Nasdaq-listed Pasqal wins EIC Fund award for scaling European quantum tech

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Pasqal has been on our radar a lot recently, and now it has picked up a European Innovation Council Fund award at the TechEU Equity Summit in Luxembourg. The award recognises its contribution to Europe's deeptech scene, and the fact that it is one of the first EIC Fund portfolio companies to complete a business combination and list on Nasdaq. Pasqal began trading under the ticker PSQL after completing its SPAC merger in late August. I will keep this on the company and technology rather than shares

The company was founded in 2019, building on Nobel Prize winning research in atom physics, and develops quantum computers based on neutral atoms. It now has around 275 employees and has deployed systems in France, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Customers include Saudi Aramco, Credit Agricole CIB and LG Electronics. Chief executive Wasiq Bokhari said EIC backing helped Pasqal grow from a research driven start-up into a company now listed on Nasdaq. That is quite a spread for a young company

This comes alongside the strategic shift we discussed last week. Pasqal has left the French LSQUARE defence programme after completing its technological goals, and French authorities have invited it to lead a research and development programme on fault tolerant quantum computing with neutral atoms. It plans to speed up its fault tolerance roadmap through commercial partnerships, including work with Credit Agricole CIB on capital markets applications. It is a sensible way to balance public support with commercial growth

The company has also expanded into the Middle East and North Africa through Eleven Ventures, joined IBM's quantum network and integrated Nvidia's CUDA-Q with its own quantum management software. Revenue grew 14 percent in the first half of the year, with quantum services revenue up 34 percent. That growth is from a small base, with the company still running large losses, as we saw in the French quantum round up

Pasqal is fast becoming Europe's flagship quantum company, and a test case for whether European deeptech can scale without moving to the US. Is a Nasdaq listing a sign of success, or a sign that Europe still lacks the capital markets to support its own champions? And can Pasqal keep its French identity as a US listed company?

Nasdaq-listed Pasqal To Refocus And Pursue Fault-tolerant Quantum Computing (FTQC)quantumzeitgeist.com