Phasecraft, a quantum computing company, has secured £13m in a Series A funding round led by Silicon Valley deeptech VC, Playground Global. The funding will be used to expand the team and develop quantum algorithms. Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionise problem-solving, but current quantum computers are not capable of running the necessary algorithms. Phasecraft is working to bridge this gap by developing new quantum algorithms. The company’s early focus is on using these algorithms to discover new materials for clean energy. Phasecraft has developed a software pipeline that improves the modelling of real materials by 1,000,000x compared to previous quantum algorithms. The company has partnerships with leading quantum hardware providers Google, IBM, and Rigetti. The new funding brings Phasecraft’s total venture funding to £17.25M, with an additional £3.75M in grant funding.
Phasecraft Secures £13m Series A Funding
Phasecraft, has successfully closed a £13m Series A funding round. The funding was led by Silicon Valley deep tech venture capital firm, Playground Global. Other participants in the round included AlbionVC, Episode1, Parkwalk Advisors, LCIF, and UCL Technology Fund. The funds will be used to expand the team of quantum scientists, researchers, and engineers, and to further develop quantum algorithms.
Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionise how we solve complex problems. However, the quantum computers available today are not capable of running the algorithms needed to solve these problems. The best quantum algorithms known prior to Phasecraft’s founding would require billions of operations on a quantum computer, while today’s best-performing hardware can perform at most thousands.
There has been significant investment in quantum hardware, leading to a surge in capacity. However, the algorithms needed to utilise these advances have remained largely theoretical. Phasecraft aims to bridge this gap by reimagining how quantum algorithms are designed, using insights from theoretical physics and computer science, along with knowledge from extensive numerical simulations and a deep understanding of quantum hardware.
Quantum Algorithms and Practical Applications
Phasecraft has developed record-breaking algorithms with superior computational efficiency compared to others. The company has published 17 scientific papers, with results including reducing the complexity of simulating the time-evolution of a quantum materials system by 400,000x, running the largest-ever simulation of a materials system on actual hardware by 10x, and proving that near-term quantum optimisation algorithms could outperform classical ones.
The company’s early focus is on applying these algorithmic improvements to the discovery of new materials important for the clean energy transition. Quantum computing promises to accelerate the entire process by capturing these features computationally, thus reducing the number of experiments required and drastically increasing the variety of material combinations which can be tested for any given use case.
Expertise and Partnerships
Phasecraft’s success is largely due to the strength of its team and its partnerships. The founders have decades of experience leading top research teams at the University of Bristol and UCL. The company has also hired leading quantum scientists to help with their mission.
Phasecraft is the only company to partner with the three most advanced superconducting quantum hardware providers in the world, Google, IBM and Rigetti. Industry partnerships with speciality materials developer Johnson Matthey and solar cell developer Oxford PV help inform their use case specific work.
Future Prospects and Funding
With the new funding, Phasecraft has raised a total of £17.25M in venture funding, as well as a further £3.75M in grant funding from Innovate UK and the European Research Council. The company’s CEO, Ashley Montanaro, believes that with their record-breaking algorithms and groundbreaking techniques, practical quantum advantage is achievable in years, not decades. Peter Barrett, general partner at Playground Global, also expressed his belief in Phasecraft’s potential to bridge the gap between quantum hardware capacity and real-world applications.
“Ashley Montanaro, co-founder and CEO of Phasecraft, said: “For all the advances that have been made in quantum hardware, and for all quantum computing’s promise, such progress could end up being for nothing if we can’t build the applications needed to make the technology truly useful. With our record-breaking algorithms and groundbreaking techniques, we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in this space. With support from such a renowned deep-tech visionary as Playground, we think practical quantum advantage is achievable in years, not decades.”
Read More.
