nir Minerbi, co-founder and CEO at Classiq. “This new funding comes at a pivotal time. The quantum industry is now moving from consulting services to quantum products and from prototyping to production. With this funding, we will expand upon our work to become the platform on which forward-thinking organizations develop game-changing quantum software that makes the impossible possible.”
Classiq plans to triple its size by increasing its workforce of world-class engineers and researchers, creating new offices throughout the world, and continuing to develop and file groundbreaking quantum algorithm design patents with the new cash. Leading global enterprises in a number of industries, including Classiq clients, will benefit from cutting-edge technology and even better developer support.
“We were impressed by Classiq’s novel synthesis engine that automates the creation of quantum circuits and leads to significantly lower barriers of entry for quantum computing,” said Paul Glaser, vice president and head of Hewlett Packard Pathfinder. “We are proud to join this investment round for Classiq, a true pioneer in the quantum software development arena.”
Boaz Morris, investment manager at Phoenix, said, “While quantum hardware has made impressive progress, the software used to operate these advanced computers remains woefully inadequate. Classiq’s hardware-agnostic platform enables enterprises to develop sophisticated quantum software faster and better than any other method. We are thrilled to partner with the world-class team at Classiq as they continue to execute on their vision and become the leader in the quantum software stack.”
Harvey Jones is a former president and CEO of Synopsys and a member of the NVIDIA board of directors. Cadence Design Systems’ executive chairman and former president and CEO is Lip-Bu Tan. Cadence and Synopsys do for electronic design what Classiq does for quantum software design, so Tan and Jones understand the importance of Classiq’s value proposition.
ADM Michael Rogers, USN (RET), an operating partner for existing investor Team8, said, “Quantum computing has wide-ranging strategic economic and national security implications, both as a defensive measure as well as a way to gain leverage. But quantum computers are useless without the right software, and Classiq delivers a breakthrough in the way quantum software is developed.”
Abstracting Quantum Complexity Creates Opportunities for Businesses, Customers and Talent
Quantum computing can help build wealth, increase efficiencies, and enhance health in a variety of ways, including carbon dioxide reduction to combat climate change, medication development, financial portfolio optimization, materials science advances, and optimal transportation flow and routing. However, while quantum computers are now available and are rapidly improving in power, technology is only a small fraction of what’s required to achieve these game-changing goals.
Organizations also require new software platforms that make it significantly easier for both quantum and non-quantum domain specialists to design quantum algorithms and combine them into scalable, enterprise-grade solutions in order to obtain a quantum advantage. Quantum computing may remain a research experiment without such platforms. Classiq helps quantum computing realize its full potential by allowing more people to participate in – and more people and organizations to benefit from – quantum efforts.
“Quantum computing is considered by many current and aspiring QC end users as critical to their overall innovative capabilities as well as being a strong enabler of competitive advantage. But there is an acute need for software that brings to life the scale and capabilities of quantum machines,” said Bob Sorensen, senior vice president of research at Hyperion Research. “The Classiq approach of using functional models to abstract the complexity of quantum computing is a very promising way to deliver first-mover advantages to companies and their stakeholders.”
Classiq and Quantum Computing Have Come a Long Way, But the Journey Has Just Begun
Quantum computing is a multibillion-dollar industry. Leading corporations, governments, and academic institutions are all investing in this area. According to a new analysis by Hyperion Research, the worldwide quantum computing business is still growing at a rapid pace.
Classiq is well-positioned to contribute to the “steady and sustained growth” that Hyperion expects for the quantum industry in the years ahead, thanks to its partnerships with key hardware, cloud, and service providers.
“In the span of 20 months, Classiq has raised $48 million – including this new round, which is among the largest investments for a quantum software company ever, assembled a world-class team, and built a market-leading product that is now used by some of the premier companies in the world,” said Minerbi. “We look forward to what’s next.”