A Preseed Quantum Startup Has Got my Attention

What is Haiqu?

Hey Everyone,

It feels like it’s been a while that I covered a good Quantum computing startups coming out of stealth, or is it just me? A first wave of startups have manifested and there’s still a nascent period before Quantum computing has scale, or mass adoption or anything like that.

A lot of the PR I’m reading of late is not very good. I’m reading so many papers in A.I., I don’t have the bandwidth to cover Quantum computing papers, nor frankly the credentials to understand them. I’m primarily in this sense a startup analyst covering emerging tech. A lot of my coverage is niche and not widely read.

Covering both Venture capital trends and the stock market helps me have a grounded view of innovation. Sometimes Pre-seed companies are worthy of mentioning, this is perhaps such a company.

McKinsey estimated that quantum computing could create nearly $1.3 trillion in value by 2035.

Haiqu Raises $4M in Pre-Seed Funding

The PR came out on June 6th, 2023. Haiqu, a startup building software to enhance the performance of quantum processors, today announced it has closed a $4M financing round led by MaC Venture Capital, with participation from Toyota Ventures, SOMA capital, u.ventures, SID Venture Partners, and Roosh Ventures. The round also included private contributions from Paul Holland, Alexi Kirilenko, and Gordy Holterman.

They are San Francisco based but have Ukrainian-American connections.

Led by CEO Richard Givhan and CTO Mykola Maksymenko, Haiqu is a quantum computing software startup focused on developing enabling technology enhancing the performance of modern quantum hardware. Their software addresses the adoption bottlenecks precluding scalable quantum applications and enables a broader set of practical use-cases in finance, life sciences, mobility and other domains.

The company intends to use the funds to drive its research and development efforts and the establishment of strategic partnerships to bring their product to market.

Mykola (CTO) according to his LinkedIn, built a Global R&D department (Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Singapore) of Technical, Product design and Commercialization teams (100+ experts) covering deep tech areas like AI for Life Science, Quantum Computing, Machine Perception(Computer Vision, Ambient Sensing, Edge AI), Hardware Acceleration and prototyping, Human-Computer Interaction (VR/AR/Haptics interfaces). As R&D leader I focus on enhancing a deep-tech/scientific expertise at SoftServe allowing to tackle challenging business problems in our strategic verticals (Fintech, Healthcare, Retail, Energy and others).

• His academic research focuses on the modeling and analysis of various complex systems using methods of theoretical physics.

• Haiqu is about 5 months old as of June, 2023, so it was founded around February, 2023.

Givhan has a background from Standford. He’s listed as the CEO of Haiqu since September, 2022. He’s listed as a founder in Quantum Stream (Toronto). The Creative Destruction Lab. The CDL-Toronto Quantum stream is a place for early stage ventures that are exploring quantum technologies for computing, sensing, and communication looking to bring their scientific work out of the lab and build it into a scalable business.

I was wondering when the startup accelerators specifically for Quantum would be featured in funding rounds. I’m sure there are many I’m missing, but this preseed $4 million is a good beginning.

That Toyota is one of the first investors is really interesting.

Specs of the $4M in Financing

• Haiqu announced that it has closed a $4M financing round led by MaC Venture Capital.

• Toyota Ventures, SOMA capital, u.ventures, SID Venture Partners and Roosh Ventures also participated in the round.

• Haiqu builds software to enhance the performance on quantum processors.

• Image provided: Haiqu’s leadership team Mykola Maksymenko (CTO) and Richard Givan (CEO).

I had never heard of Mac-Venture Capital. MaC Venture Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in technology startups leveraging “shifts in cultural trends and behaviors.” You can see their portfolio here.

Toyota Ventures founding general partner Jim Adler and senior associate Chris Abshire drove Toyota Ventures' participation in the company's pre-seed financing round. [Link]

Do note that Givan has a background as an internet in Space-Technology. He also seems to have had a job in the EV sector.