QuTwoFinnish AI lab founded by former AMD Silo AI CEO Peter Sarlin is now valued at €325 million (about $380 million) after raising a €25 million ($29 million) angel round. It’s a sign of continued tailwinds for AI, quantum computing and sovereign tech, especially European-made companies.
QuTwo’s name hints at quantum computing, but it hasn’t gone all-in on quantum. Its flagship product, QuTwo OS, is an orchestration layer that directs tasks to classical, quantum, or hybrid architectures — with the idea that enterprise use cases are best served by “quantum-inspired” computing that uses classical chips to simulate quantum behavior on more reliable hardware.
Enterprise AI will be QuTwo’s bread and butter. The company has already generated nearly $23 million in revenue thanks to a design partnership with retail giant Zalando, which helped develop AI assistants. “AI is the North Star we’ll continue to aim for. Quantum is just a new kind of computing,” said Sarlin, who is bullish on QuTwo. is an AI company.
Momentum is built around AI labs based in Europe, several of which have become unicorns overnight. Last week, former DeepMind researcher David Silver secured $1.1 billion for his new endeavor. Incredible Intelligence. The QuTwo’s valuation and girth are somewhat modest in comparison, but will allow it to continue its road map under less pressure.
According to Sarli, who serves as QuTwo’s executive chairman, this is the same decision he made for his previous company, Silo AI. AMD bought it for $665 million In 2024. “I had a lot of investors who wanted to put a lot of money into making Silo the OpenAI of Europe, but I didn’t believe in the game,” he told TechCrunch.
The main difference is that QuTwo wants the freedom to think long-term with a five- to ten-year horizon. “Given that Europe has failed to build an AI company for this era, we are on a mission to build a globally leading AI company for the next paradigm,” said Sarlin.
It’s not that Sarli is a bear on European AI, of which he is a prolific supporter. And he is not critical of very large rounds – he also volunteered that he was an investor. Yann LeCun’s Ami Labwhich attracted 1.03 billion dollarsand Recursive Superintelligence in the British-American enterprise, which rumors spread that he was going the same way. But he didn’t see a billion-dollar round as a good fit for QuTwo — nor VC money, at least not yet.
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Until recently, QuTwo was financed exclusively through Sarli’s family office. My PostScriptwhich was also incubated to carryanother company where he is the executive director. But NestAI collected about 115 million dollars In the funding round led by Finland’s sovereign wealth fund and Nokia, QuTwo did not intend to raise external funding.
However, when the lab’s soft launch attracted significant interest earlier this year, Sarlin decided to say no to checks from VCs and strategic investors, but yes to an angel round, partly because of the geopolitical moment Europe is currently navigating.
Increasingly with Europe It is looking to favor domestic alternatives to US technology providersThere are tailwinds for AI in Finland. But there is also investor appetite for a company that promises to facilitate more ambitious R&D initiatives in areas where the region has strong players, such as the automotive, life sciences and gaming sectors.
Instead, Sarlin expects that QuTwo’s angel investors will be able to open doors across Europe. This group, which includes Yuri Milner, Xavier Niel, Nico Rosberg, Dieter Schwarz and Niklas Zennström, as well as many startup founders from Hugging Space, Legora, Miro, Skype, Supercell, Wolt and more, definitely has a few introductions he could ask for.
This will support the growth of QuTwo. Recently expanded and recruited in Sweden. According to Sarli, about 50 quantum and artificial intelligence scientists have joined the team, which includes two other second-time entrepreneurs: Kaj-Mikael Björk, his former co-founder at Silo; and Kuan Yen Tan, co-founder of Finnish quantum company IQM will be made public.
QuTwo’s tie-up with IQM is also a reminder that the company believes we’re about to enter the quantum era — it just can’t wait. “The question for co-founders like (us) is how can we make a bigger impact. In the long term, it’s important for Europe that we build a next-paradigm AI company outside of Europe. But in the short term, we can have a significant impact on ambitious R&D moonshots in Europe,” Sarlin said.
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