The Promise of Nu Quantum: Entanglement Fabric

a Series A dropped in December worth watching.

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One of the few things that gets me optimistic about the future of Quantum computing, are the new startups that get funding. In recent years U.K. Universities have been such a talent bed with some promising spin-outs.

In early December, 2025 we learned that the University of Cambridge spin-off developing photonic networking hardware designed to enable distributed quantum computing systems, has raised $60 million. This is a decent amount for a Series A. We need new approaches to Quantum, many of them. More specifically, Nu Quantum is a UK-based quantum technology company founded in 2018 as a spin-out from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

I’m always on the lookout for startup with bold new visions for how things get connected.

Core Technology: The “Entanglement Fabric”

Rather than building its own quantum processor, Nu Quantum builds the “connective tissue” that allows different quantum processing units (QPUs) to talk to each other. This modular approach is what excites me about them and is designed to overcome the physical limits of single-chip scaling.

Nu Quantum is aiming to create the internet of quantum computers.

A Diversified group of Investors

The round was led by National Grid Partners, including participation from Gresham House Ventures and Morpheus Ventures, and continued support from existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital, Ahren Innovation Capital, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, East Innovate, NSSIF, and Sumitomo Corporation (Presidio Ventures).

It was of course more than 5 years ago since Nu Quantum first got Seed funding. Nu Quantum is one of a handful of companies in the world developing this photonics technology.

Quantum Computer Networking

→ Largest financing round for quantum computer networking, cementing the creation of a new category of distributed quantum computing and validating the growing demand for modular, scaling networking technologies within quantum computing

→ One of the largest series A financing rounds globally in quantum computing, showing huge energy and growth in the sector as a whole.

→ Largest Series A for a UK quantum company ever, a huge honour for them I am sure given there are so many world-leading quantum companies born there.

By generating and distributing entanglement between qubits across different processors, Nu Quantum’s technology allows for distributed architectures—similar to how classical networking enables cloud and HPC data centers—potentially accelerating the path to commercially viable quantum computers.

The round is essentially an oversubscribed Series A funding. It took a while to get from seed to Series A, but it is the Quantum winter for sure.

Some reporting around Nu Quantum insinuates that Nu Quantum’s pitch stands out because it deals in concrete, engineering-focused quantum infrastructure rather than high-level promise. While I think that’s a bit of a stretch, the ideal is at least noted.

The company has developed 19-inch rack-mount Quantum Networking Units (QNUs).

So it actually does not build quantum computers; it builds the photonic modules that allow different quantum devices—trapped-ion systems, superconducting qubits, silicon spin qubits, and others—to exchange entangled photons. So that modularity and interoperability is fairly interesting.

The CEO of Nu Quantum is Dr. Carmen Palacios-Berraquero. In a linkedin post she said it was <5 months to term sheet), significantly oversubscribed, and bringing in global & highly-credible capital from UK, US, EU, and Japan.

Key members of team and support network include Claire Le Gall, Ed Wood and Daniel Garden's commercial and technical direction, Hemant Mardia, Samantha Funnell, Jonathan C., Amii Shepperson, Jonathan Lees, Dr. Mario De Miguel Ramos, and Simone Eizagirre Barker, Coral Westoby, and Nicolas Sanchez, and other CEOs and advisors: Laura Elvin, Nina H., Hailey Eustace, Ashmi Bhagani, Corinne Thompson (ACA), Marina Matijaca.

Can this help Quantum Computing with scalability?

The fundamental idea in the startup is thus: The company’s Entanglement Fabric is designed to interconnect multiple quantum processors via photonic links, addressing the scalability barrier that limits today’s single-processor systems.

Interesting to me the strong female leadership and ushering in new levels of collaboration in their product and stack, unlike what we mostly cover on this Newsletter.

The CEO once said:

“The future of quantum computing rests on our ability to scale to datacenter-scale systems which will unlock real-world utility and commercial value.

“To get there, we need collective and purposeful action, along with close collaboration across the industry to support the same healthy and vibrant competition that has powered cloud and high-performance compute services.”

So Nu Quantum has a distinctive strategy of how to fast-track the future of Quantum computing. It reminds me a bit of how Nvidia operates huge partnerships with startups to facilitate their progress along various tracks of emerging technology.

The funding will accelerate Nu Quantum’s mission to reach fault tolerance by interconnecting quantum processors into a more powerful distributed quantum computer, unlocking the projected $1 trillion quantum computing market. Ironically $1 Trillion is what is expected to be spent on datacenters just in the next four years (2026 to 2030).

Nu Quantum is evolving as a kind of quantum laboratory. Rather than isolated demonstrations in lab conditions, their modules are designed to operate alongside cryogenic hardware, commercial telecom components, and installed fiber with known imperfections. Engineers spend as much time dealing with thermal drift, alignment stability, and noise in optical fiber as they do on quantum performance. It’s the work that determines whether a technology can survive outside a physics lab.

Nu Quantum believes that its quantum networking infrastructure – the Entanglement Fabric – will help unlock and underpin the mass commercialisation of quantum computing via distributed architectures in quantum data centres.

