Highlights
Quantum computing startup Entropica receives S$2.6 million seed funding
The Entropica team includes co-founders and CQT alumni Ewan Munro and Tommaso Demarie, pictured top left and second left.
On 11 May, Entropica Labs announced that it has secured S$2.6 million in seed funding. Entropica Labs is developing models, algorithms and software tools to make quantum computers useful.
The company was founded in 2018 by two former CQT researchers, Tommaso Demarie and Ewan Munro. Tommaso had been a postdoctoral researchers based in the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Ewan is a graduate of the CQT PhD programme at the National University of Singapore. Now respectively CEO and CTO of Entropica, they were joined as co-founders by Joaquin Keller, a computer scientist.
The Singapore-based company has attracted funding from international and Singapore-based investors, in a funding round led by deep tech venture capital firm Elev8. Aditya Mathur, Managing Director at Elev8, said "We are at the cusp of massive gains in technology, powered by quantum computing. Entropica Labs’ talented team is building the operating interface that allows programmers to work efficiently on quantum machines. We are excited to see the new scalable applications Entopica will unlock – from Artificial Intelligence to statistical modelling."
SGInnovate, a government-backed organisation with which CQT has a partnership, has also joined the investment round. Other co-investors include early-stage enterprise and deep tech VC Wavemaker Partners, the Lim Teck Lee Group, Japanese software enterprise TIS Inc, V1 Capital (the seed investment office of Vy Capital) and talent investor Entrepreneur First. They were joined by angel investors Charlie Songhurst (former Microsoft head of Corporate Strategy) and Claus Nehmzow (Chief Innovation Officer at Eastern Pacific Shipping).
Entropica Labs will use the funding to expand their technical team and develop proprietary software architectures. It will also serve to consolidate the company's access to a growing number of quantum computing systems. The company is already collaborating with leading quantum hardware manufacturers including Rigetti Computing, IBM and Microsoft.
Tommaso, co-founder and CEO of Entropica, said "Quantum technologies are refining the meaning of what computing even means. Every day, I am inspired - and humbled! - to be working with an exceptional team that relentlessly pushes the boundaries of what is possible in quantum computing."
