Daniel Rodan Legrain: Hello everyone, I'm Borso Christoph.
Christophe Jurczak: Hey Daniel.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: I'm Daniel Rodan Legrein, the Quantum Science and Engineering Lead for North America at Qblogs, the sponsor of today's conversation. ⁓ Welcome to another edition of our Quantum Builders webinar and the podcast series. This series is all about bringing together ⁓ leaders across the quantum ecosystem, academia, industry, government, and today investment to understand how this field is evolving and what it will take to scale it. So in previous sessions, we've had the pleasure of hosting incredible voices from academia, national labs, and industry, including Will Oliver, Berde Jong, Stephen Girvin, Gretchen Campbell, Chuck Black, Cernyak, Livanweider Sipon, and Infar Siddiqui. And today we're shifting the lens towards the investment and ecosystem building side of ⁓ quantum with a guest that truly bridges deep science, national strategy, company building, and venture capital. So it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Christoph Jurszak, co-founder and managing partner of Quantum Nation, one of the first venture capital funds that are dedicated exclusively to early stage quantum technologies and deep physics. Christoph, your career path is unlike almost anyone else in the field, I would say. You hold a master's degree from École Normale Supérieure and a PhD in Quantum Physics from École Polytechnique, where you worked on laser cooling with neutral atoms under the supervision of Professor Alain Spee, who then received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022. From there, you moved into major strategic roles in government and industry. You had worked on advanced technology and defense programs within the French Ministry of Defense, then later led... ⁓ some renewable energy initiatives from the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry, and then moved into executive roles into a renewable energy sector all across Europe and the United States. Then around 2015, while you were in Silicon Valley, you returned to your quantum roots and you joined ⁓ QCWare during the very early stages of... commercial quantum software and then in 2018 you founded Quantumation which has since become one of the leading investors in quantum technologies and deep physics backing companies like Pascal, Noctamtech, Qubit Pharmaceuticals, QBlocks and many others. Beyond investing his stuff, you've also played a very important role in ecosystem building through initiatives such as LabCantique and your involvement in organizations such as the Unitary Fund. So thank you so much for joining us today. It's an honor to have you with us and to discuss all of these topics together.
Christophe Jurczak: Thank Thank you very much Daniel. Thank you for having me. I think a pretty impressive list of speakers you've had before, many of them I know. Of course, so indeed I have done physics a while ago, 30 years ago, 1996, when I got my PhD. Things have happened in between. Probably by then I would have loved to have a job in quantum technologies, but it was not just possible. Quantum industry didn't exist. And that's the thing I keep telling also young people who ask me about career advice these days. Every time I'm looking at where we stand right now, I'm amazed. mean, you can get a job into the field where you study. I could not do it 30 years ago. You can do it now. I think that's one of the big achievements, think, collective achievements that all of us have been working toward. I'm really proud of that, actually.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: fantastic that you're now enabling that to happen, Christoph. Let me just say a quick word to everyone watching live. Please submit your questions during the conversation in the chat and I will bring a few towards the end. So Christophe, let's start where your journey began. I mean, you completed your PhD under Professor L'Aspect, where you worked on the very physical systems like neutral atoms that are now forming the core architectures of commercial quantum computers. So when you were in the lab in the mid-90s, did you have any inkling that this delicate quantum phenomena could eventually become ⁓ a technology and leave the lab environment?
Christophe Jurczak: No, I'd say probably not. think the only thing, especially in atomic physics, the only thing people were seriously talking about was really about atomic clocks. So metrology didn't seem like a market. So there seems to be an application for these systems. It was really to be better clocks, better PNT systems as it's called now. But no, no way. I mean, could we... ⁓ Even talking about quantum computers was not really a thing. So, Shor's algorithm, 1992, so it's pretty much in the same period, but not a topic, especially maybe not with neutral atoms. At the time, was not even one thinking about neutral atoms. So, the idea of the tweezer array, for example, came later, through Philippe Cronjé, Antoine Broys, and etc. But at the time, it was an ensemble, so it was really far from that to qubits. even the notion of qubit, I'm not sure during my PhD, actually we're talking about that. So we were doing, the big thing at the time was Einstein condensation, First demonstrations, Nobel Prize. You mentioned Alain Aspect was my PhD advisor, but Bill Phillips was in my PhD jury as well. So he got the Nobel in 1997, if I'm not wrong, Claude Cohen-Tenegy, Steve Chu. So was really fantastic atmosphere at the time for the neutral atoms community with his Nobel Prize, the beginnings of laser cooling, et cetera. But from there to applications, I don't think at the time I had thought about that, except maybe for metrology, defense applications, interferometers, that kind of thing, that people had in mind, ⁓ but not much more. So things have changed definitely.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: So indeed, I around 2015, I mean you returned to quantum while you were in Silicon Valley. So let me ask you what convinced you that the timing was finally right for quantum to move from science to industry.
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so I was the CEO of a company in solar energy. you mentioned my career path and it looks erratic from the outside. There was some internal coherence into it, but I tend to say, well, don't plan for a career, seize the opportunities and I seize opportunities along the way. Ended up running a company in San Francisco. I was living in Palo Alto at the time for a couple of years. So things were fine. Actually lessons learned from the solar industry ⁓ boom and bust of the clean tech in the 90s, ⁓ well even a decade later actually. ⁓ Well it's something we can talk about also maybe for the quantum industry I think. I've learned a couple of things along the way but ⁓ essentially what happened is I heard about reggae computing that was one of the things. Like well somebody was doing quantum processors. I was in touch with a ⁓ guy in French named Bruno Deruel, so he was running one of the very few early stage companies in quantum, so quantum sensing with neutral atoms, MuQuants. He was developing gravimeters, so I was ⁓ talking to him once in a while when he was coming to a conference in San Francisco. I heard about Trigetti, I went to the first meetup they organized at University of organized by Will Zeng, who is now a partner at Quantum Nation. So I went there, I got an interest for it, I realized things were moving, heard about it, so I met with INQ, founders at the time, and one day I went to a conference in Stanford, and I really by chance met, ⁓ it was a conference on AI for finance, I met with the CEO of QCWare, Johnson, so I asked him, QCWare, what does that mean? And he told me about the company, and ⁓ proverbial Palo Alto story, the night after I was... having barbecue with him at his place where he had invited a bunch of people. Worley was there, for example, a few others. I learned about the community and I decided it was the right time for me to come back. I had learned some things along the way. I was thinking about other technologies as well at the time, over directions for me. ⁓ was big time for crypto, for IoT. Quantum was not so big yet. People were not talking that much about that, but still, first France, first companies, yeah, I felt it was the right time. And as you know, mean, it's very, very true. Everything's about timing. I think I catched the wave at the right time before it was really big enough. So 2015, 2018, the period when I learned about the field, I worked with Matt at QCWare, it was really a great experience to learn what quantum computing was, if they were working with D-Wave mostly at the time. Very optimistic about the horizon for application of quantum computing technologies to solve real life problems, let's say. It was a little bit early, very early, but absolutely fantastic experience. And that brought me to talk to Professor Asper again, to get to be involved in Pascal's foundation and start quantization a few years later. yeah, 2015, 2018, very formative period for me. talking, meeting and deciding what I wanted to do.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: At that stage, what would you say that the Quantum ecosystem was still lacking the most?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, I'd say capital, that's one thing, but at the time there were only a few companies actually, not that many in Europe in particular. ⁓ was before, and the European wave with IQM, Pascal, etc. came a little bit later. So there was a lack of projects for sure, I think. ⁓ There was ambition. and people were talking about building quantum computers and solving problems. But yeah, no clear roadmap, that's for sure. I mean, like, what do we need to do exactly? mean, like, no clear vision. And there was no ecosystem of parties that could collaborate and work together. mean, funding, government agencies were also in the early days, maybe a little bit more advanced than the US with DARPA and other initiatives. But in Europe, it was a... was a time when we had the flagship, ⁓ very academic at first, and then moved towards more applicative stuff. ⁓ But yeah, it was all in flux, I'd say. So, but perfect time to get something started, start new companies in particular, start new initiatives and build ecosystems. It was not there, but there were ideas, were people ⁓ who felt like it was the right time because the technology had progressed enough that we could finally start thinking about getting and putting these things to use, get out of the lab and put the products in the hands of customers. What product, what application was still very unclear. In some ways, it's still something that ⁓ needs work. And we can talk about that, how to get into real life applications. But yeah, 10 years ago was really early.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Amazing. Before we go into real life application, let me ask you a little bit more about the creation of quantization itself in this 2015-2018 times. mean, when you found the quantization with Charles... Baderberg and Olivier Tonnot. ⁓ I mean, at that time, specialized quantum funds barely existed. So what did you feel that journalist venture capital firms were structurally unsuited, let's say, to fund ⁓ early stage quantum startups? And what gap did you see in the market?