Orange QS has raised €1.5M pre-seed to build fast quantum chip test equipment for the emerging quantum industry. The round was co-led by QDNL Participations and Cottonwood Technology Fund.
For three years, they have developed and delivered diagnostics tools for the quantum R&D market. Now they can start supporting the emerging quantum industry. This investment, together with the EIC Accelerator grant, enables them to develop the world’s most capable quantum chip test equipment.
As quantum chip development moves from the lab into industrial fabrication facilities (‘from lab to fab’), the ability to test quantum chips becomes even more of a bottleneck than it is today. Currently, testing a small quantum chip requires weeks, using a full cryogenic quantum lab and a team of dedicated quantum engineers. Testing in an industrial setting only makes the requirements of the cryogenic test environment more stringent, while at the same time demanding much shorter test times per chip.
We build test equipment to tackle this challenge. Our Industry Systems will provide an easy, affordable and fast alternative to in-house testing solutions, that industry customers would otherwise have to build themselves. This approach is well-known in the semiconductor industry, where ATE (Automated Test Equipment) companies focus on building test equipment. Doing this for quantum chips, however, requires quantum expertise, which sets us apart.
Although this is our first round of external funding, we’ve operated commercially for three years already, selling products and executing subsidized projects. We have grown to a full-time team of 17 people, and established our own cryogenic lab facilities in Delft. For the R&D market, we made our Quantum Diagnostics Libraries available as a product, a suite of proprietary software libraries that you can use as a student or researcher of quantum devices. Also for the R&D market, we launched the Orange Rack, a stack of control electronics seamlessly integrated with the Quantum Diagnostics Libraries that guarantees automation of your qubit diagnostics process. Both product lines will be further developed for superconducting devices and expanded to other qubit platforms.
The new funds will be used to develop Orange QS’ next generation of quantum chip test equipment for the new ‘industry’ market. This equipment will provide the emerging quantum industry with a turnkey solution optimized for high-throughput qubit testing.
