Quantum Error-Reduction Software Maker Q-CTRL Raises $290 Million Series C

Money is pouring into companies that build quantum computers. Oratomic raised a $475 million Series B in October, and Universal Quantum closed a Series A of more than $100 million. But whether qubits are made from neutral atoms or trapped ions, the problem is the same: they are sensitive to noise and make errors mid-calculation. Q-CTRL, an Australian company that sells software to reduce those errors, said it raised a $290 million Series C (A$415 million). It says the round makes it the newest quantum unicorn, though it did not disclose a valuation.

Software that makes other companies’ chips usable

Q-CTRL does not build quantum computers. Founded in 2017 by Michael Biercuk, a University of Sydney physicist, it sells software that helps machines built by other companies run better. It pitches a hardware-agnostic design that is not tied to any one qubit technology.

It has two main products. Fire Opal is cloud software that automatically shortens the quantum circuits a developer writes, maps them onto a chip according to each machine’s error profile and corrects measurement errors before returning results. It runs on IBM’s quantum service, IonQ and Rigetti systems and Amazon Braket, among others, and the company claims it can run circuits up to 10 times deeper on the same hardware. Boulder Opal is for those who build or operate quantum computers. Even after it is switched on, a quantum computer needs its control signals tuned qubit by qubit, and the product automates that calibration and upkeep without a team of physicists. It supports superconducting and semiconductor spin-qubit machines, with trapped-ion and neutral-atom support available on request, the company says. Its target customers are chipmakers and data center and HPC operators. In computing, the company also claims a 3,000x speedup in materials discovery for the energy sector.

The third business pairs software with sensors. Ironstone Opal is a navigation system for places where GPS is unavailable or jammed. It measures tiny variations in the Earth’s magnetic field and matches them against a magnetic map to find its position. The company builds the quantum magnetometers itself, and AI software filters out the magnetic interference the aircraft generates. The company says the system is 100 times better than the best alternative, but in its published flight trial it reported up to 50 times lower positioning uncertainty than an inertial navigation system. It says Ironstone Opal is being deployed on commercial aircraft with Airbus, on autonomous platforms with Lockheed Martin and on drones. All performance figures come from the company.

Led by Salesforce Ventures, expanded twice

Salesforce Ventures led the round, with Bullhound Capital and Affinity Partners named as headline participants. The company says it expanded the round twice to meet investor demand and calls it the largest raise by a software-focused quantum company. Q-CTRL expanded its Series B to $113 million in October 2024.

New investors are Affinity Partners, AMD Ventures, EDGE Group, MPower Partners, Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation and SPARX Asset Management. Returning investors are Alpha Edison, Alumni Ventures, Bullhound Capital, DCVC, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Main Sequence, Ridgeline, Salesforce Ventures, Salus Ventures and Square Peg. The company says the mix of strategic, private equity and growth-stage venture investors positions it to scale through joint sales, technology integration and direct revenue.

Salesforce Ventures said the hard problem in quantum is getting useful output from the machine, not building it. It pointed to a materials simulation run on IBM hardware that developers can call directly from the IBM Quantum Platform, and to what it described as the first quantum navigation system qualified for safety of flight. Bullhound called Q-CTRL one of the few quantum companies with real customers and real revenue, and MPower Partners said it wants to help expand the company’s footprint in Japan.

Q-CTRL plans to use the funds to double down on software, scale globally across sectors such as finance and energy, and continue its autonomy and aerospace programs. Biercuk said the company’s core value is delivering real customer value from quantum technology, which is why it focuses on infrastructure software. The company did not disclose revenue, total funding to date or customer counts.

Competitors: the same software layer, and hardware makers building their own

Q-CTRL’s pitch is that errors remain no matter which qubit technology wins. The quantum computer makers Wowtale has covered span neutral atoms (Oratomic and Atom Computing), trapped ions (Universal Quantum), superconducting qubits (Qilimanjaro) and photonics (PsiQuantum), and no winner has emerged. Such hardware makers are a potential customer base for software like Q-CTRL’s, though none is confirmed as a Q-CTRL partner.

In the same software layer, QEDMA tackles the problem closest to Fire Opal’s. The Israeli company’s QESEM software analyzes each device’s noise pattern, suppresses some errors and mitigates the rest in post-processing, and it is offered through IBM’s Qiskit Functions catalog. QEDMA raised a $26 million Series A in July 2025 with participation from IBM and Korea Investment Partners. Quantum Machines makes control hardware for quantum computers and raised a $170 million Series C; its CEO has said more than half of the companies in the field use its technology. Because Boulder Opal supports its controllers, it is both a rival and a complement. Britain’s Riverlane builds error-correction chips and software and raised a $75 million Series C in August 2024. Classiq makes quantum circuit design software, raised a $110 million Series C in May 2025 and is integrated with Fire Opal.

Hardware makers building their own software are another variable. Atom Computing has said part of its Series C money goes to error-correction and control software, and Qilimanjaro builds full-stack systems with its own chips, software, cryogenics and control electronics. For Q-CTRL, these companies are both customers and potential in-house rivals. In navigation, SandboxAQ unveiled AQNav in June 2024, a system that uses AI and quantum sensors to read the Earth’s magnetic field and is aimed at the same GPS-jamming problem.