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so I had known Charles and Olivier and they had been making investments already from France in hardware companies in particular, lasers for example, they an appetite and interest for physics and quantum, we're talking to a person I mentioned, Bruno at McQuants, on my side I started thinking about the fund as well, had a little bit something like a... teaser, two pager, they are the same. So ⁓ we have known each other for many years. So we came together and decided to launch ⁓ that. for me then and still now, I mean, the biggest challenge is really expertise. Like I think you need within a fund to get to do sound investments in quantum technologies to have ⁓ internal expertise, not only rely on experts, advisors, people who are doing the due diligence for you. ⁓ It's really about building a vision. for the partnership, for the fund itself, about what these technologies, what it means, what are the challenges. I always say that, I think, well, know, during my PhD, like many here, I'm sure, I mean, like you spent some time for three, four, five years, I mean, like turning knobs and aligned lasers and trying to make things work. But investors, VCs, and on the other end, I mean, they, I think most of them. probably 90 % of them don't have a clue about exactly what's going on in the lab and what are the challenges and how you, when they tell you, mean, turn this science into a product and find customers. mean, when you have done that and you know what the challenges are, starting from the mirrors and the lasers and it's true for chips and any technology and hardware actually. I mean, like there are very big challenges to deal with and to cope with. And... It requires time as well. And science is hard. mean, sometimes science is not done. Sometimes it's done and you can get into engineering. I all these cycles, this dynamic, the challenges of investing in science-based technologies as opposed to software or things that were, I mean, hardware is not as challenging as in quantum. I think that's the thing most VCs, even in deep tech surprisingly, don't quite understand actually. My end is the vision for Quantumation and we're three partners. That's me, that's Will who joined the Lidicator. was there from the start. I mean, within the partnership, so the three of us, I mean, there are two physicists ⁓ and Olivier along the way as well. I think what is important is that we, and we are the investment committee, we understand that. We understand these dynamics, how ⁓ founders eventually struggle, why it is that a team can come back to us and say, okay, well, it takes six more months because of this, that, lasers and challenges and engineering didn't work as well. I think that's really super important for me that ⁓ the partnership itself, and again, not only the advisors and the people that rely on, but the partnership understands these dynamics and these challenges and the opportunities. mean, it's not all negative, obviously. On the other hand, I think we can see more potential that can be ⁓ and products and ideas and stuff that can be done with these technologies. So internalize the expertise, but that's been the idea from the start. And I think we've been quite successful at doing it. And I think that's still important to me. So there are new funds, as you mentioned, emerging with a quantum focus. At the time, we were the only one. So it took a while to have these new funds coming in. We had seen some... people trying over the years, but I think that I'd always struggled with that. I mean, at the end of the day, it's hard to invest in quantum. you might end up, well, easier to invest in something else, actually. I mean, take something simpler that you understand and put your money elsewhere. So I've seen lots of people having an interest in quantum, but not getting it, and therefore switching to something else. Now it's great that we have also more funds, more people with a strong expertise. I think it's very good. People ask me all the time, okay, I... you feel threatened, it an issue or what? Quite the contrary, the more specialized funds with deep expertise we have in this landscape and the ecosystem, best it is for us. mean, we can collaborate, we can have more funding, more projects to invest in, we can invest together. So it's really good news. I mean, we were alone for a long time, which was nice in a way. On the other end, you end up asking yourself, okay, did I do the right thing? I we did the right thing. it's better to be also a community and I think we're in a good spot now.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Indeed, and it's amazing to see from the other side his stuff. So ⁓ let me actually ask you a little bit more in that regard. I when you evaluate a quantum startup, what matters most early on? Is it like the science? Is it the team? Or is it the market opportunity?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so very good question. ⁓ For me, it's really the science, actually. I really need to fall in love with the science. like to get it... I mean, it's a competitive space. So when founders come to us with an idea, a project, etc., they have to be better than their competitors, than others. They have to be... ⁓ We have to have really new ideas and some things that are distinctive. On the scientific side first, mean, that's really the core aspect. These companies are built on science, so they need to show outstanding science, peer-reviewed, some realizations, ⁓ not necessarily that far advanced. ⁓ And above all, think we, especially because we are early-stage investors, that's one thing to keep in mind. Contribution one, two, so two funds we have. We are what's called ⁓ early stage investors. Our first check is ⁓ Preseed, Seed, Syriza, so relatively young companies from creation to ⁓ three, four years, ⁓ from creation for the first check. So now we're moving into ⁓ another space as well with ⁓ funding scale-ups. So companies that are much later stage that have other challenges, let's focus on the early stage for now. So for these companies, of course, I mean, and that's where it's important to understand the dynamic. We cannot ask for a product market fit at the beginning, like from day one. mean, an idea or vision for what the founders, the scientists want to do with their science, ⁓ that's needed, obviously. I mean, we want to hear about this vision, the ambition, but the core thing is really the science. I there has to be something that allows them to build the product over time. ⁓ It has to be distinctive, it has to be original, has ⁓ to give the potential to be something really big. That's what really matters. And the team obviously, we need to have a good ⁓ confidence, good relationship as well. ⁓ One thing that's important when we evaluate the team is also its coachability. Like is it possible, do we feel that We can bring them something to the founders that they are open to feedback and getting to learn a little bit from us as well. So sometimes we pass on deals because there's definitely, let's say, human relationship issue. But we've learned some things along the way. We like to share that with the teams we're working with. It's their company. It's their project, of course, they're in the lead. But I think it's important to have also founders who understand that Yeah, maybe they don't know everything and maybe they can learn a little bit from us but also the rest of the ecosystem as well. But first the science, as you said, I think that's really the key.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that, Christoph. And in that regard, mean, how do you think about the timelines and the risk in a field where commercialization can take up to a decade or sometimes even more?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so it can take a decade. there, especially in ⁓ quantum computing, think there's been a little bit two visions about how to develop a quantum computing company. I mean, let's say technology first and shoot for the price for the long term and focus on developing the technology thinking companies like PsyQuantum, for example. And another vision, I'm more... say I feel better with, like in terms of how to work with the founders and to get there. Companies that are also developing ⁓ products, relationship with customers, in particular engineering skills, manufacturability along the way with generations of products to get to the end result. So to get to photo-tolerant computing, quantum computing, for example, you get through analog, digital, ⁓ with error mitigation, error correction, FTQC, etc. I think these are concepts, computing modalities, but they correspond also to a pool of customers. I like that we have a small pool to start with that gets bigger, but above all that we have companies and teams who understand what the customer is, ⁓ who understand that they need to build devices that work, that are reliable. that will end up in the hands of customers and it's not 24-7 but as big an availability as possible. I if we think in terms of availability of a device, let's say a lab, let's say optical table with lasers and stuff in neutral atoms, it's maybe working, I don't know, 20 % of the time and then calibration, this and that, the misalignment, problems, et cetera. Of course, it doesn't work for product. So you want the kind of computer that works maybe. at least 80 % of the time, 90 % and then plan maintenance, etc. And that's very, very challenging. But that's very interesting and that's where a lot of the value is. That's where we DCs also can help. I really like to see companies that are doing that, but to do that, you need also to have access to customers. That's why I believe this loop about ⁓ building applications progressively with the device you have, putting in the hands of customers, improving engineering. and getting to learn how to sell, et cetera, that is valuable. Don't wait for necessarily that's another path and we do that as well. I mean, we have in our portfolio more long-term play where we don't have this progressivity on applications and revenues and ⁓ customer traction. These are two visions. I think it's nice to have both and it's important, I think, to have both in the portfolio. I feel myself more comfortable with... Yeah, having something a little bit more progressive, building with customers in particular. Because I know at the end of the day, what will matter is that the machine works and that people have access to it in a reliable way and they can run and trust ⁓ the jobs on the computer. It's not so easy. It's not as easy as many people think.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: I agree with that, Christoph. You mentioned that investing is ultimately about people and execution. So why don't we talk a little bit more about what it takes to take strong science into a ⁓ successful company. So one of the hardest challenges in quantum is translating breakthrough research into successful companies. So from your perspective, Christophe, after all these years coaching and seeing all of these companies succeed or fail, what are the biggest obstacles that researchers face when turning strong science into a viable startup?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so one very big red flag, ⁓ one thing we've learned along the way is, ⁓ it might sound like a detail, but I think it's really important actually, it's the cap table, capitalization table, cap table management, the way ⁓ founders structure ⁓ the repetition of capital between the founders, ⁓ how they bring in third parties, advisors, universities into the mix, et cetera. and investors along the way. For us, it's really a key thing is that we want the founders to be empowered to have the majority of the capital of the company as long as possible. Of course, you know how it works in investment. Every time we put capital into a company, there's a dilution happening. There's valuation. Some part of the capital goes to Indians of investors, VCs, and founders get diluted along the way, I think. That's the model, think, that's venture capital, et cetera. But you have to really to be careful. I think for us, it's really, really important that the founders don't get diluted too fast. mean, it's their company. They need to feel that. They need to run it, run the show, bring it to maturity. And then there will be a transition at some point, et cetera, et cetera. But in order for this to happen, you have to be careful from day one about how you how a founder structures the cap table doesn't give too much capital away at first, let's say, I don't know, to the universities. Sometimes I've seen cases where they tend to give, let's say, to their PhD advisor or this and that, and 5%, 10 % at first doesn't sound like a lot, but after a while you realize that that's a lot actually, and that gets to be a problem. So really a nice, clean cap table to start with. and there are pretty good benchmarks about that, how to do it, etc. mean, that's really super important. If it's not done well, ⁓ CapTable, that can be a red flag for investment and for us and for VCs as well. ⁓ If there's too much, let's say for university, because they have the IP or third party or ⁓ people who are not full time into the company, that's usually a big deal for us. We want the founders working inside the company fully dedicated to be really empowered. So, captable management is something founders tend to underestimate. ⁓ think so we're, when we get in project, and I like to do that quite a lot. So, we have venture studios initiatives, can come to that a bit later, but we're working with, I like to talk to scientists and aspiring founders before even they create the company. keep telling them to don't. Be careful about that, don't make mistakes. mean, like keep the capital for yourself and for people who are really key for the company. And then we come in and we can work together. But that's really an important aspect that people tend to underestimate. And then of course, all the more practical aspects about how to turn science into products, ⁓ the successes faces, ⁓ like engineering skills and teams and et cetera. I mean, that comes along the way. and we've practiced that in tens of companies now, so we have more than 40 companies in the portfolio, and many of them we took directly from the lab. lessons learned there. And one thing I can say, it always takes more time than people think, that's for sure. It never gets faster. If you have a vision and a roadmap about how to turn your science into a chip, into a product, ⁓ yeah, take a little bit of a margin there, takes more time. It takes more time to get to a foundry, to have the electronics done properly, to have the chips done or to have the device integrated, etc. But yeah, that's where it's important to have investors who understand that. So early stage investors with deep tech hardware expertise, I think that's typically important in that phase. And then you can get into more generalist investors. Of course, you need that as well. You need to have a good combination of different kinds of investors on your cap table. ⁓ That's important to have some. who have a good understanding of what he takes.