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Sussex spinout Universal Quantum lands $100M+ Series A as the UK quantum funding race heats up. October 8, 2026 * Universal Quantum raises over $100M in Series A, co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures. * The Sussex spinout says it is delivering on a $77M German Aerospace Center contract. * Firgun has now joined three UK quantum rounds in 2026, each on a different technology. In May 2026, DCVC co-led a $160 million round for Quantum Motion, a British company that builds quantum computers from silicon chips. Today, the Silicon Valley investor co-led a rival British round built on a different idea. Universal Quantum has raised more than $100 million in Series A funding to link trapped-ion chips into larger machines. Firgun Ventures, a London-based fund dedicated to quantum, co-led alongside DCVC. The round also includes EDBI, the Singapore-based sovereign investor; Artal, advised by Invus; Integral GlobalTech; Main Sequence; Hostplus; NGS Super; IAG Capital; EdenBase; Eigenstate Holdings; SiteGround Capital; and Dave Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox. Existing and new strategic investors, including Nauta Capital and The Venture Collective, also took part. The company says the Series A is the largest ever raised by a UK-headquartered quantum firm. The University of Sussex, where both founders hold professorships, calls it a record for a Sussex spinout and says it is the company's first significant round of investment. "Universal Quantum's progress reflects our partners' belief that we represent one of the most credible paths to quantum computing at scale. This round unites an extraordinary group of investors from the world's most important pools of capital around a single mission: delivering utility-scale quantum computing," said Dr Sebastian Weidt, CEO and co-founder of Universal Quantum. Same investors, rival technologies. Firgun has now joined three UK quantum rounds in 2026, and each one uses a different technology. It was a new investor in Quantum Motion's silicon-based Series C in May. It also took part in the £260 million Series C raised by Oxford Quantum Circuits, which builds superconducting machines. As Tech Funding News reported, OQC announced the round on June 3 and says it is Europe's largest private quantum computing round. Universal Quantum, which uses trapped ions, is the third. The British Business Bank committed £40 million to Quantum Motion's round and also backed OQC. The company's release does not name it among Universal Quantum's investors. TFN has profiled the bank's £600 million UK technology portfolio, which includes Quantum Motion. Firgun launched in November 2025 with a $70 million first close, anchored by the Qatar Investment Authority, and a $250 million target. In a December 2025 interview with The Quantum Insider, Zeynep Korutürk said seed money is easy to find in quantum, but few investors can credibly lead Series A and B rounds. That is the gap the fund aims to fill. "Universal Quantum brings together world-class scientific leadership with an exceptionally clear approach to quantum computing," said Zeynep Korutürk, founding and managing partner at Firgun Ventures. DCVC made a similar case for both of its British rounds, with a different technology each time. When Quantum Motion raised in May, Prineha Narang, an operating partner at DCVC, said the firm invested because "silicon is the foundation that scales." Now general partner James Hardiman makes a scale argument for trapped ions. "True quantum utility will be unlocked by companies that are relentlessly focused on the scalability of their machines. Universal Quantum's modular architecture addresses the hardest challenges in scaling ion trap systems. Quantum is a global race, and we are pleased to back a team with genuine standing across Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America," said Hardiman. Silicon has other European backers too. TFN covered French startup Quobly's €115 million round on the same day as OQC's. One large contract, few public numbers. The startup, founded in 2018, works by tiling many small trapped-ion chips together. Each chip holds charged atoms in place with electric fields, and the atoms act as qubits, the basic units of quantum information. The company says its design avoids photonic interconnects, large lasers, and heavy cooling equipment, and that its patented interconnect, which it describes as world-record, is what lets the chips work as one machine. Its biggest public proof point is a contract with the German Aerospace Center, known as DLR. In November 2022, DLR commissioned the company's German subsidiary to build a single-chip machine and a multi-chip machine of up to 100 qubits at its Hamburg site within four years. The deal was announced at 67 million euros. The company now cites it as a $77 million contract and says it is delivering against it. Trapped ions are a crowded field. IonQ agreed in June 2025 to buy British rival Oxford Ionics, which makes trapped-ion chips on standard semiconductor processes, for $1.075 billion. Quantinuum, which also uses trapped ions, closed a $600 million equity round at a $10 billion pre-money valuation in September 2025. Capital is arriving faster than revenue. McKinsey counted $12.6 billion of investment in quantum startups in 2025, 6.3 times the year before. Revenue at quantum computing companies passed $1 billion in the same year. Public markets are open to the sector as well. Finland's IQM raised €275 million in a Series B in September 2025 and began trading on Nasdaq on July 2, 2026, after merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a deal that valued it at $1.8 billion before the new money went in. Universal Quantum will use the money to keep developing its modular design, including the chiplet arrays and control systems it says reduce engineering risk, and to expand in Singapore, the United States, Japan, and Hamburg. Lazard was its exclusive financial adviser. The announcement does not disclose a valuation, total funding raised, or hiring targets. The company says further international collaborations will be announced soon. Until Universal Quantum publishes qubit counts and error rates, the round measures investor confidence, not engineering progress.

