Joe Fitzsimons. Image: Horizon Quantum Computing
The start-up is combining its business with a Las Vegas-based special purpose acquisition company.
Horizon Quantum Computing, an Irish-founded Singaporean start-up has been valued at approximately $500m in a new merger deal. The company has announced that it will combine its businesses with the Las Vegas-based dMY Squared, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). SPACs are publicly traded corporations with a short life-span, formed with the sole purpose of effecting a merger with a private company to enable it to go public.
According to the deal, the merger is expected to close by the end of the year, and will result in the combined business being publicly listed and led by Horizon Quantum’s current management team.
“We are excited to partner with the dMY team because of their experience in enterprise hardware and software as well as their success as pioneers in the quantum computing industry,” said Dr Joe Fitzsimons, the founder and CEO of Horizon Quantum.
“While quantum hardware continues to advance, the true revolution lies in enabling users to harness these powerful systems for solving real-world challenges. The ‘applications bottleneck’ represents a critical barrier between quantum computing’s theoretical promise and practical impact – one that our team is committed to breaking through.”
Horizon Quantum is developing a way to transform programmes written in conventional programming languages such as C or Python into accelerated quantum applications. To accomplish this, the company has created a method to automatically construct quantum algorithms from conventional languages in a way that preserves the code’s original functioning in a process called algorithm synthesis.
Fitzsimons, a former professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design and the president of the Southeast Asia Quantum Industry Association, also co-invented universal blind quantum computing – technology used to secure cloud-based quantum systems.
“Quantum computing application development addresses the critical gap between advancing hardware capabilities and real-world implementation,” said Harry You, the chair of dMY Squared.
“We could not be more pleased and excited to work with Joe and his team at Horizon Quantum, who are working to create a common software platform across different quantum computing hardware approaches. From our past experience, we have seen the power of an operating system and management layer to power compute and applications.”
Horizon Quantum raised $18.1m in a Series A funding round in 2023 while also preparing to open its Dublin office – its first office outside of Singapore. Currently, the company has two open quantum scientist positions in Dublin.
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