QuantrolOx raises $13M to automate quantum computer control

Chatrath was blunter about the pitch at the Sept. 9, 2026 opening of the company's Berkeley presence, according to a UC Berkeley Physics news item. "No physicists want to waste time tuning qubits, they want to use them," he said.

The Quantum EDGE Academy, launched Aug. 26, 2026, trains workers on simulated hardware and workflows. QuantrolOx also sells VIDYAQAR, an open-architecture superconducting quantum system for education, research, testing and benchmarking. Quantum Computing Report said a VIDYAQAR system was deployed at MAHE in Bengaluru under India's National Quantum Mission, with an inauguration noted Oct. 22, 2026.

A company with several footholds

Founded in 2021 as a University of Oxford spin-out, QuantrolOx is headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and has offices in the UK, the Netherlands, the U.S. and India. Its co-founders include Prof. Andrew Briggs, who is chair; Chatrath; Assoc. Prof. Natalia Ares, chief scientist; and Dominic Lennon, director of product.

Headcount is hard to pin down. Sesamers put it at 39, while LinkedIn lists 11 to 50 employees, and both figures may lag.

In the U.S., the company signed a memorandum of understanding with UC Berkeley's Department of Physics and the Roger Herst Quantum Nexus, effective July 7. The five-year framework aims to advance the industrialization of superconducting quantum computing through machine-learning-driven measurement and automation.

Elsewhere, Quantum EDGE powers a University of Saskatchewan system announced March 31, 2026. Rigetti's disclosure describes an on-premises machine built around a Rigetti Novera QPU (quantum processing unit), a Zero Point Cryogenics fridge, Qblox control electronics and QuantrolOx software. The company also announced a partnership with AQSolotl on June 24, and it appears in TreQ's Compass SG25B open-architecture station alongside Qblox, Rigetti and Bluefors.

A crowded control layer

QuantrolOx is not alone. Quantum Machines of Israel raised a $170 million Series C on Feb. 25, 2025, and Q-CTRL, Qedma, Riverlane, Qruise, Zurich Instruments and Keysight Quantum Solutions all sell control, error-management or calibration tools.

Some of those rivals have published results of their own. Qruise reported on April 22, 2026 that its software cut bring-up time to about 15 minutes at the Israeli Quantum Computing Center on a Quantum Machines OPX1000. A preprint on IBM's 156-qubit Heron r3 processor found that Q-CTRL and Qedma reduced mean absolute error versus raw execution by about 3.1x and 4.7x, respectively.

Larger sums are moving elsewhere in the sector. Oxford Quantum Circuits raised a £260 million Series C on June 3, which it called Europe's largest private quantum round, and Quobly raised €115 million the same day.

Analysts expect spending to climb. Gartner said on Oct. 8, 2026 that global quantum computing revenue will reach $869.9 million in 2026 and pass $1 billion in 2027, while IDC forecasts worldwide quantum spending of $17.3 billion by 2029.

Adoption, though, remains early. The Quantum Insider's State of Quantum 2026 study found that 89% of surveyed enterprises were hands-on with the technology, but only 3% had reached scaled deployment.

What comes next

For QuantrolOx, the near-term agenda is set: commercial deployments, the academy and the Berkeley office. Whether automation becomes the standard way to run quantum machines, or one more feature in a crowded field of control tools, is still an open matter.

"With IW Capital and the EIC Fund behind us, we are setting the standards and accelerating the path to practical quantum computing," Chatrath said.