Quantum subsidiary Pasqal plans $2B SPAC listing, promises to ‘remain French’

In the middle bear investor appetite for all things quantuma European company in the region is graduating to the private markets. Just two weeks after the Finnish quantum unicorn IQM he said it was going public through a merger with a special purpose procurement company (SPAC), its French rival Easter they are doing the same.

Together they are different $200 million private equity roundPasqal’s SPAC deal will see it merged with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp II and subsequently listed on the Nasdaq. The merger makes Pasqal worth $2 billion, before expenses.

Bleichroeder is supported by Michel Combes, a French telecom veteran who previously led Vodafone and Nokia-Lucent, and Andrew Gundlach, a financial advisor.

Pasqal is a quantum computing company take on Big Tech. It generates annual revenue in the tens of millions from the sale of hardware, software, and cloud services to labs and staff.

The SPAC deal comes as Pasqal’s North American peers, which have taken a similar approach to public markets, have noticed. Their stock has been increasing in recent months. The US market gives companies like Pasqal the kind of volume and scale of investment that would be difficult to bring home to Europe, not to mention the capital they need to travel long distances to realize the potential of quantum computing.

But Pasqal (like IQM) is planning two US-European series. A Nasdaq float is planned for this year, and the company plans to list on it Euronext later in 2026 or 2027.

The double list may be one way Pasqal tries to convince his French supporters. Bpifrance, a French commercial bank, is the main shareholderand will remain active on Pasqal’s board and the company’s board, according to a press release.

Mr Pasqal confirmed that he hoped to remain a French law firm based in Palaiseau, a Paris suburb with many academic groups, as well as an industrial research center run by Pasqal’s clients, energy giant EDF and defense company Thales. The quantum computing company also wants to appoint a “new non-executive French chair” to its board.

An investor presentation from Bleichroeder indicates that Mr. Combes will act as the “independent director of Pasqal” after the deal – although this appointment will not be well received in France.

In 2015, the current French President Emmanuel Macron publicly criticized Combes to step down as CEO of Alcatel-Lucent before a take over Nokia patients and Nokia it was closed. Combes’ exit package was so controversial that it eventually came to an end reduced by half.

Combes’ subsequent actions have helped rehabilitate his reputation in French art circles. After replacing Marcelo Claure as CEO of Sprinthe led SoftBank Group International, where he participated in French sports such as Swile. But he left the position after only five months between the waves of departure in 2022.

Pasqal is no stranger to changes in authority. In the grave announcement is that the company Former Chairman Wasiq Bokhari is now its CEO. And Loïc Henriet, who started as CTO, then rose to a co-CEO position and after that it was his The CEO himselfis back as CTO.

Reaffirming his commitment to France could bring many benefits to Pasqal, too. The company is telling taxpayers that its expansion will create top jobs in the country, where it plans to hire 50 people over the next 18 months. Also, not being an American company in the current geopolitical climate has the potential to open doors, such as the French AI lab Mistral AI. you have found.

But no company can last long without good products. The competition is very high in quantum computing as competing technologies have similar promises. IQM, for example, bets on superconducting qubits, while Pasqal follows the path of the neutral atom controlled by its co-founder, a physics Nobel laureate. Alain Aspect.

This technology base will play a major role for Pasqal, which plans to continue investing heavily in R&D to create a fault-tolerant computer by the end of the decade. Such improvements will be critical to unlocking applications in areas such as drug discovery, health care, and cyber security.

The SPAC project is expected to be completed in the second half of 2026, and Pasqal expects to raise a pro-forma market capitalization of approximately $2.6 billion, giving the company the funds to achieve its goal of increasing production volume within 24 months.

The $200 million round of crowdfunding saw investments from Parkway, Quanta Computer, LG Electronics, and CMA CGM. The company’s sponsors include the European Innovation Council Fund, Series B investment manager TemasekSaudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures, and ISAI.