Quantonation closes €220m second fund

Quantonation, a Paris- and New York-based venture capital firm focused on quantum and “physics-based” startups, has closed a second fund of €220 million—more than double the size of its first, according to TechCrunch. The fund was oversubscribed, and its backers now include the European Investment Fund alongside returning investors such as Singapore’s Vertex Holdings and France’s Bpifrance.

The fundraising number matters less than what it implies about the product being sold. Quantum computing remains years—likely many years—away from routine industrial use, and the sector still struggles to show advantage over classical machines outside carefully chosen benchmarks. Yet capital keeps arriving because the quantum story has become a durable, long-horizon asset class: it can be framed as inevitable, strategically important, and “too early to miss,” even when timelines are undefined.

Quantonation’s own pitch reflects how the market is adapting. Rather than betting only on quantum chips, the firm is leaning into “picks and shovels”—control electronics, photonics, lasers, cryogenics, and software layers that quantum labs must buy regardless of which qubit architecture wins. One example cited by Quantonation partner Will Zeng is Dutch startup Qblox, which sold control hardware to quantum teams before Quantonation co-led its Series A. In practice, this shifts the investable surface from a single moonshot to a supply chain.

That supply chain also clarifies where exits are likely to come from. Public markets have already produced a small set of quantum listings, and Bloomberg has described a recent “quantum frenzy,” amplified by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s claim that the field is nearing an inflection point. But for many early-stage companies, the most reliable “customer” is still institutional: government programs, defense-adjacent procurement, and large incumbents in telecom and industrial electronics that can buy optionality through acquisitions.

When a technology’s pay-off is distant, venture funds can still win by financing the parts that can ship earlier—test equipment, control stacks, and lab infrastructure—while keeping the flagship promise intact. The risk is not that quantum disappears; it is that the commercial window narrows into a buyer’s market where the most credible exit is selling into a strategic roadmap rather than competing on open markets.

Quantonation says fund two has already invested in 12 startups and aims for a portfolio of about 25. The sector may not be close to replacing supercomputers, but it is already building a procurement ecosystem that can absorb €220 million while it waits.