Nu Quantum is called a uniquely European startup where as is often the case in the U.K, the company grew out of a Cambridge ecosystem with deep roots in photonics and quantum optics.

While Europe lags behind in AI and most everything, Quantum computing and strong Universities in physics is one area where Europe might actually punch above its weight.

Watch the Video

The CEO was also interviewed by Bloomberg recently you can watch the video here. What if the future of Quantum isn’t about qubits but more about Quantum Networking?

Europe has world-class quantum research but historically lagged in commercializing it. So it’s pretty exciting to see what Nu Quantum comes to.

Is the Entanglement Fabric realistic?

• Entanglement Fabric: A quantum networking layer that uses photons (particles of light) to create entanglement links between separate processors.

• Quantum Networking Unit (QNU): A rack-mounted hardware system (launched in 2025) that acts as a “switch” for quantum information.

• Qubit-Photon Interface: Hardware that extracts light from quantum processors so it can be transmitted across a network.

• Interoperability: Their technology is “modality-agnostic,” meaning it can connect different types of qubits, such as superconducting, trapped-ion, or neutral-atom systems.

Given who in vogue AI datacenters are it’s interesting to speculate upon what a Quantum one might look like in terms of engineering. At best, Nu Quantum’s quantum networking stack opens a new approach: enabling quantum computers to scale by weaving individual processors into a modular, distributed computing fabric. Networking has played a critical role in the classical computing industry, enabling Cloud and AI data centers, and high performance computing.

Startups are hard, obviously Quantum computing related startups are much much harder. So it will be interesting to see how the company evolves and how it plans to make money.

Nu Quantum Collaborations 2025 Milestones

• Record Funding: In December 2025, Nu Quantum closed a $60 million Series A round, the largest ever for a pure-play quantum networking company. The round was led by National Grid Partners.

• Quantum Datacenter Alliance (QDA): Nu Quantum founded this alliance alongside giants like Cisco, Quantinuum, and NTT Data to standardize how quantum computers are integrated into modern data centers.

• CERN Collaboration: They became the first industrial partner to use CERN’s “White Rabbit” technology, which provides the ultra-precise timing (sub-nanosecond) required to synchronize quantum networks.

As you can imagine, Nu Quantum already collaborates with national labs, campus-scale testbeds, and telecom operators responsible for critical infrastructure.

Their vision for a Series A is super grand! The Series A funding will be used to accelerate Nu Quantum’s Entanglement Fabric roadmap, expand its multidisciplinary team and fuel its global growth. I predict they could be acquired by someone like Amazon or Nvidia in about 2029.

Working toward its goal of reaching fault tolerance, the firm has collaborated with Cisco Systems, USA, and Quantinuum, UK, to establish the Quantum Data Center Alliance (QDA) and says the recent fundraising round will allow the company to continue its work bringing the quantum industry under the QDA’s umbrella.

The startup’s roadmap sounds absurdly ambitious and will require so much funding, it’s hard to even imagine. The PR is as usual, light on the details. Now read carefully:

The quantum networking layer

Quantum computers rely on qubits and high-quality entanglement between them to run powerful computations. To move beyond isolated processors, we must create entanglement links between qubits in adjacent processors, via photonic quantum networking. Achieving this with high-fidelity and high rate is today the single biggest technical challenge preventing the modular scaling of quantum computers, communication and sensor networks. Nu Quantum’s modular, interoperable networking layer – called the Entanglement Fabric – will provide the architecture and connectivity at the rates necessary for distributed, fault-tolerant computing.

Nu Quantum’s future plans

Nu Quantum’s significant fundraise will drive the next phase of product development and deployment, delivering on an ambitious roadmap to advance quantum networking state-of-the-art in both performance and scale. Nu Quantum will build on the success of its world-first quantum networking subsystems: the Qubit-Photon Interface in 2024, and the Quantum Networking Unit in 2025. The overall system architecture will be informed by its pioneering work on Distributed Quantum Error Correction.

The funding will also support Nu Quantum’s international expansion, including the growth of its presence in Europe and the US. Following the opening of its Los Angeles office in 2024, the company has built a strong US-based Strategic Advisory Board, including Dr. Robert Sutor, formerly of IBM, and Roland Acra, former CTO of networking giant Cisco System, and Richard Moulds, former Head of Amazon Braket, the AWS Quantum Computing as a Service platform. Nu Quantum will continue to bring together the ecosystem under the umbrella of the Quantum Datacenter Alliance (QDA), and work with Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) partners to advance network-processor integration.

My favorite article I could find on the Series A is this one. Quantum computing startups need to be highly dynamic in partnerships to scale and for Nu Quantum this appears even more true.

Nu Quantum has also developed a US-based strategic advisory board since opening an office in Los Angeles, USA, in 2024. The company says the series A funds will support its continued international expansion.

Let’s Look at the Investors Again

The funding round was led by the venture wing of National Grid Partners, UK, who operate the United Kingdom’s electricity network. Gresham House Ventures, UK, and Morpheus Ventures, USA, also participated, along with existing investors UK-based Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital, Ahren Capital, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, East Innovate and National Security Investment Fund; and Japan-based Sumitomo (Presidio Ventures).