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you, Christoph. And what would you say separates the teams that successfully transition into companies from those that struggle? Is there a common ground that you see across the different companies?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, hard question. I say it's still relatively early days. So in our portfolio, we've got a company called Pascal, been really involved with them from day one since early 2019. So they're getting an IPO, so this back next month, actually, in July. So they've gone all the way. So definitely some lessons learned there. We've got earlier stage companies. I've got Multiverse, so very different kind of company on software and applications. ⁓ Hard to say, in practical lessons. But one thing I know for sure is ⁓ that we need to see, and sometimes that's lacking a little bit, is a very big ambition and vision. ⁓ Sounds a bit weird, but we see a lot of projects where people... ⁓ are not dreaming big enough in a way, I'd say. And in the world of venture capital, for the kind of investments that we're doing, and we're not a bank, we're a VC fund, I mean, it needs to be explosive in a way. So we need to look, we look for big multiples on the lines that are successful. So that means ⁓ that we need companies that dream big that one day, and it's not. So it sounds a little bit weird to say we're looking for unicorns. Of course, we're looking for unicorns, but multi-hundred million valuation companies as well and of a kind, and it's a portfolio. But we need a couple of these. So we need really companies that have the potential to scale and to get very big. Something founders usually don't have a bit of a hard time understanding sometimes when I tell them, in a way it's easier for venture capital to understand the dynamic of the quantum computing company. That's more challenging in the short term and there are challenges on the science, on the technology, on the engineering, on the applications, but the price is big. I mean the end game and the potential impact is gigantic. On the other hand, you have a device to take out from the lab and it's nice, it can help your buddies, researchers. make their life easier, but then maybe it's a couple of million revenues potential per year, five, ten or something like that and not much more. So it's going to be a successful company in a way, but it's not going to get to the numbers the venture capital firm needs. that's, yeah, I think for founders they need to understand how VC works. I mean, there are a couple of very good books. Malaby, for example, has written a very nice book on on the curve, how to get to successful firms and what's hot in BC. But I think that's an important aspect. I we need to have this really explosive dynamic and people to dream really big. And that's something that's ⁓ really important. That's a bit cultural as well. And I say sometimes, think in Europe in particular, the distinction I see between Europe and US, I think in US, that's something that ⁓ you see people a bit more used to. mean, dream big. you know, dream big, feel fast, et cetera, but go for the big price. In Europe and elsewhere, in Asia as well, I've seen a number of people who are thinking a little bit more conservatively, like, I want to build a successful SME, essentially, but that's not what we want. I mean, we want to build global leaders company that will take the market, that will succeed. And I think that's... ⁓ That's something to keep in mind from the start. And if you have that mindset, think in a way anything is possible. Then we can help. Funding is one thing, but also support, help with business development, connecting with ecosystems worldwide. We're present in Japan and Australia, Europe, US, etc. So once you have the good mindset and good spirit, I'd say, I wouldn't say everything else is plumb. It's not as easy as that, but I think it's much easier.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Fantastic. Let's talk a little bit about that as well, Christoph, and the difference between the different regions. mean, you have quite an unusual global perspective across Europe, North America, and beyond. So, you know, taking a step back, I mean, how do you describe the current state of the global quantum ecosystem today?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, first I'd say, maybe, well, think, so people always tend to see the glass half full, empty. But yeah, we started, I started this in 2015, essentially. Frankly, I don't think I thought we would be that far already, 10 years later, 2026. I mean, it's pretty amazing how fast it's been. I remember in 2016, I use that sometimes in my decks. I still have the screenshot of... I started coding with IBM on two qubits. It was on the cloud, which was amazing. I mean, having access to quantum computer on the cloud, I mean, a real physics experiment, that was a huge breakthrough. It was very small, it was not clear what to do with it. Ten years down the road... I mean, we have, I don't know, Pascal, for example, I'm playing with, I'm ⁓ running some programs on Pascal platform these days, ⁓ not on my own, ⁓ using cloud code as well, I think helps quite a bit, but still doing that. I mean, like 100 qubit remote operation, doing some amazing applications. It works perfectly like I was mentioning availability, for example, and it's there. I've got these AI agents who get me ⁓ to have the access to the machine, to understand how to code, et cetera. I that's, and can come back to that maybe, but that's a huge thing for me, what agent-tk is bringing actually to quantum applications and the quantum applications development. But still, think, yeah, 10 years ago, I don't think I would have dreamt about being at this level already and whether. So... I think what's also really nice and really important is that ⁓ we have no, I think, good trust about the roadmaps of the companies in quantum computing in particular. I think it's quite clear what needs to be done, what's the level of advancement. Of course, there's always, ⁓ it's inherent to all these technologies, there's always a little bit of hype. about how fast we are, what's the impact, etc. And that's one thing I don't like too much. I see frankly exaggerations on some aspects, in particular with respect to photo around quantum computing. think there's still quite a lot of work to be done to get there. And I'm not sure the way it's communicated properly is the right way. But still, I mean, we were not talking about FTQC a few years ago. I mean, some people were calling it a fairy tale quantum computing. It's way past that now. mean, there are evidences, demonstration, logical qubits implemented, etc. So on the technical roadmap, think the progress has been huge. We've gone definitely from science and labs to products. We have quantum computers in super computing centers in Europe. That's crazy when you think of it. So I visited the TGCC, Janssen, France. Now in Italy, there's going to be also Pascal machine, IQMS machines in several centers in Europe. Same thing in the US, Sherbrooke in Canada, they have machines as well. ⁓ So I think we're there. I think the roadmap is clear. We need to be careful about over-promising. But I think in terms of technology development, it's quite clear where we stand. And I'm super bullish on the future for that reason. think the ecosystem and the industry has delivered. ⁓ Maybe not as fast, maybe some people were dreaming bigger, but for me, I think we've gone. way past what I was expecting actually ⁓ and it's very good.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: I agree, it's been really impressive and good times to be part of this quantum era, Christophe. Maybe a little bit more specifically, I how do you compare the quantum ecosystems in the US, in Europe, in Canada, in terms of like the funding, the talent, the culture, the commercialization?
Christophe Jurczak: Absolutely. Yeah, so there are some cultural aspects, but I think one big thing, especially if you look at the markets now, know, Quentinium is going public tomorrow. We're going to have Pascal also go public by the end of July. IQM is also in the process. there's been a bunch of companies at the beginning of the year, Xenadu, Inflection, et cetera. I think definitely in the US, thinking Funding scale-ups is easier. think that's a little bit of a challenge for Europe and the rest of the world. think the capacity to put the capital for later stage ⁓ funding, that's definitely a challenge. So that's the reason why our next fund is going to be working on this specific aspect, how to fund particular ⁓ European players for their late stage, where you need a couple hundred million per round. And it's harder to find investors in that category. mean, it's true for quantum, but it's true for deep tech in general, for Europe-based companies. mean, like, of course, we can find capital elsewhere, the US, et cetera, but it be nice also to have European funds and European funding. And I'm sure, and I know that's something the governments in Europe ⁓ have identified as a need. So think that's quite important, funding-wise stage. I always say that, in particular with respect to France, so I'm French, as you can hear, the French ecosystem is fantastic for early stage. think, you mentioned my career, I had left France for a while, I was not really involved in deep tech and funding, but when I came back, I was really amazed at the quality of the ecosystem, actually, early stage funding, large venture capital scene, and when people ask me, say, it's probably one of the best place on earth to start a company actually, to get to start a science-based company DeepTech. And we've done that very successfully with Pascal, course, another one I'm very familiar with, Pionic. They do quantum materials for energy storage, which is a very cool topic, but we can talk about that at length. But you can do that. mean, really, and you can do that in Europe as well. EIC funding is fantastic. The Netherlands ecosystems are really strong and well built. ⁓ So let's say for me, for Europe, focusing on that a little bit, mean, all the ingredients are there to be super successful. The people are there, stage capital is there, there's political will as well. What's missing is really the late stage funding and the access to public markets as well. And that's not a problem. Of course, you get to be listed on the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange as competitors and it's the way to go. But it's maybe the part series B, series C, late stage growth funding that's a little bit weak that needs to be improved. But for the rest, think all the ingredients are there and I think for European companies to be successful, have access to markets worldwide, go to the US, go to Singapore, Asia and be successful. So that's maybe a little bit of... or if we focus on the specific aspect the thing.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Fantastic. Christoph, I would say a strong ecosystem at the end comes down to talent. So why don't we talk a little bit about the next generation of the quantum builders? And as I said, ⁓ talent is becoming one of the most important questions for the future of the field. If you were advising, let's say, a young physicist, what path would you encourage them to pursue?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, good question. Well, I've asked that quite a bit, in particular with respect to doing a PhD or not, for example. I think like these days, well, it's true also for my family, my kids. Yeah, where do I stand? I told my daughter I didn't know, so she's not a she's into math, but asked me the exact same question on math and AI.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: And where do you stand?