Universal Quantum raises £75m+ to scale globally. Record Series A for UK quantum computing startup as trapped-ion pioneer is backed by sovereign, institutional and DeepTech investors Listen to article Universal Quantum, a UK company building large-scale quantum computing systems for real-world use, has secured over $100 million (£75m+) in Series A funding - marking the largest Series A ever raised by a quantum firm headquartered in the UK. The funding will accelerate the company's global expansion, as well as the development and commercialisation of its modular technology, advancing a path towards fault-tolerant quantum computing. The round was co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures, with participation from EDBI, Artal (advised by Invus), Integral GlobalTech, Main Sequence, Hostplus, NGS Super, IAG Capital, EdenBase, Eigenstate.holdings, and Dave Baszucki (founder and CEO of Roblox), as well as other existing and new strategic investors including Nauta Capital and The Venture Collective. "Universal Quantum's progress reflects our partners' belief that we represent one of the most credible paths to quantum computing at scale," said Dr Sebastian Weidt, CEO and co-founder of Universal Quantum. "This round unites an extraordinary group of investors from the world's most important pools of capital around a single mission: delivering utility-scale quantum computing." The new capital will drive the continued development and commercialisation of Universal Quantum's modular approach to building the quantum computers needed for practical, error-corrected use - leveraging the company's patented, world-record interconnect technology and advanced integrated chips to develop the chiplet arrays and control systems required to reduce engineering risk and accelerate the path to larger-scale quantum computers. The funding will also support Universal Quantum's recently announced expansion in Singapore, where it is establishing its first R&D centre outside Europe, as well as expansion in the United States, Japan and across its German hub in Hamburg. Universal Quantum was founded on the belief that scale is the major challenge in quantum computing. Its computers are designed and built by linking together, or tiling, many small, advanced quantum chips to deliver the overall high-quality qubit count required to solve problems classical computers cannot - without reliance on photonic interconnects or large, costly lasers and cooling infrastructure. Each chip uses trapped-ion technology, where charged atoms held in place by electric fields act as qubits. Universal Quantum's approach is designed to connect these modules in a practical, manufacturable way, creating a route to the scale needed for fault-tolerant quantum computing and giving industry partners a clearer path to quantum utility. Universal Quantum was founded in 2018 by Professor Sebastian Weidt and Professor Winfried Hensinger of the University of Sussex, co-authors of the first practical blueprint for a large-scale trapped-ion quantum computer, published in 2017. It has since become a global engineering operation, with sites across three continents. Now delivering against a $77 million contract with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Universal Quantum is establishing a permanent presence via an R&D centre in Singapore, with further international collaborations to be announced soon. "Universal Quantum brings together world-class scientific leadership with an exceptionally clear approach to quantum computing," said Zeynep Korutürk, founding & managing partner of Firgun Ventures. "Having laid some of the earliest foundations for large-scale trapped-ion architectures, Sebastian and Winfried are true pioneers in the field. With Europe under pressure to prove it can compete on frontier technologies, we are proud to invest in a European company that has grown into a global player, one that is well positioned to help define the future of industrial-scale quantum computing." "True quantum utility will be unlocked by companies that are relentlessly focused on the scalability of their machines," said James Hardiman, general partner at DCVC. "Universal Quantum's modular architecture addresses the hardest challenges in scaling ion trap systems. Quantum is a global race, and we are pleased to back a team with genuine standing across Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America." Bill Bartee, managing partner at Main Sequence, added: "What sets Universal Quantum apart is its ability to win major contracts at this stage of development. "In a sector where hype and hyperbole are running far ahead of commercial reality, Universal Quantum has built a paying customer base that includes some of the world's most demanding scientific and government institutions, and has done so before most competitors have shipped any working hardware." Evren Bilimer, managing director at Invus, said: "We believe quantum computing will be one of the defining technologies of the coming decades, and that the companies which reach utility-scale will be those that combine deep technical capability with commercial discipline. "Universal Quantum stands out for the rigour of its engineering roadmap and for having funded that roadmap through real customer contracts. We are pleased to deepen our commitment to the quantum ecosystem by backing this team." Lazard, Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor to Universal Quantum in the transaction.