This is a DeepTech moonshot out of the UK if I ever saw one. Quantum computing has been having a lot of difficulty scaling the past ten to twenty years. It’s progress has been super slow even with huge funding rounds and SPACs of companies that don’t even have solid business fundamentals or revenue.

The CEO calls herself a quantum physicist, inventor and entrepreneur. She was quoted saying:

“When we launched seven years ago, very few were thinking about networked or distributed quantum computing as a strategy for scaling, but we saw it as one of the most urgent and challenging outstanding problems in the industry, and set out to solve it. We’ve made great strides in shaping the market and the technology since then.

“As we’ve grown, I’m proud we have created a culture defined by fearless innovation, and fuelled by collaboration and diversity under a shared mission to accelerate quantum computing for good. This investment validates our vision and the maturity of our solution as the path to scaling. I’d like to warmly thank the Nu Quantum team for their achievements, and our investors for their support.”

I’m not sure even she understands how difficult the technical challenge she is proposing might be: best defined in her quote: “We want to scale quantum computing to achieve fault tolerance and usefulness more quickly than can be achieved monolithically.” This project could easily take twenty years to figure out well.

But how will they make money?

Nu Quantum’s belief is that the mass commercialisation of quantum computing will happen via distributed architectures in quantum data centers, underpinned by Nu Quantum’s networking infrastructure — the Entanglement Fabric. Way after LLMs who knows what computing and architecture paradigms we will be living in in ten to twenty years from now.

It’s true that achieving real utility and fault tolerance will require scaling to systems with 1,000 times more qubits than exist today. Nu Quantum focuses on photonic quantum networking to enable distributed quantum computing, addressing a recognized bottleneck: interconnecting smaller quantum processors for scalable, fault-tolerant systems.

While I’m excited about Infleqtion (ticker: "INFQ") and Quantinuum going public, we’ll need many more innovative startups like Nu Quantum to find a tangible way forward.

Nu Quantum is basically a glorified R&D project. It’s not a company per se yet. As of late 2025, it remains in a heavy R&D and product development phase (recently launching subsystems like the Qubit-Photon Interface in 2024 and Quantum Networking Unit in 2025). I wish I saw more evidence of the actual business. So often when University labs spin out there is that familiar disconnect from R&D to sustainable corporation.

But if you say “Quantum datacenter” enough, Venture Funds get a certain gleam in their eyes. They will need serious corporate backers to even survive a few years and validate their thesis. The UK has to pick and choose who it wants to fund that are moonshots this wild? Nu Quantum has like I have mentioned secured partnerships with major players like Cisco, Quantinuum, Oxford Quantum Circuits, and Infleqtion, plus government support (e.g., UK Innovate grants, collaborations with CERN and NQCC). But it needs a bigger partner like Nvidia.

If it begins to fail even IonQ could be a potential buyer. They don’t have many years to make significant progress. Everyone wants to build a full-stack Quantum company, but it will require not just academic prowess and partnerships but commercial insight and business accuum not typically seen out of the U.K. Listen to this podcast. You can found a Quantum Datacenter Alliance, but if the tech is not ready, what is the point? Many questions remain over this very speculative startup. The CEO’s ability in sales might be as important as the qualifications of her engineers at this point.

Could Nu Quantum be the Cisco of the Quantum Era? Or just an R&D project that someone like Amazon, Nvidia, Cisco or OpenAI acquires? Sadly if this concept came out of Tel Aviv I’d have more confidence. We’ve seen what happens to U.K. academic spin-outs many many times in Quantum startup history.

Nu Quantum’s modular networking strategy is seen as a pragmatic path forward, avoiding reliance on monolithic mega-qubit processors but its realization will likely be prohibitively expensive and way more complex than a small team can pull off. Sadly $60 million is nothing compared to the herculean challenge they have taken on.

Sure we need more female CEOs in Quantum startups, but what is the price for that added attention, scrutiny and skepticism? Europeans talking about diversity and collaboration in an era of Trump feels tone deaf and is not what I want to hear out of an emerging tech startups leadership team necessarily. Quantum computing startups are by their very nature collaborative, global and diverse.

I understand Europe desperately wants to be relevant in deep and emerging tech. But is this the way? The odds of this being a sort of ASML or Cisco of Quantum is astronomically low. If Quantinuum acquired them and this was an internal R&D project, I’d have more confidence. Taking five years to go from seed to Series A is super long and not typically a good sign. Even in a Quantum winter.

Nu Quantum expects mass commercialization of quantum computing to happen via distributed architectures in quantum datacenters. It may be indeed right, but it very likely won’t be around to see that event actually take place. And this is the dream that all Quantum startups appear to suffer from, an odd conviction that they have the capital to achieve their moonshot. As someone who watches startups and sees patterns in their developments, consider me skeptical as usual.

What do you think, Is Nu Quantum special or am I missing something? This is an off-the-cuff take, there simply isn’t information about a company at this stage to dig into the details. Incredibly early-stage.