Quantum engineering company Riverlane announced it has raised £15 million in Series B funding. This funding round was led by Molten Ventures and included participation from simulation, high-performance computing (HPC) and AI leader Altair and returning investors Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), Amadeus Capital Partners, and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF). Altair CEO and founder James Scapa, will sit on the Riverlane board.
The new funding round substantially increases Riverlane’s enterprise valuation and it is expected to see the company through to cash flow break-even. And the additional funding round will be used to accelerate the development of Riverlane’s operating system for error-corrected quantum computing – which is called Deltaflow.OS.
Error correction has been defining technical challenge for quantum computing to achieve the scale and reliability to deliver its transformative potential. And Riverlane is already partnering with many of the world’s leading quantum hardware companies, university labs, and government agencies to build and implement Deltaflow.OS with various qubit types.
The quantum computing industry is expected to create up to $850 billion in economic value in the next 15-30 years according to Boston Consulting Group. And to deliver transformational new applications in fields like drug design, material science, aerospace, and climate change, quantum computers have to perform a trillion high-speed operations without disruption.
But today’s quantum computers can still only perform a maximum of a few hundred quantum operations before failure. This is largely due to the high error rate caused by the delicate nature of all types of qubits. And for quantum computers to become useful, it is essential to find ways to detect, diagnose, and correct quantum errors as they happen so they can be scaled from a few hundred error-free quantum operations (QuOps) happening now to a trillion (TeraQuOps). This is the number of operations required to execute the most known quantum algorithms.
In order to address the TeraQuOp challenge, Riverlane has been designing the qubit ‘Control’ and error ‘Decoding’ hardware and software. And ‘Control’ and ‘Decode’ are the key components of Deltaflow.OS. In November 2022, Riverlane had demonstrated the world’s fastest Decode solution that enables Deltaflow.OS to support far larger numbers of qubits than previously possible.
By the end of 2025, Riverlane is going to develop its Decode solution into a chip-based ‘TeraQuOp’ decoder that can process up to 100TB of data per second, which is the equivalent of processing as much data as Netflix streams globally. In order to solve this problem, we have to design and engineer the dedicated chips that every quantum computer will need. The UK has a unique position in the world as a center of excellence for quantum error correction and chip design and is the reason Riverlane is headquartered in Cambridge, UK.
To tackle these challenges, Riverlane is partnering with some of the world’s leading academic labs including the University of Wisconsin, Duke University, University of Oxford, and University of Innsbruck, and over a third of the world’s quantum hardware companies like Infleqtion (formerly Cold Quanta), Qolab, Quera, Seeqc, Rigetti, and Universal Quantum.
In order to gain a better understanding of the transformative industry applications using error-corrected quantum computers Riverlane also partners with enterprise leaders like AstraZeneca, Merck, Astex, Rolls Royce and Johnson Matthey. And with offices in Cambridge, UK, Boston, and San Francisco, the Riverlane team has more than doubled over the past year to 100 engineers and scientists.
KEY QUOTES:
“Solving quantum error correction – one of the defining scientific challenges of our times – will enable quantum computers to accurately simulate the true complexity of nature. Armed with useful quantum computers, humans will enter the Quantum Age, where we go from slow trial and error to solve complex problems to an era of rapid design using quantum computers. We haven’t even begun to imagine the many ways such technology will positively transform our world.”
- Riverlane founder and CEO Steve Brierley
“The National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) is a joint initiative with HM Government and is the Government’s corporate venturing arm for dual-use advanced technologies. NSSIF supports long-term equity investment to accelerate the adoption of HMG’s future national security and defense capabilities and the development of the UK’s dual-use technology ecosystem. The investment in Riverlane recognizes the company’s role as part of the UK’s world-leading quantum technology sector.”
- British Business Bank spokesperson
“Riverlane’s impressive progress in quantum computing, particularly in the crucial area of quantum error correction, has led to a significant rise in its valuation, even in a tough technology market. With Deltaflow.OS in development, Steve and the Riverlane team are ready to bring quantum computing to the commercial world. We’re thrilled to renew our support and have never felt more confident in Riverlane’s ability to drive quantum innovation and generate enduring value.”
- Stuart Chapman, chief portfolio officer at Molten Ventures
“From the start, Amadeus Capital Partners identified Riverlane as a company with the long-term strategy and technical expertise to address the hardest problems in quantum computing. We are proud to carry on our support for Riverlane, helping the company continue its vision, to design and engineer the complex chips that every quantum computer will need to control the qubits and simultaneously decode the errors that quantum computers produce. As the company scales its business and technology, we look forward to being a part of Riverlane’s ongoing growth and future success.”
- Amelia Armour, partner at Amadeus Capital Partners
“Riverlane’s ground-breaking technology provides a critical common software platform including error correction across all quantum hardware architectures to accelerate the impact and scale of quantum computing. Altair has a long history of creating and investing in HPC technologies. Collaborating with Riverlane allows Altair to stay ahead of the curve of transformative technologies to help our customers fast-track their innovation.”
- James R. Scapa, founder and chief executive officer at Altair
