Sussex spinout Universal Quantum lands $100M+ Series A as the UK quantum funding race heats up



Universal Quantum

  • Common Quantum raises over $100M in Collection A, co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures.
  • The Sussex spinout says it’s delivering on a $77M German Aerospace Middle contract.
  • Firgun has now joined three UK quantum rounds in 2026, every on a distinct expertise.

In Might 2026, DCVC co-led a $160 million spherical for Quantum Motion, a British firm that builds quantum computer systems from silicon chips. Right now, the Silicon Valley investor co-led a rival British spherical constructed on a distinct thought. Universal Quantum has raised greater than $100 million in Collection A funding to hyperlink trapped-ion chips into bigger machines.

Firgun Ventures, a London-based fund devoted to quantum, co-led alongside DCVC. The spherical additionally consists of EDBI, the Singapore-based sovereign investor; Artal, suggested by Invus; Integral GlobalTech; Major Sequence; Hostplus; NGS Tremendous; IAG Capital; EdenBase; Eigenstate Holdings; SiteGround Capital; and Dave Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox. Present and new strategic traders, together with Nauta Capital and The Enterprise Collective, additionally took half.

The corporate says the Collection A is the biggest ever raised by a UK-headquartered quantum agency. The University of Sussex, the place each founders maintain professorships, calls it a document for a Sussex spinout and says it’s the firm’s first vital spherical of funding.

“Common Quantum’s progress displays our companions’ perception that we signify one of the crucial credible paths to quantum computing at scale. This spherical unites a rare group of traders from the world’s most necessary swimming pools of capital round a single mission: delivering utility-scale quantum computing,” mentioned Dr Sebastian Weidt, CEO and co-founder of Common Quantum. 

Identical traders, rival applied sciences

Firgun has now joined three UK quantum rounds in 2026, and each makes use of a distinct expertise. It was a brand new investor in Quantum Movement’s silicon-based Collection C in Might. It additionally took half within the £260 million Collection C raised by Oxford Quantum Circuits , which builds superconducting machines. 

As Tech Funding Information reported, OQC introduced the spherical on June 3 and says it’s Europe’s largest non-public quantum computing spherical. Common Quantum, which makes use of trapped ions, is the third.

The British Enterprise Financial institution committed £40 million to Quantum Movement’s spherical and in addition backed OQC. The corporate’s launch doesn’t title it amongst Common Quantum’s traders. TFN has profiled the bank’s £600 million UK technology portfolio, which incorporates Quantum Movement.

Firgun launched in November 2025 with a $70 million first close, anchored by the Qatar Funding Authority, and a $250 million goal. In a December 2025 interview with The Quantum Insider, Zeynep Korutürk mentioned seed cash is straightforward to search out in quantum, however few traders can credibly lead Collection A and B rounds. That’s the hole the fund goals to fill.

“Common Quantum brings collectively world-class scientific management with an exceptionally clear method to quantum computing,” mentioned Zeynep Korutürk, founding and managing accomplice at Firgun Ventures. 

DCVC made an identical case for each of its British rounds, with a distinct expertise every time. When Quantum Movement raised in Might, Prineha Narang, an working accomplice at DCVC, mentioned the agency invested as a result of “silicon is the muse that scales.” Now normal accomplice James Hardiman makes a scale argument for trapped ions.

“True quantum utility might be unlocked by firms which might be relentlessly centered on the scalability of their machines. Common Quantum’s modular structure addresses the toughest challenges in scaling ion entice programs. Quantum is a worldwide race, and we’re happy to again a workforce with real standing throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America,” mentioned Hardiman.

Silicon has different European backers too. TFN coated French startup Quobly’s €115 million round on the identical day as OQC’s.

One massive contract, few public numbers

The startup, based in 2018, works by tiling many small trapped-ion chips collectively. Every chip holds charged atoms in place with electrical fields, and the atoms act as qubits, the fundamental models of quantum info. 

The corporate says its design avoids photonic interconnects, massive lasers, and heavy cooling tools, and that its patented interconnect, which it describes as world-record, is what lets the chips work as one machine.

Its largest public proof level is a contract with the German Aerospace Middle, often called DLR. In November 2022, DLR commissioned the corporate’s German subsidiary to construct a single-chip machine and a multi-chip machine of as much as 100 qubits at its Hamburg web site inside 4 years. The deal was introduced at 67 million euros. The corporate now cites it as a $77 million contract and says it’s delivering in opposition to it.

Trapped ions are a crowded discipline. IonQ agreed in June 2025 to purchase British rival Oxford Ionics, which makes trapped-ion chips on customary semiconductor processes, for $1.075 billion. Quantinuum, which additionally makes use of trapped ions, closed a $600 million equity round at a $10 billion pre-money valuation in September 2025.

Capital is arriving sooner than income

McKinsey counted $12.6 billion of funding in quantum startups in 2025, 6.3 occasions the yr earlier than. Income at quantum computing firms handed $1 billion in the identical yr. 

Public markets are open to the sector as properly. 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 particular function acquisition firm, or SPAC, in a deal that valued it at $1.8 billion earlier than the brand new cash went in.

Common Quantum will use the cash to maintain growing its modular design, together with the chiplet arrays and management programs it says cut back engineering danger, and to broaden in Singapore, america, Japan, and Hamburg. Lazard was its unique monetary adviser. The announcement doesn’t disclose a valuation, whole funding raised, or hiring targets.

The corporate says additional worldwide collaborations might be introduced quickly. Till Common Quantum publishes qubit counts and error charges, the spherical measures investor confidence, not engineering progress.



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