IQM becomes the first listed European quantum computing company: Jan Goetz, CEO & Co-Founder at IQM

0:00Jan Goetz:Hello and welcome to the Scaling Europe show presented by Deal. This episode is sponsored by SurrealDB, the multimodal database for AI agents. Omni, the AI analytics platform trusted by growing companies like Perplexity and Symbesia and VentureComet, the platform that gives startups and scale-ups real-time equity tracking, daily business insights and automated management information. Thank you for joining me. Please like, comment and subscribe.

0:33Jan Goetz:Hello, and welcome back to the Scaling Europe Show, presented by Deal. I'm Seb Johnson. Today, I've got a very exciting guest whose company, I guess, has been in the news a lot recently. It's Jan, co-founder and CEO of IQM. IQM is building full-stack quantum computers with real commercial traction and a lot of bookings, but most noticeably has been in the news a lot for the past week or so because of the news that they are going public. Jan, thank you for joining me. How are you doing today? Well, thanks for having me. Feeling great. New week, new adventures. What's the reaction been to the news?

1:06Well, amazing. Obviously, it was big news for the whole company. So for our own people who have been super excited for us announcing this step. But then, of course, also for our partners, customers, investors, and then, of course, also the broader audience out there. So very overwhelming, positive news.

1:24Jan Goetz:I am. And, you know, for someone like me who loves the ecosystem, lives and breathes European tech, it's super exciting to see what Europe's first quantum computer going public. Why did you decide now is the right time? Well, of course, as a company, you kind of go through different stages of your growth journey. You're in the beginning focused on just getting started and you're growing the business. And we are building technology, which is quite capital intensive. We are running our own chip factory. We are running our own assembly line and data center. And it is clear that we are on this journey and we will need capital along the way.

2:01And we have been using also now this announcement actually to raise more capital. So this is obviously one thing is access to capital, which we think going forward also on the public markets, you have different pockets of capital that you can tap into. But of course, also it creates visibility, especially in the US, for example, where we want to be more active. so we have the intention to do a dual listing both in the US and then here in Europe and also being a company means that you are kind of much more under the microscope and you're scrutinized a lot which might sound like a burden but actually for many of our customers it is important that they partner with trustworthy suppliers for their technology and it gives us I think also an extra level of credibility making sure that our business plans are properly thought through and all of this.

2:54Jan Goetz:That's really interesting. I mean I've spoken to so many founders who are just intent on staying private for longer and longer but I guess you know when you're building in a very different field that the complexities that come from going public almost become an additional moat it sounds like. Yeah of course this is also a way to see it And of course, building quantum computers already has a lot of complexity in it. And as a company, we know how to deal with complex situations. Also, the business that we do selling into these big computing centers and data centers, these are usually quite large and complex deal.

3:28So we are not shying away from kind of new challenges ahead of us.

3:32Jan Goetz:Love it. That's great. And I want to talk a bit about the commercial attraction that you've seen. Quantum computing, I guess, is still relatively early on in its technological advancements compared to how big and how advanced it could get. But you were generating really revenue. I think I read it was like$30 million last year. You've got another$100 million in bookings. Can you touch a bit about who's buying the computers and what kind of things they're using them for? Yeah, so on the business model side, we have actually two legs that we stand on. So on the one hand side, we sell computers, full stack quantum computers into big computing centers, data centers, actually around the world.

4:06We sold quite a few here in Europe, but then we also sold in the Asia-Pacific region, for example in Korea and Taiwan. We also sold in the US, so we are actually also the first European or non-US company to sell a quantum computer there. So this is one part of the business. And the other part of the business is to sell computing time through the cloud. And we do this either through our own cloud, which is called Resonance, or we sell at the moment through AWS as a cloud service provider. and basically what this means is that these cloud services they connect to our quantum computers which we run in our quantum data center in munich

4:45Jan Goetz:interesting do you see one being bigger than the other as you go forward well historically we started with selling the computers as on-premise machines and we have been pushing this quite hard and now we are the company that has sold most quantum computers globally so this is still the majority of the business as of today but we do think that going forward the cloud revenues they will pick up and as quantum computers become also more commercial in the use cases that you can apply them for we think that the cloud business actually will probably become equally important interesting i i just want to touch on your uh your background a bit you know you've got this very academic background you're clearly an expert in quantum how have you found the transition from um uh i guess yeah having an academic background i guess what strengths is having this really academic background giving you as a as a ceo of this business well i think as a um as a researcher what you are used to is problem solving and usually you solve problems that no one else has solved before that's the whole nature of science and academic research that you go into land where no one else has been before and i think this is a little bit like when you found a company usually either you try out a new business model or you build completely new technology so you do things that no one has done before so I think there's in the mindset that you have there's lots of synergies obviously the topics are different and fundraising is different from writing a scientific paper and leading a team full of very diverse background people with commercial background, financial background, marketing but also technology is different from leading a university lab.

