Q-CTRL — Error Correction & Control · fobi

Q-CTRL

Q-CTRL builds quantum control infrastructure software to reduce errors and improve performance across quantum hardware platforms. Q-CTRL raised $59M in funding and was named one of TIME's Most Innovative Companies in 2024. The company's customers include the U.S. Air Force and NASA.

The company's software is used by IBM, Rigetti, and government labs, making it a platform-agnostic infrastructure layer with broad adoption.

q-ctrl.com Error Correction & Control

Australiaprivate

At a glance

Total raised

$135M

last round series b

Headcount

201-500

approximate · public range

Headquarters

Sydney

Australia

Founded

2017

9 years active

Status

Private

Error Correction & Control

Subsector

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Date	Stage	Amount	Valuation	Lead investors
Oct 8, 2024	Series B-2	$59M	—	GP Bullhound, Lockheed Martin Ventures
Jan 31, 2023	Series B	$88M	—	GP Bullhound

AI bull / bear

Bull case

Q-CTRL has established itself as the platform-agnostic control layer that every major quantum hardware player needs. IBM, Rigetti, and government labs all run its software, giving it deep integration across the ecosystem regardless of who wins the hardware race. That breadth of deployment creates switching costs: once a hardware team tunes its gates using Q-CTRL's optimization tools, ripping that out for a competitor's solution is painful and risky. The $59M in funding and recognition as one of TIME's Most Innovative Companies in 2024 signals conviction from both investors and the broader market. Government contracts with the U.S. Air Force and NASA provide not only revenue but also a credibility halo that opens doors in defense and aerospace, where quantum error mitigation is a priority. As quantum hardware scales toward fault tolerance, error rates will only become more critical, and Q-CTRL sits directly in the path of that trend.

Bear case

Q-CTRL sells software that improves hardware performance, but it does not control the hardware itself. If IBM, Rigetti, or other partners decide to build error mitigation natively into their own stacks — or simply acquire a smaller software shop to internalize the capability — Q-CTRL's platform-agnostic pitch turns from a strength into a vulnerability. The company's total addressable market is limited to the number of quantum hardware vendors and government labs willing to pay for a third-party control layer, which remains a niche today. While $59M in funding is respectable, it is modest compared to the capital being poured into hardware companies themselves. And government contracts, while prestigious, often come with narrow scopes and long procurement cycles that do not scale easily. If quantum hardware adoption stalls or shifts toward architectures that are less sensitive to control-layer optimization, Q-CTRL's revenue growth could plateau well before it reaches escape velocity.

Generated by deepseek-v4-flash · June 2, 2026Refreshes quarterly · see disclosures

Q-CTRL

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Funding history

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Founder backgrounds

Michael J. Biercuk

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