Winners of first Quantum Delta NL SME call announced
Quantum Delta NL announced the winners of the first ‘Quantum SME call’ during yesterday’s annual event for the Dutch quantum community. The call, worth a total of 7.87 million euro, goes to ten leading and promising SME quantum companies, namely: Appsilon Enterprise BV, Delft Circuits, Fermioniq, Leiden Space Imaging, Onnes Technologies BV, Orange Quantum Systems, Qblox, QphoX, QuantWare and a quantum cryptography lab. Quantum Delta NL aims to use this annual call to further capitalise on Dutch quantum companies’ huge potential for the Dutch economy and society.
An advisory committee of scientists, investors and entrepreneurs selected the ten companies from a total of eighteen project proposals based on the following criteria: alignment with Quantum Delta NL’s agenda, technological potential, quality of the submitted project plan, commercial potential and economic and social impact. The winning companies will receive funding for innovation projects to establish the products and services needed to further develop quantum technology and derived products in the value chain. This is an annual call, for which SMEs can submit projects ranging from €500,000 to €2 million, either individually or as a public-private consortium.
‘With its quantum strategy, the Netherlands is adhering to an innovative ecosystem approach. This call enhances both the Dutch quantum sector’s scientific as well as commercial output. Not enough professional venture capital is available for promising quantum companies, so it’s essential that we support this new market with public money such as this grant.’
Constantijn van Oranje, Special Envoy of Techleap.nl
35 million euro available
The Netherlands has acquired a top position in global quantum technology development, partly due to the strength of its national ecosystem. Although quantum companies are considered to add significant value to the future Dutch and European earning capacity, many deep-tech companies find it difficult to obtain capital. The Quantum Delta NL SME programme, of which this call is part, aims to facilitate access to such capital.
“Quantum technology is highly promising and the Netherlands has acquired an excellent position in this field. It is now crucial to convert our knowledge into commercial activity and to involve more innovative researchers and SMEs. By financing early, we increase the chance of successful startups and scale-ups in this sector.“
Minister Micky Adriaansens (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy)
Through the National Growth Fund, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK) is increasingly encouraging technological innovations within industries such as quantum. The aim is that through digitalization and sustainability, the Netherlands will also have a strong economy in the future.
The programme is a Quantum Delta NL initiative, together with Nano4Society and MinacNed. The goal is to connect 125 high-tech Dutch SME companies to increase the added value of SMEs in quantum technology. 35 million euro is available for this in the coming seven years. Companies must also contribute 17 million euro in cash or in kind. Quantum Delta NL also previously launched a micro-fund to support the early phase of quantum start-ups, and Infinity, a programme to connect Dutch quantum start-ups in all phases.
Freeke Heijman, Ecosystem Development Director at Quantum Delta NL, added: ‘Building a business ecosystem is a key driver of the Quantum Delta NL programme. We aim to ensure that knowledge from scientific labs also leads to new activity in the Netherlands and Europe. This call gives the winners a huge boost to scale up their idea to a start-up or scale-up.’
Taylan Erol, Co-CEO of Appsilon Enterprise, stated: ‘It’s an incredible honour to receive this grant. It’s a recognition that will help us realise the huge potential of diamond use in quantum technology by establishing a dedicated quantum diamond growth facility in Delft. We are excited to be part of the Quantum Delta NL ecosystem and push our company forward to disrupt the diamond industry status quo using sustainable diamonds as well as using the power of quantum technology.
For more information or interview request, please reach Juliette de la Rie, Head of Communications at Quantum Delta NL on +31 6 27 31 04 58 or juliette.delarie@quantumdelta.nl.
About the winning companies
Appsilon Enterprise BV
Appsilon is a lab-grown diamond company with its headquarters located in Delft. Appsilon supplies high-quality single crystal diamond materials that can be used in applications such as magnetometry and quantum computing. Recent material developments include the ability to produce materials for quantum grade diamond growth. The Appsilon team comprises experienced entrepreneurs, and an agile R&D team, allowing them to progress faster in Technology Readiness Levels and rapidly bring successive technological breakthroughs from ideation to launch. With recent R&D operations, Appsilon achieved a low nitrogen or high charge density (NV-) (111) oriented prototype to be used for quantum applications.