Christophe Jurczak: I don't know because I think there are really outstanding opportunities in startups when you have the right mindset. And you can do also in startups, doing research and science as well. it's fantastic. A good scheme, for example, in France, and I know it exists elsewhere, you can do a PhD in a company with an academic advisor as well outside of the company to guarantee also the quality of the work that's been done during your PhD, etc. I think that's a fantastic scheme, for example, because you get to have to have the company culture, but also do a very ⁓ strong and fundamental science, peer reviewed, etc. So that's the ideal scheme in a way. Not sure it can scale very well. But yeah, to your point, think there are excellent now undergrad in quantum, like in Sherbrooke, for example, did something a few years ago that started and is really good, ⁓ specifically on quantum engineering, master's degrees, obviously, can get a job into a quantum startup. with a master's degree ⁓ and it's very valuable. think it's good start in life and something I could not do 40 years ago but that you can do now. So good question about PhDs and frankly I don't know. So mixed feelings about this one. I still think there's a lot of value into it but if you can't do both, can you PhD in a company? But I think that's maybe the best of two worlds in a way. I've seen very good programs being put together at universities all around the planet in Singapore, in Japan, in Canada, in US, in Europe. So I think I'm very optimistic about that. I mentioned also earlier, I think HNTK AI is a big deal. I think it's not substituting physicists, obviously, ⁓ but it will help a lot of people who are not necessarily trained quantum experts. to have access to these technologies. And that's very, very important. think one thing we have suffered with from a little bit is the impression that it's closed ecosystem, a bit of style, you need a lot of expertise, a lot of science to get just to understand how a machine works. And I think that's not how it should be presented. And we need to bring in particular, for applications development, we need to bring different communities. ⁓ pushed a paper on the archive a few weeks ago on digital humanities using a Pascal machine ⁓ for kind of reading books and some things around graphs and text, et cetera. But I think it's an interesting aspect. bringing new communities of more interdisciplinarity, which is notoriously hard to do in an academic environment. I think that brings a lot of value to everybody. So open up the quantum ecosystem, bring talent from outside. not only pure quantum scientists, application people, computer scientists, who will have an appetite and interest for quantum technologies. I think that's one of the big challenges for me for the next years in terms of talent as well. mean, bringing more experts from the outside world to get to have an interest and work in these quantum companies.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank Christoph. We've discussed talent, we've discussed companies, we've discussed capital. Let's finish by taking a look ahead at where the industry is going. So if we were to look five to 10 years from now, what does success look like for the quantum industry, both from a technological standpoint and from a commercial standpoint?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, I think it's not too hard, guess. think it's, of course, a very... Well, we've talked quite a lot about quantum computing. Actually, I tend to focus on that a little bit too much, first, before going to answering your question, let's not forget also the other sectors and the things that we're doing. So quantum sensing, quantum communication, pretty big developments, with dynamics that have been a little bit complex over the years, actually. But I think... that they will have their inflection point as well in quantum sensing in particular there is a lot of value that's hard to monetize for now but I think we're getting there. Quantum networks, quantum communications also will get their moment I think as much as quantum computing in connection with quantum computing so we've seen the news and the papers on on shore implementation, there's lot of buzz around that and I think that's important for people to realize the threat associated with this is real. So I think it will be impacting these sectors as well. So I think the future is not only about quantum computing, it's about the quantum technologies at large and these various elements and success for me. will be of course in terms of markets, terms of presence of these technologies in the compute centers. I don't really imagine the future for computing, for example, being pure quantum. mean, it's really hybrid compute, classical will be there, ⁓ tasks, quantum will never take over. So, and that's one thing to keep in mind. So I imagine maybe not 10 years, but five years from now already. pretty much quantum computers in every data center because there will be tasks that will rely on these machines. ⁓ The challenge is more where I would like people to focus a little bit more is not so much, not only the, let's say the Euro experiment, but build machines, build stuff that works, that you can put in the field, that is reliable, that ⁓ end users ⁓ will be comfortable with. I think we might risk some disillusion on the user side if we're not careful about that. I you need to have really to build for users and for machines that have the capacity to deliver the results, not just lab experiments. I think we've gone a long way in that direction already, but for me, success will be that, will be, I don't know, 95 % availability for a quantum computer in five years, something that you put in a data center that works, can be accessible. that people can use for their tasks. I think it's not only about the number of qubits, it's not only about the applications, also about the machines working and getting to do the job. And I think we're relatively far from there. There are some companies doing it very well, ⁓ who understand that. But for me, that's really a big part of the story. If you get into customers and users, you will have to show that the machines are performing well.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: So let me dig a little bit more there, Christophe. What kind of startups still need to be built?
Christophe Jurczak: There's a big question I'm asking myself as well. What is the future of quantum computing company? Is it single technology? Is it multi-technologies, multi-qubits for example? I think for now, all of the companies are either ions or atoms or superconducting. One of the reasons is that it's been built, it's because they've been built like that. mean built by scientific founders, most of them. who had a very strong view, strong vision from the start. But then the companies evolved, the market evolves, they're going public. It's going to be some ⁓ &A, consolidation, people are talking about. But is the future a single modality machine? Is it a multimodality machine? That's a good and big question, I think. And that's something I tend to think it's going to be multimodality. And we will have very different quantum computing companies in the future. Well, on this one, can admit that the jury is still out and we'll see how it evolves. But that could be a big development. think how the industry evolves, how it consolidates. ⁓ Yeah, I think that's going to be very interesting part over the next maybe two or three years, as soon as that actually. And I don't know. We'll see what the future quantum company would look like. But I could imagine that. Yeah. It has a multi-modality with the capacity also to do the interconnects and provide the service to the end user. We don't care that much about what kind of qubit he has on the other side, but we care about the machine being available, as I said, and delivering the service.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Let's see what the future awaits us. ⁓ One more question before we switch to the audience question, Christophe, following up on what you said. Are there areas where investors are still under-investing that people should be kind of focusing on eventually?
Christophe Jurczak: ⁓ In what sense, what do mean? ⁓
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Are there areas that you see have a lot of potential that are still not fully exploited?
Christophe Jurczak: ⁓ okay. Yeah, so there's one I'm really fond of, it's really new materials, ⁓ is a bit of a... It's a changing sector, actually, all the ⁓ computing... Computational loops, or let's say, computational material design in connection with... with AI, with quantum computers as well, because I think they will have a very big role to play in order for the design of new materials to happen and for them to be really used at scale. I think that's a very exciting field with ⁓ robotization, automatization with AI. I think it's a big use case for quantum computers as well, generate synthetic data, train models, et cetera. It's still... quite vague. I people tend to throw all these worlds and put all of them together, AI, quantum, robots, et cetera. Don't really have a clear view about, so it's a hype cube, maybe. Really don't have a clear view of how these play together, but the potential is huge there. I think AI accelerated things in connection with reality and not just data, but like having an impact. I think that's a big theme for me. ⁓ And I think quantum computing will have a big role to play there. And that's something I'll be looking carefully at. For now, it's clear how that might materialize, to be honest. But I'm 100 % sure we'll see new initiatives, new materials. There's been a lot of hype about using AI for drug design, for example. In truth, in fact, it's not that straightforward. I mean, of course, you can do things, but I don't know of a drug that's been designed by AI for now. and there are good reasons for that, but there's a huge potential there. I think for people who will understand how to deal and manage all these technologies and really create an architecture where they fit, I think it's going to be really, really big.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you Christos for this and all the great insights. Let me take a few questions from the audience ⁓ watching live. ⁓ So let's see. What is Quinton Nation's approach or evaluation with respect to AP when funding during pre-seed or during the seeding rounds?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so that's one thing people tend to say, people tend to focus a little bit too much on, is my opinion, but maybe not completely. But ⁓ I think the IP that is really valuable, that's the one that's developed inside the company, by the company, by the engineers and once you're up and running. So original IP is important, ⁓ but sometimes it's not that formal, it's more on how, et cetera. So we... Of course, we want to see some IP, but I'd say I'm conscious of the limits as well of original academic IP in particular, the way it's filed, the way it's done. I really put much more emphasis on developing IP inside the company. So I'm not sure I'm 100 % clear, but yeah, essentially we care more about the team, the science and the ideas there, whether they're formalized. into very strong IP or not. I mean, that's open for debate, say in discussions, depends on the sector, many things, but I would be quite open to, I'm quite open there, I mean, to have a look at what's on the table.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you, Christophe. On a different note, what would you recommend for people who want to transition from engineering to ⁓ venture capital look for a role at a firm like Quantum Nation, for example, in the quantum field in particular?
Christophe Jurczak: Okay, well that's a great job. That's the first thing I can say. If you have an appetite and interest for ⁓ science in particular, I think it's really fantastic. ⁓ I think, yeah, I mean, there are opportunities in the firms. I think there are, well, it depends on the path, career in life. I mean, we're bringing in, for example, new venture partners, operating partners, who will announce, think, next week or the week after. There is senior who are in their career at the moment where they can contribute and help us through the fund, help other companies. There are junior positions as well. ⁓ I think a good technical expertise is important, as I mentioned earlier. think that's what differentiates ⁓ fans. think having inside the team ⁓ some good understanding of the science, the opportunities and the limits. So if you can bring that vision, ⁓ either for a scientific background or engineering background, I think that's something that's valuable for VCs. It should be more and more valuable as we move forward.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you, Christoph. Christoph, we're getting to the close to the end of the hour. So let me thank you so much for your time and for sharing such an invaluable perspective with us today. Your trajectory, I mean, all the way from studying under Alain Aspect to working across governments, defense, renewable energy, Silicon Valley, now leading one of the premier quantum venture funds, really captures exactly what our motto at QBLOCK is all about, building quantum together. ⁓ It really takes theorists, experimentalists, engineers, funders, policymakers, vision investors like you all working together to move this field forward. And today's conversation has been a great reminder that building the quantum ecosystem is of course about scientific breakthroughs, but also about people, infrastructure, capital, and long-term conviction. As a small token of appreciation, we've sent you a QBlocks mark featuring our logo and motto. directly to your Paris office. I mean, hopefully it serves as a good companion for your next deep tech, deep diligent session. ⁓
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, there's nothing here for now, so I mean, it's gonna be good.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: It's on the way, I promise. Should be arriving any time now. ⁓ For everyone tuning in live or catching up later, the recording of this session will be available on the QBlocks YouTube channel and it will also be uploaded to Apple Podcasts and Spotify under our feed Quantum Builders. Please stay tuned for our upcoming Fireside Chats as we continue to host leadership in the Quantum ecosystem.
Christophe Jurczak: Thank you, Armit.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: And Christoph, thank you again very, very much. And thank you everyone for joining us today.
