Xanadu Raises $32 Million to Bring Photonic Quantum Computing to the Cloud

(Finance.Yahoo) Xanadu, a leader in photonic quantum computing, has announced it has raised $32 million in Series A financing. OMERS Ventures led the round with participation from Georgian Partners, Radical Ventures, Real Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and Tim Draper. The round brings Xanadu’s total investment to date to $41 million. The Series A positions Xanadu to achieve its next major milestone, the release of a quantum cloud-computing platform to create an ecosystem comprising multiple industry solutions not offered on competing platforms.
Xanadu was founded in 2016 by CEO Christian Weedbrook to make use of the discovery that photons—particles of light—can be used for quantum computing to perform extremely fast and incredibly complex computations at room temperature. “Confidence in Xanadu’s photonic approach to building a quantum computer is reflected in the strong interest from the highly reputable VC firms we have in this Series A financing,” said Weedbrook.
Xanadu’s new cloud offering will also incorporate their two main software products: PennyLane, the industry-leading standard for quantum machine learning; and Strawberry Fields, the only full-stack platform for photonic quantum computing.