QuBeats raises $15M to build quantum sensors for GPS-denied navigation
What's the deal? QuBeatsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Hyderabad-based quantum technology startup, has raised $15 million in its first institutional round. Backers include software firm Zoho Corporation, IndusBridge VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and India's National Quantum MissionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? The company builds atomic sensors for military and civilian use in environments where satellite positioning fails. Its products include atomic magnetometers, quantum gyroscopes, miniature atomic clocks, and Rydberg atom-based radio-frequency receivers.
Its QB-MagNav system matches crustal magnetic anomalies against pre-loaded maps to fix position, while the QB-Spectrum receiver passively detects radio signals from megahertz to terahertz frequencies without conventional antennas. Navigation software fuses these data streams to keep positioning intact when GPS signals degrade, are jammed, or vanish in undersea or underground operations.
Why now? "GPS denial is a real and growing threat, especially in contested zones," co-founder Mallikarjun Karra told ThePrint in June 2025. Satellite navigation has become a single point of failure for systems from commercial aviation to precision-guided munitions.
What else? The raise comes as QuBeats executes a US$3.4M contract (roughly $3 million), awarded in June 2025 through the Ministry of Defence's iDEX ADITI program, to build a quantum positioning system for the Indian Navy. In June 2026, India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research transferred its Rydberg-based E-field sensing technology from the National Physical Laboratory to the company's legal entity, Nostradamus TechnologiesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
QuBeats is now competing for multi-crore defense tenders for Rydberg atom-based RF sensing and quantum gyroscopes — contracts that a decade ago would have gone to foreign suppliers.
Who's behind it? Karra, a molecular physics PhD candidate at the Fritz Haber Institute with an integrated master's from IIT Kharagpur, leads a technical team drawn from elite research programs. Co-founder Rajat Sethi holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA from MIT Sloan. The founding group also includes Dr. Shouvik Mukherjee, formerly of the Joint Quantum Institute, and Dr. Madhu Trivikram Talluri, who completed postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Incorporated in April 2023, QuBeats maintains a research presence at the Quantum Startup Foundry at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The signal: The round reflects India's drive to build indigenous alternatives to GPS and to move government research into commercial hands — a technology transfer policymakers have long promised but rarely delivered at scale.
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