Christophe Jurczak: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
Christophe Jurczak: Hey Daniel.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: I'm Daniel Rodan Legrein, the Quantum Science and Engineering Lead for North America at Qblogs, the sponsor of today's conversation. ⁓ Welcome to another edition of our Quantum Builders webinar and the podcast series. This series is all about bringing together ⁓ leaders across the quantum ecosystem, academia, industry, government, and today investment to understand how this field is evolving and what it will take to scale it. So in previous sessions, we've had the pleasure of hosting incredible voices from academia, national labs, and industry, including Will Oliver, Berde Jong, Stephen Girvin, Gretchen Campbell, Chuck Black, Cernyak, Livanweider Sipon, and Infar Siddiqui. And today we're shifting the lens towards the investment and ecosystem building side of ⁓ quantum with a guest that truly bridges deep science, national strategy, company building, and venture capital. So it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Christoph Jurszak, co-founder and managing partner of Quantum Nation, one of the first venture capital funds that are dedicated exclusively to early stage quantum technologies and deep physics. Christoph, your career path is unlike almost anyone else in the field, I would say. You hold a master's degree from École Normale Supérieure and a PhD in Quantum Physics from École Polytechnique, where you worked on laser cooling with neutral atoms under the supervision of Professor Alain Spee, who then received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022. From there, you moved into major strategic roles in government and industry. You had worked on advanced technology and defense programs within the French Ministry of Defense, then later led... ⁓ some renewable energy initiatives from the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry, and then moved into executive roles into a renewable energy sector all across Europe and the United States. Then around 2015, while you were in Silicon Valley, you returned to your quantum roots and you joined ⁓ QCWare during the very early stages of... commercial quantum software and then in 2018 you founded Quantumation which has since become one of the leading investors in quantum technologies and deep physics backing companies like Pascal, Noctamtech, Qubit Pharmaceuticals, QBlocks and many others. Beyond investing his stuff, you've also played a very important role in ecosystem building through initiatives such as LabCantique and your involvement in organizations such as the Unitary Fund. So thank you so much for joining us today. It's an honor to have you with us and to discuss all of these topics together.
Christophe Jurczak: Thank Thank you very much Daniel. Thank you for having me. I think a pretty impressive list of speakers you've had before, many of them I know. Of course, so indeed I have done physics a while ago, 30 years ago, 1996, when I got my PhD. Things have happened in between. Probably by then I would have loved to have a job in quantum technologies, but it was not just possible. Quantum industry didn't exist. And that's the thing I keep telling also young people who ask me about career advice these days. Every time I'm looking at where we stand right now, I'm amazed. mean, you can get a job into the field where you study. I could not do it 30 years ago. You can do it now. I think that's one of the big achievements, think, collective achievements that all of us have been working toward. I'm really proud of that, actually.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: fantastic that you're now enabling that to happen, Christoph. Let me just say a quick word to everyone watching live. Please submit your questions during the conversation in the chat and I will bring a few towards the end. So Christophe, let's start where your journey began. I mean, you completed your PhD under Professor L'Aspect, where you worked on the very physical systems like neutral atoms that are now forming the core architectures of commercial quantum computers. So when you were in the lab in the mid-90s, did you have any inkling that this delicate quantum phenomena could eventually become ⁓ a technology and leave the lab environment?
Christophe Jurczak: No, I'd say probably not. think the only thing, especially in atomic physics, the only thing people were seriously talking about was really about atomic clocks. So metrology didn't seem like a market. So there seems to be an application for these systems. It was really to be better clocks, better PNT systems as it's called now. But no, no way. I mean, could we... ⁓ Even talking about quantum computers was not really a thing. So, Shor's algorithm, 1992, so it's pretty much in the same period, but not a topic, especially maybe not with neutral atoms. At the time, was not even one thinking about neutral atoms. So, the idea of the tweezer array, for example, came later, through Philippe Cronjé, Antoine Broys, and etc. But at the time, it was an ensemble, so it was really far from that to qubits. even the notion of qubit, I'm not sure during my PhD, actually we're talking about that. So we were doing, the big thing at the time was Einstein condensation, First demonstrations, Nobel Prize. You mentioned Alain Aspect was my PhD advisor, but Bill Phillips was in my PhD jury as well. So he got the Nobel in 1997, if I'm not wrong, Claude Cohen-Tenegy, Steve Chu. So was really fantastic atmosphere at the time for the neutral atoms community with his Nobel Prize, the beginnings of laser cooling, et cetera. But from there to applications, I don't think at the time I had thought about that, except maybe for metrology, defense applications, interferometers, that kind of thing, that people had in mind, ⁓ but not much more. So things have changed definitely.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: So indeed, I around 2015, I mean you returned to quantum while you were in Silicon Valley. So let me ask you what convinced you that the timing was finally right for quantum to move from science to industry.
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so I was the CEO of a company in solar energy. you mentioned my career path and it looks erratic from the outside. There was some internal coherence into it, but I tend to say, well, don't plan for a career, seize the opportunities and I seize opportunities along the way. Ended up running a company in San Francisco. I was living in Palo Alto at the time for a couple of years. So things were fine. Actually lessons learned from the solar industry ⁓ boom and bust of the clean tech in the 90s, ⁓ well even a decade later actually. ⁓ Well it's something we can talk about also maybe for the quantum industry I think. I've learned a couple of things along the way but ⁓ essentially what happened is I heard about reggae computing that was one of the things. Like well somebody was doing quantum processors. I was in touch with a ⁓ guy in French named Bruno Deruel, so he was running one of the very few early stage companies in quantum, so quantum sensing with neutral atoms, MuQuants. He was developing gravimeters, so I was ⁓ talking to him once in a while when he was coming to a conference in San Francisco. I heard about Trigetti, I went to the first meetup they organized at University of organized by Will Zeng, who is now a partner at Quantum Nation. So I went there, I got an interest for it, I realized things were moving, heard about it, so I met with INQ, founders at the time, and one day I went to a conference in Stanford, and I really by chance met, ⁓ it was a conference on AI for finance, I met with the CEO of QCWare, Johnson, so I asked him, QCWare, what does that mean? And he told me about the company, and ⁓ proverbial Palo Alto story, the night after I was... having barbecue with him at his place where he had invited a bunch of people. Worley was there, for example, a few others. I learned about the community and I decided it was the right time for me to come back. I had learned some things along the way. I was thinking about other technologies as well at the time, over directions for me. ⁓ was big time for crypto, for IoT. Quantum was not so big yet. People were not talking that much about that, but still, first France, first companies, yeah, I felt it was the right time. And as you know, mean, it's very, very true. Everything's about timing. I think I catched the wave at the right time before it was really big enough. So 2015, 2018, the period when I learned about the field, I worked with Matt at QCWare, it was really a great experience to learn what quantum computing was, if they were working with D-Wave mostly at the time. Very optimistic about the horizon for application of quantum computing technologies to solve real life problems, let's say. It was a little bit early, very early, but absolutely fantastic experience. And that brought me to talk to Professor Asper again, to get to be involved in Pascal's foundation and start quantization a few years later. yeah, 2015, 2018, very formative period for me. talking, meeting and deciding what I wanted to do.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: At that stage, what would you say that the Quantum ecosystem was still lacking the most?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, I'd say capital, that's one thing, but at the time there were only a few companies actually, not that many in Europe in particular. ⁓ was before, and the European wave with IQM, Pascal, etc. came a little bit later. So there was a lack of projects for sure, I think. ⁓ There was ambition. and people were talking about building quantum computers and solving problems. But yeah, no clear roadmap, that's for sure. I mean, like, what do we need to do exactly? mean, like, no clear vision. And there was no ecosystem of parties that could collaborate and work together. mean, funding, government agencies were also in the early days, maybe a little bit more advanced than the US with DARPA and other initiatives. But in Europe, it was a... was a time when we had the flagship, ⁓ very academic at first, and then moved towards more applicative stuff. ⁓ But yeah, it was all in flux, I'd say. So, but perfect time to get something started, start new companies in particular, start new initiatives and build ecosystems. It was not there, but there were ideas, were people ⁓ who felt like it was the right time because the technology had progressed enough that we could finally start thinking about getting and putting these things to use, get out of the lab and put the products in the hands of customers. What product, what application was still very unclear. In some ways, it's still something that ⁓ needs work. And we can talk about that, how to get into real life applications. But yeah, 10 years ago was really early.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Amazing. Before we go into real life application, let me ask you a little bit more about the creation of quantization itself in this 2015-2018 times. mean, when you found the quantization with Charles... Baderberg and Olivier Tonnot. ⁓ I mean, at that time, specialized quantum funds barely existed. So what did you feel that journalist venture capital firms were structurally unsuited, let's say, to fund ⁓ early stage quantum startups? And what gap did you see in the market?