Quantum firms are racing to market as the industry hits ‘inflection point’
Photo from Horizon Quantum’s listing ceremony on Friday, March 20, 2026, at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City.
Quantum computing firms are defying turbulent markets to go public this year; companies are trying to raise funds to take advantage of the latest scientific breakthroughs and move experimental technology closer to commercialization.
Such a company Xanadu QuantumThe company, which makes quantum computing hardware and software, began trading on Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday, rising 15% in the U.S. after a rocky start in public markets.
Xanadu Quantum — chip giant’s quantum partner Nvidia — exited after merging with Crane Harbor Acquisition, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), also known as a ‘blank check firm’.
A SPAC is a shell company created specifically to raise capital through an IPO and has become a common way for quantum startups to list.
Xanadu’s listing comes a week after the Singapore-based quantum software company Horizon Quantum The blank check company began trading following its merger with dMY Squared Technology Group.
The narrative has shifted from the science project to the commercial orbit, and companies are taking advantage of this window.
Velu Sinha
Partner, Bain & Company
dMY Technology Group acquired ionQ It will go public in 2021 by merging with one of its shell companies, making it the first publicly traded pure-play quantum computing company.
Since then, SPACs have become a popular way for quantum companies to raise capital, offering a faster path to listing with less regulatory scrutiny.
Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum mechanics to process information in ways that classical computers cannot; with potential applications spanning drug discovery, materials science, cryptography and more. Although the technology remains experimental, it is widely viewed as potentially transformative.
Why now?
The recent wave of quantum listings comes at a turbulent time for global markets, as conflicts in the Middle East have shaken investor confidence, particularly in risky, speculative assets such as quantum companies.
Although stocks traded on Nasdaq completed the first day with an increase Xanadu It fell over 10% in after-hours trading. Horizon Quantum, meanwhile, is down nearly 18% since its launch. TwistShares of the company, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in February with a blank check deal on February 17, fell more than 30%.
Still, companies appear willing to brave these volatile markets to capitalize on recent breakthroughs in the industry.
Horizon Quantum’s founder and CEO, Dr. “It’s an interesting time to get into the public markets, of course, given everything that’s going on in the world… But for quantum computing, it’s actually a very ideal time to get into it,” Joe Fitzsimons told CNBC.
“We’re really starting to reach an inflection point,” he said, adding that a significant number of breakthroughs have occurred in the last 18 months.
Christian Weedbrook, CEO of Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., with a quantum computer at the company’s office in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on February 24, 2026.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In 2024 and 2025, many companies and research groups demonstrated advanced quantum error correction as a key requirement for building reliable machines.
Other milestones include higher qubit counts, which increase the potential size and complexity of problems a quantum computer can represent and help solve, and coherence times, which allow for more reliable calculations by reducing the impact of noise and errors.
“The first demonstrations of practical quantum advantage are expected to be at around 100 logical qubits, a threshold the industry is approaching in 2028-2029,” Velu Sinha, partner at Bain & Company, told CNBC.
“But for commercially effective applications such as drug discovery or large-scale logistics optimization, you need 1,000 to 10,000 logical qubits, which will most likely be in the mid-2030s,” he added.
This so-called “quantum advantage” refers to the theoretical breakthrough at which quantum computers solve real-world problems faster, more efficiently or more accurately than the best-known classical supercomputers.
A changing narrative
As companies race to capture the quantum advantage, investments in space are also increasing. Tech giants such as Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM have poured millions into the technology, but have largely eschewed the creation of independent public entities.
“The narrative has shifted from the science project to the commercial orbit, and companies are taking advantage of this window,” Sinha said.
“Quantum is one of the few technology categories that investors see as structurally inevitable… The addressable market is estimated to be between $100 billion and $250 billion once full maturity is reached, giving patient capital a reason to look beyond near-term volatility,” he added.
Early commercial applications are also emerging in areas such as optimization, financial modeling, and chemical simulations.
“It was the right time [to go public] because quantum and especially neutral atoms are moving from scientific advancement to commercial importance,” Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella told CNBC.
“Going public gives us the capital we need to accelerate commercialization and invest behind markets where we already see customer demand… We think commercialization will happen in phases. [quantum sensing and quantum timing] leading the way in the near term, and computing is expanding as performance continues to scale.”
For smaller quantum startups, short-term revenue opportunities are key to securing investor support in their long-term research.
Horizon Quantum Computing, for example, has focused on developing software tools that can run on both classical and quantum systems, positioning the company to generate revenue before large-scale quantum hardware becomes feasible.
The company’s CEO said the newly raised funds will be used to expand its research team and make an early iteration of its software available to early access users this year.
Xanadu Quantum has also invested in cloud-based platforms that allow developers to experiment with quantum algorithms using existing hardware.
From laboratories to the real world
Historically, governments have played a critical role in developing the quantum sector due to its heavy capital requirements.
The United States, China, and the European Union have devoted billions of dollars to quantum research and commercialization aimed at providing strategic advantages in computing and cybersecurity.
Government initiatives have mostly focused on or included support from universities and national laboratories.
However, the latest wave of public listings highlights how the industry is shifting from academic and public research to commercial markets, although timelines for widespread adoption remain unclear.
“Quantum computers will be able to perform trillions of calculations instantly, and this will absolutely revolutionize the way we behave with computers,” said Marc Einstein, research director at Counterpoint Research.
Einstein said the day when individuals will have quantum computers in their offices or homes may be decades away. But he added that a future in which large organizations own machines and provide quantum computing services could come much sooner.
