Strong research, limited capital for scaling up
Shinyoung Kim and Freeke Heijman compared public support for the ten best-funded quantum companies in the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. The Netherlands ranks among the world’s leaders in quantum science, but the ten Dutch companies collectively received €50 million in publicly disclosed funding, or up to €81 million including estimates. In the other countries, that figure is three to fifteen times higher. Furthermore, none of the Dutch companies had a contract with their own government, whereas in the other countries this applies to five to nine out of ten companies.
This difference is reflected in the size of the companies. The median Dutch company raised €16 million, compared with €37 to 48 million in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. According to the authors, the biggest funding gap arises from the Series B stage onwards, when hardware companies need tens of millions per round to scale up production.
The government as a client
Among other things, the authors advocate a phased public procurement programme for quantum systems from Dutch suppliers, larger specialised deep-tech funds with pension funds as investors, faster procedures for export controls and investment screening, and stronger European cooperation in view of the EU Quantum Act, which the European Commission intends to present on 18 November.
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