New York-based quantum computing startup Seeqc Inc. said it has closed on a $5 million round of funding from M Ventures, the venture capital arm of German pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc.
The M Ventures funding follows a $6.8 million seed round from investors including BlueYard Capital, Cambium, NewLab and the Partnership Fund for New York City.
As part of the deal, Merck will become a strategic partner of Seeqc’s, helping it in its quest to build an “application specific” machine that combines classical computing architecture with new quantum processors. Seeqc was founded in 2019 after being spun out from a company called Hypres Inc., which manufactures semiconductor electronics.
The startup is trying to build a quantum computing system based on a hybrid architecture that combines quantum processors with classical computers. According to Seeqc, the idea has enormous potential for very specific workloads, such as developing new pharmaceutical drugs. That’s because the hybrid quantum/classical approach can reduce decoherence, or changes in frequency, motion, noise and temperature, which could affect the extremely volatile qubits that make up quantum processors. (Business Wire)
