Intel buys Classiq for a reported $2.3B
Intel has agreed to buy Classiq, a Tel Aviv company that makes software for programming quantum computers. Israeli press reports a price of about $2.3B, four times the $550M Classiq was valued at in November 2025.
Intel agreed on 26 October 2026 to buy Classiq. Programmers use Classiq’s software to describe what a quantum program should do, and it produces the circuit a quantum computer runs, for several makes of quantum hardware. Intel plans to pair it with the quantum chips it designs itself. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
Intel did not give a price. Calcalist, Ynet and Haaretz report about $2.3B in cash and shares; Globes reports $2.2B. The charts use $2.3B. Nir Minerbi, Amir Naveh and Yehuda Naveh founded Classiq in Tel Aviv in 2020. It has about 150 employees and raised $204M.
Classiq’s valuation, from $165M in 2022 to a reported $2.3B
Valuation at each round with one on record, then the price Israeli press reports. Intel has not announced a price.
Source: Dealroom.co · sale price as reported by Calcalist, Ynet and Haaretz
Entrée Capital led Classiq’s first round in 2020 and its largest, $110M in 2025. Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s chief executive since March 2025, invested in Classiq’s Series B in 2022 as a private investor, when he was chairman of Cadence Design Systems. Intel’s competitors AMD and Qualcomm came in through their venture arms in November 2025, with the quantum computer maker IonQ.
On Dealroom’s estimate Entrée owns about 15% of Classiq, the largest stake. At the reported $2.3B it would be worth about $345M, before the terms of the deal are known. The three founders hold about 13% between them.
Who owns Classiq
Dealroom’s estimate of each holder’s stake, and its value at the reported $2.3B price.
Source: Dealroom.co estimates · sale price as reported by Calcalist, Ynet and Haaretz
Dealroom has the amount for two cheques. Entrée Capital put $4M into the 2020 seed round on its own; the size of its later cheques is not public. Awz Ventures put $13M on its own into a September 2022 extension of the Series B, the only round it appears in on Dealroom’s record. At the reported $2.3B, its estimated 5% stake would be worth about $115M, about nine times that, before the deal terms are known. For the other holders, Dealroom has the round they joined but not the amount they paid.
Money in and estimated stake value at the reported $2.3B price
Dealroom’s gross estimates, before deal terms and tax. Hollow markers show the round an investor joined where the amount is not public.
Source: Dealroom.co estimates · sale price as reported by Calcalist, Ynet and Haaretz
Ten of the thirteen largest exits of quantum computing companies were stock market listings, eight of them through a merger with a listed shell company. Classiq would be the largest acquisition of a quantum company on Dealroom’s record, ahead of IonQ’s purchases of the chip foundry SkyWater and of Oxford Ionics.
The largest exits of quantum computing companies
Value at the sale or listing.
Source: Dealroom.co
At $2.3B, Classiq would be Intel’s fourth-largest acquisition and its second-largest in Israel, after Mobileye. Five of the twelve companies in the chart are Israeli.
Intel’s largest acquisitions
Price paid, with the year the deal was announced.
Source: Dealroom.co
Classiq adds to a run of large Israeli exits. Including Classiq, 103 venture-backed companies founded or headquartered in Israel have been sold or listed for the first time since 2024 at a disclosed value, worth $76B together. $49B of that is in 2026, the year Google completed its purchase of Wiz and ServiceNow bought Armis. Both were founded in Israel and later moved their headquarters to the US.
Israel’s first-time exits, 2024 to 2026
From 2015 to 2023, Israeli companies made up 13% of the value of first-time exits in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since 2024 their share is 31%, and in 2026 it is 36%.
Israel’s share of first-time exits in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Share of the value of first sales and listings of VC-backed companies, by year. 2026 to date.
Source: Dealroom.co
What this means
Intel is paying about four times Classiq’s last valuation for software that works across makers of quantum hardware, to go with the quantum chips it builds. For Israel, it is the third exit above $2B this year, after Wiz and Armis.