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so I had known Charles and Olivier and they had been making investments already from France in hardware companies in particular, lasers for example, they an appetite and interest for physics and quantum, we're talking to a person I mentioned, Bruno at McQuants, on my side I started thinking about the fund as well, had a little bit something like a... teaser, two pager, they are the same. So ⁓ we have known each other for many years. So we came together and decided to launch ⁓ that. for me then and still now, I mean, the biggest challenge is really expertise. Like I think you need within a fund to get to do sound investments in quantum technologies to have ⁓ internal expertise, not only rely on experts, advisors, people who are doing the due diligence for you. ⁓ It's really about building a vision. for the partnership, for the fund itself, about what these technologies, what it means, what are the challenges. I always say that, I think, well, know, during my PhD, like many here, I'm sure, I mean, like you spent some time for three, four, five years, I mean, like turning knobs and aligned lasers and trying to make things work. But investors, VCs, and on the other end, I mean, they, I think most of them. probably 90 % of them don't have a clue about exactly what's going on in the lab and what are the challenges and how you, when they tell you, mean, turn this science into a product and find customers. mean, when you have done that and you know what the challenges are, starting from the mirrors and the lasers and it's true for chips and any technology and hardware actually. I mean, like there are very big challenges to deal with and to cope with. And... It requires time as well. And science is hard. mean, sometimes science is not done. Sometimes it's done and you can get into engineering. I all these cycles, this dynamic, the challenges of investing in science-based technologies as opposed to software or things that were, I mean, hardware is not as challenging as in quantum. I think that's the thing most VCs, even in deep tech surprisingly, don't quite understand actually. My end is the vision for Quantumation and we're three partners. That's me, that's Will who joined the Lidicator. was there from the start. I mean, within the partnership, so the three of us, I mean, there are two physicists ⁓ and Olivier along the way as well. I think what is important is that we, and we are the investment committee, we understand that. We understand these dynamics, how ⁓ founders eventually struggle, why it is that a team can come back to us and say, okay, well, it takes six more months because of this, that, lasers and challenges and engineering didn't work as well. I think that's really super important for me that ⁓ the partnership itself, and again, not only the advisors and the people that rely on, but the partnership understands these dynamics and these challenges and the opportunities. mean, it's not all negative, obviously. On the other hand, I think we can see more potential that can be ⁓ and products and ideas and stuff that can be done with these technologies. So internalize the expertise, but that's been the idea from the start. And I think we've been quite successful at doing it. And I think that's still important to me. So there are new funds, as you mentioned, emerging with a quantum focus. At the time, we were the only one. So it took a while to have these new funds coming in. We had seen some... people trying over the years, but I think that I'd always struggled with that. I mean, at the end of the day, it's hard to invest in quantum. you might end up, well, easier to invest in something else, actually. I mean, take something simpler that you understand and put your money elsewhere. So I've seen lots of people having an interest in quantum, but not getting it, and therefore switching to something else. Now it's great that we have also more funds, more people with a strong expertise. I think it's very good. People ask me all the time, okay, I... you feel threatened, it an issue or what? Quite the contrary, the more specialized funds with deep expertise we have in this landscape and the ecosystem, best it is for us. mean, we can collaborate, we can have more funding, more projects to invest in, we can invest together. So it's really good news. I mean, we were alone for a long time, which was nice in a way. On the other end, you end up asking yourself, okay, did I do the right thing? I we did the right thing. it's better to be also a community and I think we're in a good spot now.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Indeed, and it's amazing to see from the other side his stuff. So ⁓ let me actually ask you a little bit more in that regard. I when you evaluate a quantum startup, what matters most early on? Is it like the science? Is it the team? Or is it the market opportunity?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so very good question. ⁓ For me, it's really the science, actually. I really need to fall in love with the science. like to get it... I mean, it's a competitive space. So when founders come to us with an idea, a project, etc., they have to be better than their competitors, than others. They have to be... ⁓ We have to have really new ideas and some things that are distinctive. On the scientific side first, mean, that's really the core aspect. These companies are built on science, so they need to show outstanding science, peer-reviewed, some realizations, ⁓ not necessarily that far advanced. ⁓ And above all, think we, especially because we are early-stage investors, that's one thing to keep in mind. Contribution one, two, so two funds we have. We are what's called ⁓ early stage investors. Our first check is ⁓ Preseed, Seed, Syriza, so relatively young companies from creation to ⁓ three, four years, ⁓ from creation for the first check. So now we're moving into ⁓ another space as well with ⁓ funding scale-ups. So companies that are much later stage that have other challenges, let's focus on the early stage for now. So for these companies, of course, I mean, and that's where it's important to understand the dynamic. We cannot ask for a product market fit at the beginning, like from day one. mean, an idea or vision for what the founders, the scientists want to do with their science, ⁓ that's needed, obviously. I mean, we want to hear about this vision, the ambition, but the core thing is really the science. I there has to be something that allows them to build the product over time. ⁓ It has to be distinctive, it has to be original, has ⁓ to give the potential to be something really big. That's what really matters. And the team obviously, we need to have a good ⁓ confidence, good relationship as well. ⁓ One thing that's important when we evaluate the team is also its coachability. Like is it possible, do we feel that We can bring them something to the founders that they are open to feedback and getting to learn a little bit from us as well. So sometimes we pass on deals because there's definitely, let's say, human relationship issue. But we've learned some things along the way. We like to share that with the teams we're working with. It's their company. It's their project, of course, they're in the lead. But I think it's important to have also founders who understand that Yeah, maybe they don't know everything and maybe they can learn a little bit from us but also the rest of the ecosystem as well. But first the science, as you said, I think that's really the key.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that, Christoph. And in that regard, mean, how do you think about the timelines and the risk in a field where commercialization can take up to a decade or sometimes even more?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so it can take a decade. there, especially in ⁓ quantum computing, think there's been a little bit two visions about how to develop a quantum computing company. I mean, let's say technology first and shoot for the price for the long term and focus on developing the technology thinking companies like PsyQuantum, for example. And another vision, I'm more... say I feel better with, like in terms of how to work with the founders and to get there. Companies that are also developing ⁓ products, relationship with customers, in particular engineering skills, manufacturability along the way with generations of products to get to the end result. So to get to photo-tolerant computing, quantum computing, for example, you get through analog, digital, ⁓ with error mitigation, error correction, FTQC, etc. I think these are concepts, computing modalities, but they correspond also to a pool of customers. I like that we have a small pool to start with that gets bigger, but above all that we have companies and teams who understand what the customer is, ⁓ who understand that they need to build devices that work, that are reliable. that will end up in the hands of customers and it's not 24-7 but as big an availability as possible. I if we think in terms of availability of a device, let's say a lab, let's say optical table with lasers and stuff in neutral atoms, it's maybe working, I don't know, 20 % of the time and then calibration, this and that, the misalignment, problems, et cetera. Of course, it doesn't work for product. So you want the kind of computer that works maybe. at least 80 % of the time, 90 % and then plan maintenance, etc. And that's very, very challenging. But that's very interesting and that's where a lot of the value is. That's where we DCs also can help. I really like to see companies that are doing that, but to do that, you need also to have access to customers. That's why I believe this loop about ⁓ building applications progressively with the device you have, putting in the hands of customers, improving engineering. and getting to learn how to sell, et cetera, that is valuable. Don't wait for necessarily that's another path and we do that as well. I mean, we have in our portfolio more long-term play where we don't have this progressivity on applications and revenues and ⁓ customer traction. These are two visions. I think it's nice to have both and it's important, I think, to have both in the portfolio. I feel myself more comfortable with... Yeah, having something a little bit more progressive, building with customers in particular. Because I know at the end of the day, what will matter is that the machine works and that people have access to it in a reliable way and they can run and trust ⁓ the jobs on the computer. It's not so easy. It's not as easy as many people think.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: I agree with that, Christoph. You mentioned that investing is ultimately about people and execution. So why don't we talk a little bit more about what it takes to take strong science into a ⁓ successful company. So one of the hardest challenges in quantum is translating breakthrough research into successful companies. So from your perspective, Christophe, after all these years coaching and seeing all of these companies succeed or fail, what are the biggest obstacles that researchers face when turning strong science into a viable startup?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so one very big red flag, ⁓ one thing we've learned along the way is, ⁓ it might sound like a detail, but I think it's really important actually, it's the cap table, capitalization table, cap table management, the way ⁓ founders structure ⁓ the repetition of capital between the founders, ⁓ how they bring in third parties, advisors, universities into the mix, et cetera. and investors along the way. For us, it's really a key thing is that we want the founders to be empowered to have the majority of the capital of the company as long as possible. Of course, you know how it works in investment. Every time we put capital into a company, there's a dilution happening. There's valuation. Some part of the capital goes to Indians of investors, VCs, and founders get diluted along the way, I think. That's the model, think, that's venture capital, et cetera. But you have to really to be careful. I think for us, it's really, really important that the founders don't get diluted too fast. mean, it's their company. They need to feel that. They need to run it, run the show, bring it to maturity. And then there will be a transition at some point, et cetera, et cetera. But in order for this to happen, you have to be careful from day one about how you how a founder structures the cap table doesn't give too much capital away at first, let's say, I don't know, to the universities. Sometimes I've seen cases where they tend to give, let's say, to their PhD advisor or this and that, and 5%, 10 % at first doesn't sound like a lot, but after a while you realize that that's a lot actually, and that gets to be a problem. So really a nice, clean cap table to start with. and there are pretty good benchmarks about that, how to do it, etc. mean, that's really super important. If it's not done well, ⁓ CapTable, that can be a red flag for investment and for us and for VCs as well. ⁓ If there's too much, let's say for university, because they have the IP or third party or ⁓ people who are not full time into the company, that's usually a big deal for us. We want the founders working inside the company fully dedicated to be really empowered. So, captable management is something founders tend to underestimate. ⁓ think so we're, when we get in project, and I like to do that quite a lot. So, we have venture studios initiatives, can come to that a bit later, but we're working with, I like to talk to scientists and aspiring founders before even they create the company. keep telling them to don't. Be careful about that, don't make mistakes. mean, like keep the capital for yourself and for people who are really key for the company. And then we come in and we can work together. But that's really an important aspect that people tend to underestimate. And then of course, all the more practical aspects about how to turn science into products, ⁓ the successes faces, ⁓ like engineering skills and teams and et cetera. I mean, that comes along the way. and we've practiced that in tens of companies now, so we have more than 40 companies in the portfolio, and many of them we took directly from the lab. lessons learned there. And one thing I can say, it always takes more time than people think, that's for sure. It never gets faster. If you have a vision and a roadmap about how to turn your science into a chip, into a product, ⁓ yeah, take a little bit of a margin there, takes more time. It takes more time to get to a foundry, to have the electronics done properly, to have the chips done or to have the device integrated, etc. But yeah, that's where it's important to have investors who understand that. So early stage investors with deep tech hardware expertise, I think that's typically important in that phase. And then you can get into more generalist investors. Of course, you need that as well. You need to have a good combination of different kinds of investors on your cap table. ⁓ That's important to have some. who have a good understanding of what he takes.