Jakso 46

On paper, Jan Goetz was on a straight path to a physics professorship. In reality, he ended up running one of the world’s best-funded quantum computing companies. This episode is about how IQM Quantum Computers became Europe’s quantum flagship, how the journey was financed and what its funding journey teaches founders.

Jan grew up near Cologne in western Germany and quickly realised he was “a physics and math person.” He moved to Munich to study physics, stayed for a PhD, and spent years working on electrical chips at ultra-low temperatures. At the time it was pure research. Only later did it become obvious that the same technology would underpin the quantum processors his company builds today.

By 2016, the mood around quantum had shifted. In the US, companies like Rigetti and IonQ were raising serious capital. Google had announced its intention to build quantum computers. Europe, as usual, lagged behind. Jan still loved the science, so he took a postdoc at Aalto University in Finland, working with professor Mikko Möttönen, VTT and their chip fabrication line. The plan was simple: two years in Finland, then a professor job somewhere.

When his postdoc contract was ending, Jan emailed Mikko to say he’d start looking elsewhere. Instead of sending job links, Mikko replied: “Come to my office tomorrow.” Jan walked in expecting career advice and walked out as the designated CEO of a new spin-out that didn’t yet exist.

“I thought it would be a research project on steroids,” he says now. He’d never met a VC, never been close to entrepreneurship. He called his partner in Munich and asked what she thought about him staying in Finland a few more years to start a company. She said yes. His gut said yes. The professor track ended there.

What Quantum Computing Actually Is And Why It Matters

Most people have a vague sense of how classical computers work: you encode a problem, the machine crunches numbers using transistors that are either zero or one, and you get an answer.

Quantum computers are still computers in that sense. The difference is that their logic follows quantum physics. Quantum bits (qubits) can exist in superposition (a mix of zero and one) and can be entangled (sharing information as one joint system).

Jan uses a group-project analogy. If 20 people work in separate rooms, solving a complex problem takes forever. If they can all share everything in their heads in real time, the same problem becomes much easier. Quantum processors behave like that second version: all the “little workers” share information all the time.

For certain problems, that’s the difference between “impossible in the lifetime of the universe” and “minutes.” Simulating large molecules for materials or drug discovery is one classic example. Classical computers would need more transistors than there are atoms in the universe to do exact calculations; quantum machines can in principle handle them.

IQM builds these machines. In Finland, they run their own chip factory producing quantum chips on silicon wafers, assemble full systems and ship them to customers around the world. By focusing on selling actual computers to data centres and research labs they’ve become the company that has delivered the most quantum computers globally.

The Seed Round: From Lab to 11.5 Million Euros

IQM was founded in 2018. By spring 2019, the company had raised an 11.5 million euro seed round. Huge by Finnish deep-tech standards.

Jan had no investor network. Mikko had talked with the university about the spin-out mechanics, but both knew they needed outside help. That help came from UK entrepreneurs who had built companies before and also founded a quantum startup themselves. They visited Helsinki and casually commented that a UK quantum company had just raised 50 million, so “it should be easy” for IQM to raise something similar. The number was actually 5 million, not 50, but the ambition stuck.

Finnish VCs, including Maki.vc and OpenOcean, were interested but clear: this couldn’t be a small, local story. If it worked, it would be a “second Nokia” type bet. They agreed to invest only if IQM could bring in foreign investors, either from the US or central Europe. Jan still had strong ties to Munich, so he spent real time there building the other half of the syndicate.

Deep-tech investors looked at three things: was the technology real, was the team credible, and was the vision big enough to justify a long timeline? Aalto’s research, VTT’s fabrication facilities and existing working chips were crucial. Investors could visit labs, see wafers and cryostats, not just slides. Add a clear story “We will be the European quantum computing company that can stand next to Google and IBM” and the 11.5 million seed came together.

In the local scene, some thought Maki.vc and OpenOcean were reckless. New category, huge technical risk, big cheque. Jan’s view is that this kind of boldness is exactly what Europe usually lacks.

Series A: Prototypes, Products and the State as First Customer

Between seed and Series A, IQM’s job was to move from “we have chips” to “we have a full system customers can buy.”

Quantum computers aren’t just processors. You need control electronics, cryogenics, software, integration the whole stack. IQM also made a strategic choice: while US players leaned heavily into cloud access, IQM focused on selling physical systems to supercomputing centres and national labs, co-developing with them.

Finland’s VTT became a critical pilot customer, ordering one of the first machines. That purchase was both technical validation and early revenue. It helped unlock a 39 million euro Series A1 in 2020, partly backed by the European Investment Bank to fund IQM’s chip factory.

By the time IQM raised a 128 million euro A2 in 2022, they were no longer selling one-off prototypes. They had turned those early systems into actual products with spec sheets and sold copies to additional customers. For deep-tech hardware, that’s what product–market fit starts to look like: someone buys a second unit of the same thing.

Jan is blunt about the role of the Finnish state here. Governments like to talk about innovation; few are willing to be the very first customer for unproven hardware. In this case, politicians genuinely took risk. In hindsight, that risk has paid off as export revenue and one of the strongest quantum clusters in Europe.

Series B: Pensions, US Capital and Finding the Lead

By 2025, IQM had sold 19 quantum computers. Not consumer-scale volumes, but enough to build a path to profitability. That opened the door to a new class of investor: large institutional capital.

Finland has a unique edge here: its pension funds can invest directly in late-stage growth companies. Elo and Varma joined the cap table. For a German founder, this was unusual. In many countries, pension money simply can’t go into this type of deal.

The hard question was the familiar one: who will lead the round? Venture funds understand the tech but often don’t have big enough funds to anchor a 275 million euro round. Large financial institutions have the money but not the technical conviction.

Again, Tesi (Finland’s state investment company) was pivotal. They offered to do heavy due diligence work and package it in a way a potential lead could trust. Through IQM’s network, this eventually led to Ten Eleven Ventures, a US fund focused on cybersecurity and secure compute, areas directly impacted by quantum through code-breaking and secure infrastructure.

Ten Eleven Ventures saw a company already leading in Europe, actually shipping systems, and with zero presence yet in the US market. Their capital and network could unlock that upside in US. After initial calls, Jan’s team flew over, spent two days together, and built trust the old-school way. Chemistry clicked, Ten Eleven Ventures agreed to lead, and the rest of the round quickly oversubscribed as others followed.

Jan’s Key Lessons for Founders Raising Capital

After multiple rounds and hundreds of millions raised, Jan boils his funding lessons down to a few essentials:

• A round is never done until the money is in the bank. Last-minute surprises are real, so use momentum and push hard over the finish line.
• Who you take money from matters as much as how much you raise. When things get tough, supportive people around the table are more important than any spreadsheet.
• Treat your ecosystem as a strategic asset. Universities, public labs, state investors and early anchor customers can de-risk a deep-tech story far beyond what your own balance sheet ever could.