IQM, Europe’s first public quantum company, admits the future of the tech is uncertain
Key takeaways
- IQM, a full-stack quantum company out of Finland, went public on the Nasdaq Thursday via a SPAC merger at a valuation of about $1.9 billion.
- SPAC mergers are often not immediately popular with retail investors these days.
- In fairness, this warning applies to all quantum companies.
IQM, a full-stack quantum company out of Finland, went public on the Nasdaq Thursday via a SPAC merger at a valuation of about $1.9 billion. But share prices didn t pop. They spent most the day below the IPO price — a lukewarm welcome.
SPAC mergers are often not immediately popular with retail investors these days. But this fizzle was arguably fueled by IQM s own admission in its prospectus that “large-scale commercial traction of quantum computing technology may never occur.”
In fairness, this warning applies to all quantum companies. Yet, that hasn t stopped the industry, including IQM, from acquiring customers, who use the tech as it is today for tasks like simulations and optimizations. IQM, which sells actual physical computers, as well as a cloud service, has customers like VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Germany.