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you, Christoph. And what would you say separates the teams that successfully transition into companies from those that struggle? Is there a common ground that you see across the different companies?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, hard question. I say it's still relatively early days. So in our portfolio, we've got a company called Pascal, been really involved with them from day one since early 2019. So they're getting an IPO, so this back next month, actually, in July. So they've gone all the way. So definitely some lessons learned there. We've got earlier stage companies. I've got Multiverse, so very different kind of company on software and applications. ⁓ Hard to say, in practical lessons. But one thing I know for sure is ⁓ that we need to see, and sometimes that's lacking a little bit, is a very big ambition and vision. ⁓ Sounds a bit weird, but we see a lot of projects where people... ⁓ are not dreaming big enough in a way, I'd say. And in the world of venture capital, for the kind of investments that we're doing, and we're not a bank, we're a VC fund, I mean, it needs to be explosive in a way. So we need to look, we look for big multiples on the lines that are successful. So that means ⁓ that we need companies that dream big that one day, and it's not. So it sounds a little bit weird to say we're looking for unicorns. Of course, we're looking for unicorns, but multi-hundred million valuation companies as well and of a kind, and it's a portfolio. But we need a couple of these. So we need really companies that have the potential to scale and to get very big. Something founders usually don't have a bit of a hard time understanding sometimes when I tell them, in a way it's easier for venture capital to understand the dynamic of the quantum computing company. That's more challenging in the short term and there are challenges on the science, on the technology, on the engineering, on the applications, but the price is big. I mean the end game and the potential impact is gigantic. On the other hand, you have a device to take out from the lab and it's nice, it can help your buddies, researchers. make their life easier, but then maybe it's a couple of million revenues potential per year, five, ten or something like that and not much more. So it's going to be a successful company in a way, but it's not going to get to the numbers the venture capital firm needs. that's, yeah, I think for founders they need to understand how VC works. I mean, there are a couple of very good books. Malaby, for example, has written a very nice book on on the curve, how to get to successful firms and what's hot in BC. But I think that's an important aspect. I we need to have this really explosive dynamic and people to dream really big. And that's something that's ⁓ really important. That's a bit cultural as well. And I say sometimes, think in Europe in particular, the distinction I see between Europe and US, I think in US, that's something that ⁓ you see people a bit more used to. mean, dream big. you know, dream big, feel fast, et cetera, but go for the big price. In Europe and elsewhere, in Asia as well, I've seen a number of people who are thinking a little bit more conservatively, like, I want to build a successful SME, essentially, but that's not what we want. I mean, we want to build global leaders company that will take the market, that will succeed. And I think that's... ⁓ That's something to keep in mind from the start. And if you have that mindset, think in a way anything is possible. Then we can help. Funding is one thing, but also support, help with business development, connecting with ecosystems worldwide. We're present in Japan and Australia, Europe, US, etc. So once you have the good mindset and good spirit, I'd say, I wouldn't say everything else is plumb. It's not as easy as that, but I think it's much easier.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Fantastic. Let's talk a little bit about that as well, Christoph, and the difference between the different regions. mean, you have quite an unusual global perspective across Europe, North America, and beyond. So, you know, taking a step back, I mean, how do you describe the current state of the global quantum ecosystem today?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, first I'd say, maybe, well, think, so people always tend to see the glass half full, empty. But yeah, we started, I started this in 2015, essentially. Frankly, I don't think I thought we would be that far already, 10 years later, 2026. I mean, it's pretty amazing how fast it's been. I remember in 2016, I use that sometimes in my decks. I still have the screenshot of... I started coding with IBM on two qubits. It was on the cloud, which was amazing. I mean, having access to quantum computer on the cloud, I mean, a real physics experiment, that was a huge breakthrough. It was very small, it was not clear what to do with it. Ten years down the road... I mean, we have, I don't know, Pascal, for example, I'm playing with, I'm ⁓ running some programs on Pascal platform these days, ⁓ not on my own, ⁓ using cloud code as well, I think helps quite a bit, but still doing that. I mean, like 100 qubit remote operation, doing some amazing applications. It works perfectly like I was mentioning availability, for example, and it's there. I've got these AI agents who get me ⁓ to have the access to the machine, to understand how to code, et cetera. I that's, and can come back to that maybe, but that's a huge thing for me, what agent-tk is bringing actually to quantum applications and the quantum applications development. But still, think, yeah, 10 years ago, I don't think I would have dreamt about being at this level already and whether. So... I think what's also really nice and really important is that ⁓ we have no, I think, good trust about the roadmaps of the companies in quantum computing in particular. I think it's quite clear what needs to be done, what's the level of advancement. Of course, there's always, ⁓ it's inherent to all these technologies, there's always a little bit of hype. about how fast we are, what's the impact, etc. And that's one thing I don't like too much. I see frankly exaggerations on some aspects, in particular with respect to photo around quantum computing. think there's still quite a lot of work to be done to get there. And I'm not sure the way it's communicated properly is the right way. But still, I mean, we were not talking about FTQC a few years ago. I mean, some people were calling it a fairy tale quantum computing. It's way past that now. mean, there are evidences, demonstration, logical qubits implemented, etc. So on the technical roadmap, think the progress has been huge. We've gone definitely from science and labs to products. We have quantum computers in super computing centers in Europe. That's crazy when you think of it. So I visited the TGCC, Janssen, France. Now in Italy, there's going to be also Pascal machine, IQMS machines in several centers in Europe. Same thing in the US, Sherbrooke in Canada, they have machines as well. ⁓ So I think we're there. I think the roadmap is clear. We need to be careful about over-promising. But I think in terms of technology development, it's quite clear where we stand. And I'm super bullish on the future for that reason. think the ecosystem and the industry has delivered. ⁓ Maybe not as fast, maybe some people were dreaming bigger, but for me, I think we've gone. way past what I was expecting actually ⁓ and it's very good.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: I agree, it's been really impressive and good times to be part of this quantum era, Christophe. Maybe a little bit more specifically, I how do you compare the quantum ecosystems in the US, in Europe, in Canada, in terms of like the funding, the talent, the culture, the commercialization?
Christophe Jurczak: Absolutely. Yeah, so there are some cultural aspects, but I think one big thing, especially if you look at the markets now, know, Quentinium is going public tomorrow. We're going to have Pascal also go public by the end of July. IQM is also in the process. there's been a bunch of companies at the beginning of the year, Xenadu, Inflection, et cetera. I think definitely in the US, thinking Funding scale-ups is easier. think that's a little bit of a challenge for Europe and the rest of the world. think the capacity to put the capital for later stage ⁓ funding, that's definitely a challenge. So that's the reason why our next fund is going to be working on this specific aspect, how to fund particular ⁓ European players for their late stage, where you need a couple hundred million per round. And it's harder to find investors in that category. mean, it's true for quantum, but it's true for deep tech in general, for Europe-based companies. mean, like, of course, we can find capital elsewhere, the US, et cetera, but it be nice also to have European funds and European funding. And I'm sure, and I know that's something the governments in Europe ⁓ have identified as a need. So think that's quite important, funding-wise stage. I always say that, in particular with respect to France, so I'm French, as you can hear, the French ecosystem is fantastic for early stage. think, you mentioned my career, I had left France for a while, I was not really involved in deep tech and funding, but when I came back, I was really amazed at the quality of the ecosystem, actually, early stage funding, large venture capital scene, and when people ask me, say, it's probably one of the best place on earth to start a company actually, to get to start a science-based company DeepTech. And we've done that very successfully with Pascal, course, another one I'm very familiar with, Pionic. They do quantum materials for energy storage, which is a very cool topic, but we can talk about that at length. But you can do that. mean, really, and you can do that in Europe as well. EIC funding is fantastic. The Netherlands ecosystems are really strong and well built. ⁓ So let's say for me, for Europe, focusing on that a little bit, mean, all the ingredients are there to be super successful. The people are there, stage capital is there, there's political will as well. What's missing is really the late stage funding and the access to public markets as well. And that's not a problem. Of course, you get to be listed on the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange as competitors and it's the way to go. But it's maybe the part series B, series C, late stage growth funding that's a little bit weak that needs to be improved. But for the rest, think all the ingredients are there and I think for European companies to be successful, have access to markets worldwide, go to the US, go to Singapore, Asia and be successful. So that's maybe a little bit of... or if we focus on the specific aspect the thing.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Fantastic. Christoph, I would say a strong ecosystem at the end comes down to talent. So why don't we talk a little bit about the next generation of the quantum builders? And as I said, ⁓ talent is becoming one of the most important questions for the future of the field. If you were advising, let's say, a young physicist, what path would you encourage them to pursue?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, good question. Well, I've asked that quite a bit, in particular with respect to doing a PhD or not, for example. I think like these days, well, it's true also for my family, my kids. Yeah, where do I stand? I told my daughter I didn't know, so she's not a she's into math, but asked me the exact same question on math and AI.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: And where do you stand?
