IQMA full-stack quantum company from Finland, Listed on the Nasdaq Thursday with a SPAC merger worth about $1.9 billion. But share prices did not rise. They spent most of the day below the IPO price – a warm welcome.
SPACs are mergers often not immediately popular with retail investors these days. But this confusion was undoubtedly fueled by IQM’s own admission avenue that “the large-scale commercial adoption of quantum computing technology may never happen.”
In fairness, this caveat applies to all quant companies. However, that hasn’t stopped the industry, including IQM, from getting customers who still use the technology for tasks like simulations and optimizations. IQM, which sells physical computers and cloud services, has clients such as Finland’s VTT Technical Research Center and Germany’s Leibniz Supercomputing Center.
“We sell computers to advanced supercomputing centers and data centers, and we sell computing time through the cloud,” CEO and co-founder Jan Goetz told TechCrunch.
A jump from 8 clients in 2024 to 22 in 2025 is a fair cause for celebration in IQM circles, especially when the two new clients are from the private sector. However, this also indicates that demand will not increase to scale “quantum advantage” — as quantum chips begin to outperform classical computers for a wider range of complex and lengthy tasks, opening up use cases from biotech to fintech, while also strengthening encryption.
But no one, not even a company that makes quantum computers, can say when that will happen.
That didn’t stop investors it doubles down about public and private quantum companies, further encouragement President Trump’s latest executive orders speeding up the timeline for quant. In response, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has committed to deploying “the world’s first fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant quantum computer” by 2028.
While it comes after similar announcements from France, Germany and the UK, Trump’s orders carry extra weight for IQM, which recently established a quantum technology center and deployed computers in Maryland. at Oak Ridge National LaboratoryIt is part of the DOE. “We can directly benefit from this,” Goetz said.
Unlike other European unicorns, IQM does not shift its center of gravity to the other side of the Atlantic. Parallel to the IQMX ticker in the US, where most of Quantum’s peers are listed, that’s why debut on Nasdaq Helsinki tomorrowIt expects continued support from the likes of Finland’s sovereign wealth fund, Tesi.
The story of IQM is inseparable from Finland. It was founded in 2018 as a company where two-thirds of the staff from Aalto University in Espoo, a tech and quantum hub near Helsinki, still work. But another hundred of its 420-strong team are based in Munich, with the rest spread across various locations to help the company on its global deployment roadmap.
IQM Avenue mentioned that the duo approached RAAQ, a blank check company that helped IQM. Go public through a SPAC. “As evidenced by the more than €200 million of public support given to IQM, European sovereign states and companies have supported IQM’s establishment as a prominent quantum computing company in Europe. IQM has also demonstrated its ability to operate outside of Europe,” according to the RAAQ board.
Despite its global ambitions, Goetz was proud that IQM was the first European quantum company to list in the US, as French rival Pascal also announced plans. Go public through a SPAC. “It’s always a good feeling to be first and pioneer, but ultimately it’s about long-term success,” Goetz said.
The transaction will generate new liquidity for IQM – approximately 198 million euros, or $226 million after expenses. But the company had already raised 300 million dollars last September. “It’s a huge success, raised shortly after Series B,” Goetz said. It also shows that IQM’s main goal was to position itself more prominently in a race full of unknowns.
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