Alice & Bob takes a big leap forward. We have just announced our €100M Series B funding round, and this isn’t just a milestone, it’s the ignition of our next chapter. It’s also a testament to the progress we’ve made, the vision we hold, and the trailblazing new path to useful quantum computing we’ve opened for the whole field.
Now, Alice & Bob is finally stepping into the position it was destined for since its inception, among the major players in this industry. But before we look ahead, let’s take a moment to recall our beginnings.
When We Started, Few Believed in the Cat Qubit
When Raphael and I founded Alice & Bob in 2020, the dream of building a quantum computer out of « cat qubits » sounded, frankly, audacious. Our early pitches drew skeptical smiles, sometimes outright laughter.
Especially when we came to investment committees with handheld pendulums to illustrate our method…
Even seasoned deep-tech investors balked at the scale of our ambition: solving the biggest hurdle in quantum computing, error correction, with a radically new approach.
Fast forward to today, and we have rewritten the rules of the quantum error correction game. Our cat qubits aren’t just working, they are thriving. They set a world record for bit-flip lifetimes, proving that scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing is achievable.
This wasn’t a fluke. It was the product of years of persistence, expertise, and a team that refused to settle for “good enough.”
But this is just the first part of the story.
The Journey So Far: Mastering the Cat Qubit
When we first started Alice & Bob, the goal was to build a better quantum bit from the ground up. In the quantum world, “better” basically means something that doesn’t fall apart before you can even start your calculations.
The idea was straightforward on paper: create a qubit that could resist bit-flip errors on its own. In practice? Not so straightforward. Very few people had ever attempted to build a cat qubit before. Cat states were known and considered fascinating, but most experts thought they’d never be practical enough for quantum computing, too complicated to engineer and control.
Our first big milestone was building our prototype qubit. It wasn’t perfect (no prototype ever is), but it showed that our idea had legs. From there, we kept improving, focusing on bit-flip error suppression and stability. And in 2024, we hit a major target with Boson 4, our single cat qubit chip that set a world record for bit-flip lifetimes exceeding seven minutes. Seven minutes might not sound like much, but in the quantum world, it’s tens of thousands of times better than comparable qubits. Keeping the proportions, it’s like a human holding their breath underwater for a week.
The results with Boson 4 are incredible.
Still, as proud as we are of this achievement, there’s only so much you can do with a single qubit. Now, it’s time to grow our quantum processors and tap into the true superpower of cat qubits: hardware efficiency. In other words, running quantum error correction with dramatically fewer qubits, cables, cryogenic space, and energy than anyone ever achieved before.
And for that, we needed the right resources.
Series B: Accelerating the Future
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Alice & Bob has raised €100 million in our Series B funding round! This round was led by an incredible group of investors, including Future French Champions, AVP (AXA Venture Partners), and Bpifrance. It’s also amazing to see all our Series A investors doubling down on their belief in Alice & Bob. To these funds that have been working shoulder to shoulder with us, Breega, Elaia Partners, Supernova Invest, and Bpifrance, our most heartfelt thank you.
This funding isn’t just about the money; it’s a vote of confidence in our approach and our roadmap.
Confidence, not faith. Just last month, we published our roadmap, detailing the key challenges we’re tackling on our way to building a useful quantum computer by the end of the decade. This is one of the most detailed and transparent disclosures of a technological approach in the quantum computing field to date.
To make the roadmap even more accessible and transparent, we published it as the last chapter of our white paper, where we explain how the cat qubit works and how it solves the industry’s most pressing challenge.
So, in the spirit of transparency, what will we do with this funding?
In short, we’re going to scale. That means:
- Getting more toys: Building a 4 000m² state-of-the-art research and production facility to develop and test multi-qubit systems here in Paris.
- Recruiting more players: Expanding our team with the brightest minds in quantum physics, engineering, software, and business, effectively doubling our team.
Context: Why Now?
Quantum computing is at a turning point. On one hand, the foundational breakthroughs have been made. The quantum field has achieved remarkable results in the last two years, from advancements in qubit stability to finally effective error correction techniques. The building blocks of quantum computing are now solidly in place.
At the same time, industry interest is surging. Companies and researchers across the globe are eagerly exploring how quantum technology can unlock new frontiers in fields like financial optimization, materials science, and drug discovery.
But for most players, turning those possibilities into reality means scaling their hardware by orders of magnitude. And that’s exactly where Alice & Bob is uniquely positioned to lead.
The potential applications are as exciting as they are vast. From designing new materials to cracking massive optimization problems to disrupting machine learning, we’re only scratching the surface, and it’s already formidable.
Yet, none of this will ever become possible without very, very large quantum computers: millions of physical qubits working seamlessly together to both run quantum computations and correct the errors that inevitably affect the system. Traditional approaches require massive amounts of hardware to correct errors, approaches that, while possible, aren’t practical for large-scale systems.
At Alice & Bob, thanks to cat qubits, we would need “only” thousands of qubits, where others would need millions. The cat qubit doesn’t just reduce the hardware requirements, it makes fault-tolerant quantum computing genuinely achievable in an economically viable way.
Fueled by Talent and a Pinch of Madness
This journey has been, and will continue to be, a collective effort, and we want to take a moment to express our gratitude to everyone who has made it possible.
To our team: Every breakthrough, every milestone, is a testament to your talent and dedication. From designing our first cat qubit to achieving world records, you’ve re-drawn the limits of what’s possible at every step. Your curiosity, creativity, and sheer relentlessness are what make Alice & Bob what it is today.
To our investors: Thank you for believing in us and our vision. Your confidence in what we’re building, and your willingness to bet on our roadmap, means more than words can express. You’ve given us the resources, the runway, and the trust to turn our bold ideas into reality, and we’re determined to deliver.
To you, our community: Whether you’ve been experimenting with our chips on the cloud, cheering us on from the sidelines, or simply following our journey, thank you. Your engagement inspires us, and we’re excited to see our technology in your hands soon.
At Alice & Bob, we are pioneering a future where humans will be able to play by the same rules as Nature. Every new result brings us closer to solving problems once thought impossible.
If the idea of reshaping the future of technology excites you, we’d love to hear from you.
Together, we are building something extraordinary.