Christophe Jurczak: I don't know because I think there are really outstanding opportunities in startups when you have the right mindset. And you can do also in startups, doing research and science as well. it's fantastic. A good scheme, for example, in France, and I know it exists elsewhere, you can do a PhD in a company with an academic advisor as well outside of the company to guarantee also the quality of the work that's been done during your PhD, etc. I think that's a fantastic scheme, for example, because you get to have to have the company culture, but also do a very ⁓ strong and fundamental science, peer reviewed, etc. So that's the ideal scheme in a way. Not sure it can scale very well. But yeah, to your point, think there are excellent now undergrad in quantum, like in Sherbrooke, for example, did something a few years ago that started and is really good, ⁓ specifically on quantum engineering, master's degrees, obviously, can get a job into a quantum startup. with a master's degree ⁓ and it's very valuable. think it's good start in life and something I could not do 40 years ago but that you can do now. So good question about PhDs and frankly I don't know. So mixed feelings about this one. I still think there's a lot of value into it but if you can't do both, can you PhD in a company? But I think that's maybe the best of two worlds in a way. I've seen very good programs being put together at universities all around the planet in Singapore, in Japan, in Canada, in US, in Europe. So I think I'm very optimistic about that. I mentioned also earlier, I think HNTK AI is a big deal. I think it's not substituting physicists, obviously, ⁓ but it will help a lot of people who are not necessarily trained quantum experts. to have access to these technologies. And that's very, very important. think one thing we have suffered with from a little bit is the impression that it's closed ecosystem, a bit of style, you need a lot of expertise, a lot of science to get just to understand how a machine works. And I think that's not how it should be presented. And we need to bring in particular, for applications development, we need to bring different communities. ⁓ pushed a paper on the archive a few weeks ago on digital humanities using a Pascal machine ⁓ for kind of reading books and some things around graphs and text, et cetera. But I think it's an interesting aspect. bringing new communities of more interdisciplinarity, which is notoriously hard to do in an academic environment. I think that brings a lot of value to everybody. So open up the quantum ecosystem, bring talent from outside. not only pure quantum scientists, application people, computer scientists, who will have an appetite and interest for quantum technologies. I think that's one of the big challenges for me for the next years in terms of talent as well. mean, bringing more experts from the outside world to get to have an interest and work in these quantum companies.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank Christoph. We've discussed talent, we've discussed companies, we've discussed capital. Let's finish by taking a look ahead at where the industry is going. So if we were to look five to 10 years from now, what does success look like for the quantum industry, both from a technological standpoint and from a commercial standpoint?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, I think it's not too hard, guess. think it's, of course, a very... Well, we've talked quite a lot about quantum computing. Actually, I tend to focus on that a little bit too much, first, before going to answering your question, let's not forget also the other sectors and the things that we're doing. So quantum sensing, quantum communication, pretty big developments, with dynamics that have been a little bit complex over the years, actually. But I think... that they will have their inflection point as well in quantum sensing in particular there is a lot of value that's hard to monetize for now but I think we're getting there. Quantum networks, quantum communications also will get their moment I think as much as quantum computing in connection with quantum computing so we've seen the news and the papers on on shore implementation, there's lot of buzz around that and I think that's important for people to realize the threat associated with this is real. So I think it will be impacting these sectors as well. So I think the future is not only about quantum computing, it's about the quantum technologies at large and these various elements and success for me. will be of course in terms of markets, terms of presence of these technologies in the compute centers. I don't really imagine the future for computing, for example, being pure quantum. mean, it's really hybrid compute, classical will be there, ⁓ tasks, quantum will never take over. So, and that's one thing to keep in mind. So I imagine maybe not 10 years, but five years from now already. pretty much quantum computers in every data center because there will be tasks that will rely on these machines. ⁓ The challenge is more where I would like people to focus a little bit more is not so much, not only the, let's say the Euro experiment, but build machines, build stuff that works, that you can put in the field, that is reliable, that ⁓ end users ⁓ will be comfortable with. I think we might risk some disillusion on the user side if we're not careful about that. I you need to have really to build for users and for machines that have the capacity to deliver the results, not just lab experiments. I think we've gone a long way in that direction already, but for me, success will be that, will be, I don't know, 95 % availability for a quantum computer in five years, something that you put in a data center that works, can be accessible. that people can use for their tasks. I think it's not only about the number of qubits, it's not only about the applications, also about the machines working and getting to do the job. And I think we're relatively far from there. There are some companies doing it very well, ⁓ who understand that. But for me, that's really a big part of the story. If you get into customers and users, you will have to show that the machines are performing well.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: So let me dig a little bit more there, Christophe. What kind of startups still need to be built?
Christophe Jurczak: There's a big question I'm asking myself as well. What is the future of quantum computing company? Is it single technology? Is it multi-technologies, multi-qubits for example? I think for now, all of the companies are either ions or atoms or superconducting. One of the reasons is that it's been built, it's because they've been built like that. mean built by scientific founders, most of them. who had a very strong view, strong vision from the start. But then the companies evolved, the market evolves, they're going public. It's going to be some ⁓ &A, consolidation, people are talking about. But is the future a single modality machine? Is it a multimodality machine? That's a good and big question, I think. And that's something I tend to think it's going to be multimodality. And we will have very different quantum computing companies in the future. Well, on this one, can admit that the jury is still out and we'll see how it evolves. But that could be a big development. think how the industry evolves, how it consolidates. ⁓ Yeah, I think that's going to be very interesting part over the next maybe two or three years, as soon as that actually. And I don't know. We'll see what the future quantum company would look like. But I could imagine that. Yeah. It has a multi-modality with the capacity also to do the interconnects and provide the service to the end user. We don't care that much about what kind of qubit he has on the other side, but we care about the machine being available, as I said, and delivering the service.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Let's see what the future awaits us. ⁓ One more question before we switch to the audience question, Christophe, following up on what you said. Are there areas where investors are still under-investing that people should be kind of focusing on eventually?
Christophe Jurczak: ⁓ In what sense, what do mean? ⁓
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Are there areas that you see have a lot of potential that are still not fully exploited?
Christophe Jurczak: ⁓ okay. Yeah, so there's one I'm really fond of, it's really new materials, ⁓ is a bit of a... It's a changing sector, actually, all the ⁓ computing... Computational loops, or let's say, computational material design in connection with... with AI, with quantum computers as well, because I think they will have a very big role to play in order for the design of new materials to happen and for them to be really used at scale. I think that's a very exciting field with ⁓ robotization, automatization with AI. I think it's a big use case for quantum computers as well, generate synthetic data, train models, et cetera. It's still... quite vague. I people tend to throw all these worlds and put all of them together, AI, quantum, robots, et cetera. Don't really have a clear view about, so it's a hype cube, maybe. Really don't have a clear view of how these play together, but the potential is huge there. I think AI accelerated things in connection with reality and not just data, but like having an impact. I think that's a big theme for me. ⁓ And I think quantum computing will have a big role to play there. And that's something I'll be looking carefully at. For now, it's clear how that might materialize, to be honest. But I'm 100 % sure we'll see new initiatives, new materials. There's been a lot of hype about using AI for drug design, for example. In truth, in fact, it's not that straightforward. I mean, of course, you can do things, but I don't know of a drug that's been designed by AI for now. and there are good reasons for that, but there's a huge potential there. I think for people who will understand how to deal and manage all these technologies and really create an architecture where they fit, I think it's going to be really, really big.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you Christos for this and all the great insights. Let me take a few questions from the audience ⁓ watching live. ⁓ So let's see. What is Quinton Nation's approach or evaluation with respect to AP when funding during pre-seed or during the seeding rounds?
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, so that's one thing people tend to say, people tend to focus a little bit too much on, is my opinion, but maybe not completely. But ⁓ I think the IP that is really valuable, that's the one that's developed inside the company, by the company, by the engineers and once you're up and running. So original IP is important, ⁓ but sometimes it's not that formal, it's more on how, et cetera. So we... Of course, we want to see some IP, but I'd say I'm conscious of the limits as well of original academic IP in particular, the way it's filed, the way it's done. I really put much more emphasis on developing IP inside the company. So I'm not sure I'm 100 % clear, but yeah, essentially we care more about the team, the science and the ideas there, whether they're formalized. into very strong IP or not. I mean, that's open for debate, say in discussions, depends on the sector, many things, but I would be quite open to, I'm quite open there, I mean, to have a look at what's on the table.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you, Christophe. On a different note, what would you recommend for people who want to transition from engineering to ⁓ venture capital look for a role at a firm like Quantum Nation, for example, in the quantum field in particular?
Christophe Jurczak: Okay, well that's a great job. That's the first thing I can say. If you have an appetite and interest for ⁓ science in particular, I think it's really fantastic. ⁓ I think, yeah, I mean, there are opportunities in the firms. I think there are, well, it depends on the path, career in life. I mean, we're bringing in, for example, new venture partners, operating partners, who will announce, think, next week or the week after. There is senior who are in their career at the moment where they can contribute and help us through the fund, help other companies. There are junior positions as well. ⁓ I think a good technical expertise is important, as I mentioned earlier. think that's what differentiates ⁓ fans. think having inside the team ⁓ some good understanding of the science, the opportunities and the limits. So if you can bring that vision, ⁓ either for a scientific background or engineering background, I think that's something that's valuable for VCs. It should be more and more valuable as we move forward.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: Thank you, Christoph. Christoph, we're getting to the close to the end of the hour. So let me thank you so much for your time and for sharing such an invaluable perspective with us today. Your trajectory, I mean, all the way from studying under Alain Aspect to working across governments, defense, renewable energy, Silicon Valley, now leading one of the premier quantum venture funds, really captures exactly what our motto at QBLOCK is all about, building quantum together. ⁓ It really takes theorists, experimentalists, engineers, funders, policymakers, vision investors like you all working together to move this field forward. And today's conversation has been a great reminder that building the quantum ecosystem is of course about scientific breakthroughs, but also about people, infrastructure, capital, and long-term conviction. As a small token of appreciation, we've sent you a QBlocks mark featuring our logo and motto. directly to your Paris office. I mean, hopefully it serves as a good companion for your next deep tech, deep diligent session. ⁓
Christophe Jurczak: Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, there's nothing here for now, so I mean, it's gonna be good.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: It's on the way, I promise. Should be arriving any time now. ⁓ For everyone tuning in live or catching up later, the recording of this session will be available on the QBlocks YouTube channel and it will also be uploaded to Apple Podcasts and Spotify under our feed Quantum Builders. Please stay tuned for our upcoming Fireside Chats as we continue to host leadership in the Quantum ecosystem.
Christophe Jurczak: Thank you, Armit.
Daniel Rodan Legrain: And Christoph, thank you again very, very much. And thank you everyone for joining us today.
Christophe Jurczak: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
