Ground State Ventures closes $88M quantum fund, 26% above target
What’s the deal? Ground State VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has closed an $88M (€75.2M) fund for early-stage quantum technology investments — 26% above its initial $70M target. The fund is nearing its final close.
The Amsterdam-based firm was founded in 2022 by Ton van ’t NoordendeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → with a €15M vehicle backed by Quantum Delta NLDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Until April 2026 it operated as QDNL Participations. The rebrand to Ground State Ventures — a reference to the lowest energy state in quantum physics — coincides with the fund’s oversubscription and reflects the firm’s expansion from a Netherlands-focused seed investor to a global fund with offices in Amsterdam, London, and San Francisco.
Why now? In less than four years, the firm has evolved from backing Dutch university spinouts to running a global quantum fund. Its 15-company portfolio is valued at $1.3B in under 15 months, spanning the full quantum stack: computing, sensing, communications, and infrastructure.
Early Dutch investments include QuantWare, QbloxDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, QphoXDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, QT SenseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Q*BirdDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The firm has since expanded into the US with DiffraQTionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Quantum ElementsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and SiC SystemsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, plus Switzerland-based RhonexumDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Chad RigettiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, founder of Rigetti Computing, joined as partner in 2023. The fund participated in Sygaldry Technologies’ $139M raise — Rigetti’s newer venture — across both seed and Series A. The investment team holds PhDs from Oxford, StanfordDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Harvard, Yale, and UC Berkeley.
What could go wrong? Quantum technology remains pre-commercial for most applications. Timelines for fault-tolerant quantum computing continue to shift, and many portfolio companies are university spinouts at the earliest stages — typical cheque sizes of $500K to $1.5M imply high technical and market risk.
The $1.3B portfolio valuation in under 15 months is eye-catching, but the firm did not disclose its methodology. Competition from larger deep tech funds could squeeze a sub-$100M vehicle out of follow-on rounds.
The signal The oversubscription suggests institutional appetite for quantum is maturing beyond exploratory allocations. Ground State Ventures’ model — PhD-heavy team, board seats at every portfolio company, first-cheque strategy with $500K to $1.5M tickets — mirrors the playbook that worked in early-stage AI venture a decade ago.
Six of its 15 portfolio companies have a female chief executive or co-founder, an outlier in deep tech. With plans to back roughly 30 companies over the coming years and talks under way in India and Australia, the firm is betting that quantum’s commercial moment requires global coverage, not just access to a handful of research clusters.
Sources:
The Quantum Insider
Tech Funding News
Quantum Zeitgeist
EU-Startups
Image credit:
Ground State Ventures
J.V.
