Xanadu closes $100M USD series C to accelerate development of fault-tolerant quantum computers

Eighteen months after securing $100M in their Series B round, Xanadu raises $100M Series C, demonstrating support for their photonic technology.

Xanadu (xanadu.ai), the world leader in photonic quantum computing, has announced it has raised $100M USD in Series C financing. Georgian led the round with participation from Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Forward Investments, Alumni Ventures, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, along with previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Capricorn, BDC Capital, and Tim Draper. To date, Xanadu has raised $250M USD, bringing the company valuation to $1B USD.

Since its inception in 2016, Xanadu has been on a mission to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. Xanadu’s photonic approach to building quantum computers is unique and advantageous for several reasons. Most importantly, using photonics enables the leveraging of modern chip manufacturing facilities, the application of optical components developed by the pre-existing telecommunications industry and the use of fibre optics to network photonic chips together. Such networking is needed to reach and exceed one million qubits, the scale at which useful applications can be accessed.

“The continued support from top-tier investors in this uncertain economic climate is a testament to the belief in our exceptional team, our photonic technology, and our ability to execute,” said Xanadu founder and Chief Executive Officer, Christian Weedbrook.

Xanadu’s remarkable achievements include launching the world’s first cloud-deployed photonic quantum computer via Xanadu Cloud, building the widely used quantum software framework PennyLane, establishing key strategic partnerships with global enterprises and, most recently, demonstrating quantum computational advantage on their quantum computer Borealis.

“These achievements have fostered the growth of the quantum community and enabled researchers and developers globally to access the most cutting-edge computational tools to create new algorithms that will eventually solve real-world problems, such as next generation battery development, a highly strategic area for Volkswagen NEW AUTO strategy,” said Dr. Arne-Christian Voigt, Future Research Volkswagen AG.

The team’s next goal is key to achieving the company mission and is one of the biggest challenges facing modern technology : building a fault-tolerant and error-corrected quantum computer capable of scaling up to one million qubits. This funding round positions Xanadu to accelerate progress towards this goal, specifically building a first module validating their fault-tolerant quantum computing architecture.

This round is led by Canada’s largest growth equity firm, Georgian. “We’ve been long-time supporters of Xanadu and believe they will bring the first commercially available quantum computers to market and make quantum computers useful and available to people everywhere,” said Margaret Wu, Lead Investor at Georgian.