Quantum Motion Secures $160m in EU's First Major Late-Stage Commitment
May 7, 2026 - 8:39 am
The London company building silicon-CMOS spin qubits has been one of the cleaner technical credentials in European quantum hardware. The choice of investee for the EU’s first major late-stage venture commitment, announced post-Brexit, is itself the news.
The European Union’s new Scaleup Europe Fund has made its inaugural investment, leading a $160m round in UK-based Quantum Motion, as reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday. This deal surpasses any previous single funding round for European silicon-spin-qubit companies and marks the EU vehicle's first major late-stage commitment since its inception at the European Investment Fund.
The significance lies not only in the substantial funding but also in the choice of Quantum Motion as the fund's inaugural recipient. As a London-based startup, founded in 2017 by Professor John Morton (UCL) and Professor Simon Benjamin (Oxford), it operates outside the EU’s regulatory perimeter post-Brexit.
The selection highlights the Fund's mandate to support strategic technology areas like quantum computing, extending eligibility beyond strictly EU-domiciled companies to include globally aligned operators in the European tech ecosystem.
Quantum Motion’s technical approach involves building qubits using standard silicon-CMOS manufacturing processes already employed by the semiconductor industry at scale. While this trades short-term performance for long-term scalability, it offers a compelling alternative to current frontier systems that rely on custom production processes.
The company's technical case has been gaining traction:
- September 2025: Full-stack silicon-CMOS quantum computer delivered to the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre, marking the first full-stack delivery of its kind.
- November 2025: DARPA advanced Quantum Motion to QBI Stage B, recognizing the viability of its silicon-based fault-tolerant design for utility-scale quantum computing in the 2030s.
Prior funding for Quantum Motion included a £42m Series B round in 2023 led by Bosch Ventures and Porsche Automobil Holding, bringing total disclosed funding to over £62m. The new $160m round significantly doubles this amount, reflecting investor confidence in the silicon-spin-qubit technology at a time when competing approaches like superconducting and trapped-ion systems are also attracting substantial investments.