Nu Quantum, a Cambridge-based quantum technology firm, has secured $60 million in a Series A funding round, the largest ever raised by a pure-play quantum networking company and the biggest quantum-focused Series A in the UK.
Led by National Grid Partners and joined by Gresham House Ventures, Morpheus Ventures, and a consortium of returning investors, the capital injection will accelerate development of the company’s photonic “Entanglement Fabric,” a networking layer designed to link quantum processors into scalable, fault-tolerant systems.
The investment comes as the UK intensifies efforts to position itself as a global leader in quantum infrastructure, with distributed quantum computing emerging as a critical pathway to commercial viability.
Quantum computing has long been constrained by the physical limits of individual processors. Current machines, typically housing fewer than 1,000 physical qubits, suffer from high error rates and limited coherence times.
Experts widely agree that reaching the million-qubit scale required for fault-tolerant, commercially useful quantum computation will necessitate a modular architecture, akin to how classical data centres evolved from single servers to distributed cloud infrastructures.
Nu Quantum’s approach, leveraging photonics to generate and distribute quantum entanglement across separate chips, may be the much awaited foundational shift from monolithic hardware toward interconnected quantum systems.
The company, founded in 2018 by Dr. Carmen Palacios-Berraquero and spun out of the University of Cambridge, has focused since its inception on quantum networking as a scaling strategy.
Its core innovation lies in the Qubit-Photon Interface, a hardware-software co-designed system that enables high-fidelity entanglement between disparate quantum processors, regardless of the underlying qubit technology (superconducting, trapped ion, or photonic). This agnosticism is significant: with no single qubit platform yet dominant, interoperability could prove decisive in shaping industry standards.
Investor interest adds another layer to the growing consensus that networking, not just qubit count, will determine the pace of quantum advancement.
National Grid Partners, the corporate venture arm of the UK’s electricity and gas transmission operator, sees strategic alignment with its own grid modernization and cybersecurity priorities. “We are closer to quantum computing having an impact on businesses and lives than many people think,” said Steve Smith, Chief Strategy and Regulation Officer at National Grid and President of National Grid Partners.
Gresham House Ventures’ Maya Ward emphasized the role of “enabling technologies” in overcoming scaling and fidelity bottlenecks, while Morpheus Ventures’ Damien Petty highlighted Nu Quantum’s focus on “hybrid interconnectivity”, a likely prerequisite for practical quantum advantage.
The UK government has designated quantum technologies as a national strategic priority under its £2.5 billion National Quantum Strategy, launched in 2023.
Quantum communications and photonics are central pillars, with Cambridge serving as a hub for academic research (including the Cambridge Quantum Photonics Hub) and industrial spin-outs. Nu Quantum’s success bolsters the UK’s claim to leadership in the quantum stack beyond just hardware, particularly in control systems, networking, and software integration.
Industry analysts note that the timing and scale of the raise signal accelerating commercial timelines. According to McKinsey, the quantum computing market could reach $1.3 trillion annually by 2035, but only if key engineering hurdles, including error correction and system integration, are overcome.
Distributed architectures, enabled by photonic links, offer a viable path to implementing quantum error correction across modules, a prerequisite for fault tolerance.
Nu Quantum’s 2024 demonstration of its Qubit-Photon Interface and 2025 rollout of its Quantum Networking Unit mark concrete steps toward this goal.
The company also leads the Quantum Datacenter Alliance, a coalition aimed at defining standards for modular quantum systems, and maintains a U.S. presence in Los Angeles, staffed with advisors from IBM, Cisco, and AWS, reflecting its ambition to shape global infrastructure. Future milestones include multi-node entanglement demonstrations and integration with early quantum processors from partners.
For enterprise technology leaders, Nu Quantum’s trajectory underscores three emerging realities: first, that quantum scale will be achieved through networking, not just better qubits; second, that photonics, a mature field in classical telecom, will play an outsized role in the quantum stack; and third, that modular deployment models could allow gradual, risk-managed adoption akin to cloud computing.
As geopolitical competition in quantum intensifies, with the U.S., China, and EU pouring billions into domestic capabilities, the UK’s niche in quantum networking may prove strategically valuable.
Nu Quantum’s funding round validates its technical approach. Investors and governments increasingly view distributed quantum systems as the most credible route to unlocking the technology’s transformative potential.
The race is no longer just to build a quantum computer, it’s to connect them.
Reporters at Lion Herald used generative AI to help gather and organise research for this piece. An editor confirmed the accuracy of the information before it went to print.
