IQM, the Finnish startup that has raised more than $570 million over the years to fuel its big ambition of building the world’s first scalable quantum computer, is kicking off a new scaling chapter of its own.
Today, the company announced that it will be going public, in the US, by way of a SPAC deal. The Real Asset Acquisition Corporation, a blank check company that listed on Nasdaq last year, plans to merge with IQM.
The deal will value IQM at $1.8 billion, the companies said — a bump up from the $1.2 billion valuation it achieved last year when it raised $320 million. This will make IQM the most valuable quantum business in Europe, and the first one from the region to move to a public listing.
European startups moving operations to the US has to scale has been a regular issue in the region, with each move seen as an erosion of tech sovereignty. But although IQM’s listing is in the US, IQM said it plans to remain a Finnish company headquartered in Finland, according Jan Goetz, IQM’s co-founder who took on the role of “sole” CEO last month.
(Co-founder Mikko Välimäki, who previously shared the role with Goetz, is transitioning out of the company by the end of March, remaining an adviser.)
Goetz also said that the company is also considering listing in Finland alongside Nasdaq in the US.
As with other SPACs, IQM’s deal is a move to give it more cash to continue building, since while quantum computing remains in the realm of deep tech, the race to build it requires equally deep pockets, and IQM made just $35 million in revenues last year.
The merger and listing will give IQM a cash balance of $450 million: $175 million from RAAC (which will get a 10% share of the company); a PIPE loan of $134 million “from leading new and existing and institutional investors” (which will close with the business combination, subject to conditions); $24 million in exercised IQM warrants; and IQM’s existing cash, which was $172 million at the end of 2025. And once it’s listed, IQM will potentially be able to use that status to raise more.
The deal has already had the unanimous approval of both IQM and RAAC boards, the pair said, and is expected to close in June 2026.
The volatile state of quantum computing
IQM is positioning the listing as a power move, but it also underscores the volatile state of quantum computing (pun intended).
There are a number of companies and organisations racing to build fully operational quantum computing infrastructure, which holds the promise of being able to perform calculations and research beyond what any computer can achieve today. Nobody has managed yet to figure out how to keep current quantum systems from falling over after mere minutes of sustained use, but national security organisations are worried of the risks that would arise if adversaries achieve this feat before their allies do.
This has created a race among countries, as well as a very regular and active stream of funding being channeled into a variety of approaches and aspects of quantum computing, in aid of what effectively continues to remain a deep tech challenge.
“Quantum advantage” therefore has become not just the ability to build a quantum computer that works better than a present-day supercomputer, but the ability to build systems that are quantum-safe — that is, hardened against quantum advances, in case those advances come from nefarious agents — as well as the ability to fund those efforts.
IQM has been one of the startups at the receiving end of financial largesse. Its funding rounds have included heated tranches of over $100 million and $300 million over the years from a list of nearly 30 investors that include, per PitchBook data, Ten Eleven Ventures, Tencent, OurCrowd and 55 North. (These are all staying on board: IQM said that its existing shareholders “will not sell any shares or receive any cash consideration as part of the transaction and all material IQM shareholders have committed to a customary lock-up agreement at close of this transaction.” We are asking the company if Tencent remains an investor and how that would work in the event of the US listing.)
Yet as with other quantum computing, AI and other technoloy companies, IQM hasn’t — yet? — made back the large amounts of money it has raised from investors. The company said it expects to make $35 million in revenues for FY 2025, with $100 million in bookings for the future (it’s unclear, however, how many years that forward figure covers).
Part of its attraction nevertheless has been its traction.
IQM says that it has sold 21 systems to 13 customers to-date, including what it says are four out of the top 10 supercomputing centres globally. They include the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Cineca in Italy, and Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI). Partners of the company include Nvidia, HP and T-Systems. It also claims to have built more than 30 quantum computers, as well as its own data centre and chip foundry.
“IQM has built and delivered more on-premises quantum systems than any other competitor — to some of the most demanding research institutions on earth,” said Peter Ort, CEO and co-chairman of Real Asset Acquisition Corp, in a statement. “This transaction will accelerate the growth of a company that has already earned its position in the field, with real customers, running real quantum systems, today.”
While IQM has been a poster child for European digital sovereignty, it has also been one of the voices beating the drum for quantum computing as a real business rather than theoretical opportunity.
“We built IQM from the beginning for one purpose — to put working quantum computers in the hands of the people who will use them to solve real problems. Not someday. Now,” said Goetz in a statement. “Quantum computing is a science project no more. It is an industry where customers own, operate, and build on advanced quantum computers. That’s what IQM makes possible.”
