SandboxAQ acquires Good Chemistry 🧪🔬🧬👨🏻‍🔬

Quantum simulating and designing drugs as well as developing new materials is hot space in 2024.

Hey Everyone,

I don’t usually cover trivial partnerships or PR not related to startups, that includes most of the time stock news or M&A. But today I’ll make an exception. (although I loath to put the Sandbox and “AQ” in one word, but fine!)

The reason is it concerns SandboxAQ, one of the most important Quantum startups in the world in my opinion. ‍‍SandboxAQ is an enterprise SaaS company, providing solutions at the nexus of AI and Quantum technology (AQ) to address some of the world's greatest challenges.

SandboxAQ is one of the startups I more or less want to cover whenever there is some big news, similar to my fondness for Infleqtion (formerly Cold Quanta).

💡 A Major Acquisition 🤝

Sandbox AQ, the AI and quantum firm spun out of Google parent company Alphabet in 2022, has acquired Good Chemistry, a Vancouver-based quantum and computational chemistry startup, for an undisclosed sum.

This is the company’s second acquisition since Sept. 2022.

So why does this even matter? The deal, worth around $75 million, highlights growing commercial demand for new ways of simulating and designing drugs as well as developing new materials, according to the WSJ.

SandboxAQ is one of the most generously funded Quantum startups in the world today.

🧱 Quantum’s Future to help develop New Materials Looks Bright ♻️

• Good Chemistry, founded by Arman Zaribafiyan in 2021 as a spin-off of quantum computing company 1QBit and backed by investors including Green Sands Equity and Accenture Ventures, offers cloud-based tools to accelerate material design.

• Good Chemistry’s platform lets chemistry developers build chemical simulation apps and workflows using algorithms in quantum chemistry and machine learning as well as quantum computing.

As we enter a new era of Space-Technology, Quantum’s abilities become more important, also in this new world of geopolitical conflict and cybersecurity worries even worsened by Generative AI itself.

“Combining forces, we absolutely can serve this market at a bigger scale and with more capability,” said SandboxAQ Chief Executive Jack Hidary.

Sandbox AQ is a spin-out from Alphabet and had nine figure funding. They were originally founded around 2016. So they are now approaching a more maturity level as a business.

“Good Chemistry’s software and existing partnerships will enable us to rapidly accelerate how we bring the benefits of advanced simulation and AI tools to more customers,” said Dr. Nadia Carlsten, Vice President of Product at SandboxAQ. “Combining our capabilities will give SandboxAQ an advanced and scalable computing platform for highly accurate chemical simulation on a scale that makes impactful use cases such as new drug and material synthesis possible.”

Whatever ceiling Quantum simulation has, many are betting it has a legit future in materials and drug development.