EIC chooses nine quantum tech start-ups in latest funding round

In its most competitive funding rounds so far, the European Innovation Council has awarded grants to nine "cutting edge" quantum technology start-ups and SMEs.

The European Innovation Council (EIC) recently announced the results of their Transition and Accelerator calls following the last cut-offs in October 2024, calling them their "most competitive" funding rounds so far after record numbers of submissions were received. Despite this fierce competition, nine European quantum technology start-ups/SMEs were selected to receive grants.

The EIC Transition initiative aims at "accelerating groundbreaking technologies from lab to market readiness". From a record 413 proposals, the recent announcement revealed 40 projects were chosen to receive roughly €2.5mil each. This included 5 grants for start-ups in the field of quantum technologies, working on the following projects:

• HQS-NextNMR (HQS Quantum Simulations GmbH, DE) – Next-Gen NMR Prediction and Analysis: A Cutting-Edge Tool for High-Precision Structure Identification
• SQELETON (Silent Waves, FR) – Scalable Qubit Readout to Resolve Superconducting Quantum Computing’s Skeleton in the Closet
• Q-SPIN (ThinkQuantum SRL, IT) – Quantum system for polarization-based internet networking
• InQubate (Delft Networks B.V., NL) – Integrated Quantum Network Node using Chip-based Qubit Devices
• PAQAAL (CubIQ B.V., NL) – Developing Photonic-Electronic Analog Application-Specific Integrated Circuits for a Quantum Secure Coherent Link

The EIC Accelerator initiative, meanwhile, supports SMEs to develop and scale up high-impact innovations, aiming for higher TRLs. Despite receive the highest ever number of submissions for an EIC Accelerator funding round - a staggering 1211 - amongst the 71 successful companies there are four quantum technology SMEs. The companies SemiQon (Finland) and eleQtron (Germany), for example, have revealed they will receive the considerable sums of €17.5mil and €12.5mil respectively. The winning projects are:

• COOL-CHIPS (SemiQon Technologies OY, FI) – Cool-Chips - Cryogenic CMOS chips for quantum, HPC and space industry
• MCQube (Quobly, FR) – Breaking Barriers in Scalable Quantum Computing
• MAGICAL (eleQtron GmbH, DE) – All-integrated on-chip ion trap towards fault-tolerant quantum computing
• Tuxedo (Delft Circuits B.V., NL) – Development of Tuxedo: a superconducting flex-to-pcb interface connection for quantum technologies

As we announced previously, in the first EIC cut-off of 2024 a total of 10 quantum technology projects were chosen under the EIC Pathfinder Open and EIC Accelerator calls.