Singapore-based quantum software startup Entropica Labs has closed $4.7 million for its Series A round co-led by Italian venture capital firm Liftt and Wavemaker Partners.
The deeptech startup also raised from existing investors SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore; California-based CerraCap Ventures; SUTD Ventures; and Singapore-based deeptech seed investor Elev8 VC.
It last raised its $1.8-million seed round in 2020 from Asian investors including SGInnovate, Lim Teck Lee Group, Japanese software firm TIS Inc, V1 Capital, and Entrepreneur First.
According to a statement, Entropica will use the proceeds to expand its team and further develop its expertise in quantum error correction, software engineering, and computing architectures to fast-track software development.
Entropica was formed in 2018 as a spinoff from Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where two of its co-founders Tommaso Demarie and Ewan Munro are alumni members.
The firm develops software tools, methods, and models to make quantum computing accessible, mainstream, and error-free. Today, quantum computers promise to solve problems which are intractable even for the most powerful conventional supercomputers. However, they remain prone to errors due to their susceptibility to interactions with the environment.
This prevents quantum computers from producing reliable and scalable information which has the capacity to revolutionise fields in many areas including material science, chemistry, and machine learning.
“As hardware companies continue to unveil bigger and more advanced quantum computing systems, with some crossing significant computational thresholds, the need for sophisticated error correction schemes has never been greater. Years of working with real quantum systems have provided our team with invaluable experience and insights into what’s needed to make quantum computers useful,” said Tommaso Demarie, co-founder and CEO, Entropica Labs.
“Entropica has shown impressive operational efficiency with a small but highly talented team. This is particularly compelling, given the complexity of their field and the competition for talent. This funding enables them to focus on solving the urgent challenges in quantum computing, staying both realistic and ambitious,” said Pierluigi Freni, Project Manager at Liftt, a first-time investor in the company.
“We’re always looking to invest in quantum opportunities because it’s simply a matter of time before enterprise and government use cases become feasible. Despite massive raised in the industry, we can see that there is still enormous room to grow in terms of software development,” said Paul Santos, Managing Partner at Wavemaker Partners.
“We need to make sure that quantum developers and users have the tools they need to take full advantage of quantum computers, and Entropica is building those tools. By investing in Entropica, we hope to empower the next generation of quantum developers and engineers,” added Santos.