Delft Circuits
Delft Circuits develops and manufactures hardware for the quantum industry. The company’s first product is Cri/oFlex®, a new type of cabling. This product allows for rapid scaling up of quantum devices and can be found in quantum computers, quantum internet devices and (quantum based) sensors.
Fermioniq, spin-off of UvA, CWI and QuSoft — currently in stealth mode.
Leiden Spin Imaging
Leiden Spin Imaging (LSI B.V.) converts high-tech spin-off knowledge from the scientific world into innovative products or new technology-based solutions for universities, research institutes and companies. Their field of work is various forms of atomic resolution microscopy at milli-kelvin temperatures, enabling new insights into advanced research issues in areas such as quantum technology, high-tech materials and bio/pharma.
Onnes Technologies BV
Onnes Technologies is a Leiden-based, Quantum Technology startup, that develops and builds cryogenic nanopositioning tools dedicated for physics research at millikelvin temperatures. The Onnes’ WALKING TECHNOLOGY offers the next step in cryo-positioning as an alternative to the classic stick-slip technology. Onne’s first product arQtika combines negligible heat dissipation with extremely low vibration levels, little drift, and superior payload capabilities. These features are concealed in a compact, non-magnetic cube that is compatible with standard wiring and low-frequency electronics.
Orange Quantum Systems B.V.
Orange Quantum Systems B.V. is a QuTech spin-off company that was co-founded by part of the team that developed Quantum Inspire, Europe’s first quantum cloud computer. Its mission is to supply high-tech diagnostics systems to test quantum chips and enable the transition from academic research to industry-grade quantum device development.
Qblox
Qblox supplies one specific part of quantum computers to many industrial and academic labs: the control stack. The control stack forms the link between the quantum chips and the user interfaces. Qblox makes these control stacks more scalable and integrates many functionalities to enable the next milestones in quantum computers. With Qblox’ Q1 distributed processor architecture, the speed at which quantum data can be processed has been significantly increased.
QphoX
QphoX is the pioneer of new technology, the so-called Quantum Modem™. This device is the missing link to truly scalable quantum information processing and is fully compatible with all existing qubit systems. It consists of a quantum transducer that will allow quantum processors to be connected via long-range, low-loss quantum channels. QphoX is rising as a trustworthy partner to develop a next-generation interface for scaling quantum computers.
Quantum cryptography lab – Startup in stealth mode
A quantum cryptography team that has operated inside QuTech (a partnership between TNO and TU Delft) for three years as an engineering group, and within that time has designed and built prototype quantum communication systems with centralized hubs that enable quantum cryptography between multiple users. These quantum network communication devices have been proven in relevant field environments with industrial companies. For instance, recent prototypes were deployed in the cities of Delft, The Hague and Rijswijk as well as multiple data centre locations situated in the Randstad area. During deployment, this network ran uninterrupted for days, generating new quantum-secured AES encryption keys, on average, every few seconds. Now, the time is right to commercialize these systems, which will be done by a new QuTech spin-off. More news will follow soon!
QuantWare
QuantWare is a Delft-based quantum computing start-up that develops high-quality superconducting quantum processors with exceptionally short delivery times. With its scalable, affordable and customizable technology QuantWare is making quantum hardware available to all. The collaborative and diverse company works with best-in-class experts and partners to enable the quickest path to useful quantum computation.
Launch of EuRyQa project: a new European Infrastructure for Rydberg Quantum Computing
The European Commission’s Quantum Technology Flagship has just launched the ‘European infrastructure for Rydberg Quantum Computing’ (EuRyQa) project.
Q*Bird announces: Untappable internet for Port of Rotterdam offered by quantum technology
Q*Bird announces that Port of Rotterdam stakeholders will be able to participate and benefit from an untappable, multi-user quantum network for their critical communication systems. The start-up, a QuTech’s spin-off that will provide fundamental building blocks for the quantum communication infrastructure in the Netherlands and Europe, is the first to deploy a new type secure quantum network that can connect multiple users via a center hub in a cost-effective and scalable manner.
Below is press release by Q*Bird (link).
QuTech announces full control of a six-qubit quantum processor in silicon
Researchers of QDNL’s community member QuTech have engineered a record number of six, silicon-based, spin qubits in a fully interoperable array. These advances will contribute to a scalable quantum computer based on silicon. The results are published in Nature today. This is a press release by QuTech.