Quantonation’s second bag shows that quantum still has believers

Quantum computing will not replace supercomputers in 2026, let alone reach industry. And yet, the investor’s interest in target companies is not good quantum goodness it has not decreased – it has increased.

Quantonation Venturesa venture firm that sells fundamentals of quantum and physics, has done it closed its second largest registered fund at €220 millionor about $260 million. This is more than twice the size of its opening fund, and comes in addition to other signs that the quantum winter is not yet upon us.

While some have warned that the high volume and lack of visible results could cause the investment to fall, the opposite has happened. Realize that quantum will eventually disrupt modern encryption: that time has no clear timeline, yet governments have joined Big Tech in the race.

In the years since Quantonation was founded in 2018, the field of quantum technology has experienced a bit of a boom, with advances in technology and initial demand from academic and industrial labs. As a result, there has also been a “change in the types of funding opportunities available” to its second fund, Quantonation partner Will Zeng told TechCrunch.

One example is what Zeng describes as the “picks and shovels” opportunity, with companies developing technologies that support the quantum industry. He gave the example of Qblox, a long-established company that was selling quantum hardware and software to Quantonation portfolio companies before a VC firm. he co-led the Series A.

This growing ecosystem also explains why donors are increasingly involved in Quantonation, and why other dedicated funds such as The value of QDNL and 55 North it has been discovered.

“VCs realize that this is not an easy place to invest in startups. The technology is specific and complex, the markets are often new, and so are the teams,” said Zeng.

The company’s philosophy is to invest quickly to capture more value; but a few quantum companies have already gone public, and their shares have risen in recent months. According to Bloomberg, this “insanity of abundance” is another phase it’s full and Nvidia, whose CEO Jensen Huang he announced in June 2025 that “quantum computing is reaching its peak.”

Although quantum chips have yet to outperform traditional computers outside of purpose-built benchmarks, consensus is growing that real-world applications are just a few years away, from life sciences to new devices. This is partly due to advances in error correction – the ability to correct errors that quantum systems are prone to.

Google’s Willow Chip it was a sign of error correction in 2024, but no infrastructure has won, and the players are small still in the race. Zeng noted that a surprising number of companies have entered DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative. He also believes that beyond the excitement of the market, “there are exciting technologies that are currently private.”

For Quantonation, the potential for privacy has a wider canvas than just quantum chips. Fund 2 has already invested in 12 startups, which focus on about 25, which not only cover software and company components that are needed to make the profits real, but also technologies close to physics such as photonics and lasers.

This expansion thesis is supported by both old and new investors. According to the company, the main investors who released its first vintage, including Singapore’s Vertex Holdings and Bpifrance Fonds National d’Amorçage 2, have returned to the second fund, with a few new partners including the European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners, and Toshiba.

Quantonation is global. With dual headquarters in Paris and New York City, the company has supported numerous French companies including Pasqal and Quandela, as well as bets in Asia and North America – and will continue to do so.

“In many areas where we invest, there is no local winner, (…) and most of the research has come from universities in many areas,” Zeng said.