6:31But overall, I think there are still quite a lot of synergies between the roles.

6:36Jan Goetz:Yeah, interesting. Yeah, and you seem to be flying. I've spoken to a few quantum startups across Europe. It seems to be an area that's getting a lot of attention, both politically but also in kind of the venture landscape. Why do you think quantum computing is particularly exciting or why is it being successful in Europe particularly, do you think? I think the fascination of quantum is a the huge potential of a new technology that opens door to problems that otherwise we will not be able to solve. So there's this huge technology aspect. And of course, quantum is also something that is very fascinating for us humans because we cannot see it in our everyday life.

7:19It's really something that usually remains kind of hidden for the normal human being. So there's a lot of fascination on the technology side. but then of course you also have the whole business and and venture part of it and and growing companies you have all the kind of craziness of a startup in it but then also the seriousness of the governments that you mentioned because of the sensitivity of some of the use cases let it be cyber security but also defense so i think it's a broad mix that in this broadness probably you have in only very few other technologies and this is what makes it so exciting and I think Europe is quite good because we're actually very broad when it comes to the university landscape and research but we're also good in entangling this with governments and sometimes this makes us slow but I think in quantum we see a lot of synergies there as well and this is why I think in quantum really we are still leading and we have a real chance of staying one of the leading regions within the kind of global race that's out there.

8:20Jan Goetz:And what about Finland specifically? Is there some reason why you think this company is kind of been born out of Finland? It feels like Finland has got this reputation for being quite good at deep tech and hard companies. Is there something about the Finnish ecosystem that lends itself towards building complex companies? I think it's being open for innovation is one thing. And having a strong university and research ecosystem is very important. Having a strong venture capital scene, which you have in Finland. but also the mindset that Finland itself is too small to scale business kind of domestically so you need to go out you need to go to central Europe you need to go to the US to grow the business and this is a mindset I think overall in the Nordics and which lets companies grow but then also this kind of the values which are very much behind honesty and delivering on what you promise so not kind of too much over promising and too much hype but really showing that you can execute the plans i think these are all different ingredients of the overall success of the nordics and and the tech in the nordics and why was it important to you to do a dual listing as opposed to like a single listing in the u.s i think it's combining the best of two worlds so obviously when it comes to kind of capital for technology there are very deep pockets in the US and obviously we want to tap into this and we don't want to leave those untapped but then we do have very strong institutional support and also of course support from individuals here in Europe and we want to enable them to be kind of part of the journey going forward and this is why we thought actually being open to both sides is the best we can do in this situation.

10:05Jan Goetz:And why was going this back route I guess the chosen path? Yeah, it seems that in quantum, this is kind of the standard. So all companies that are public already or that are currently in the process, they are doing it through a spec. And even though specs have not always been only successful in the past, I think there was a big wave, which also made some people doubt. Actually, in quantum, I think all of the specs have been quite a success and all the companies are trading quite well. So there's, I think, a very strong background and history for specs in quantum. And specs, I think they give you a certain kind of clarity when it comes to valuation.

10:48When it comes to the fundraising side of it, they also give you a certainty on the timelines and on the speed. So this is why we decided overall it's also the best route for us to proceed.

10:59Jan Goetz:Interesting. And, you know, what needs to happen, I guess, for you to look back and say that the listing was a great success? Well, of course, we want to succeed as a company which should be reflected in the share price. and we want to be and want to stay well capitalized. Obviously, now we just raised a Series B and we made the announcement of the spec where we raised additional money through the pipe. But obviously, as a company, we want to develop towards a profitable business model and we see going public just as one step in this journey and as one step on the way of becoming a profitable business.

11:38this is really kind of the north star that we have for IQM.

11:42Jan Goetz:And how do you feel individually about becoming a public company CEO? Well, I'm a first-time founder, so everything I do on this journey is kind of the first time. So also going public for me is the first time. But this is kind of what keeps me in there. It's really staying excited for all the new things. and it's clear that it's not going to be boring next year. So we have a lot of new things to tackle, new adventures, new challenges to cope with. And this is really what motivates me every morning when I get up is that there's a new set of challenges that I can solve this day or this week or this coming year.

12:23Jan Goetz:And what's it been like within the company since announcing it? I imagine it must have been really exciting for all the employees. I think you've got 300 employees at the moment or something like that. what's been the internal reaction like yeah of course super excited i mean many of our employees similar to me have a scientific or academic background and so for many of our employees it's the first kind of real company that they work in obviously for most of our employees it's the first time that they go public we have a few who have done it before and they help us now through the process and lead and guide the process but for many it's also the first time and i think doing something such exciting for the first time, I think it's super important.

13:04Jan Goetz:One of the things that you've spoken about is, you know, building a science company that is pushing the frontiers forward, building something that's really complicated. But you've always been very switched on about commercializing it from day one. How do you balance that? You know, as you say, a lot of your employees are academic research backgrounds. How do you balance, you know, having a scientific rigor, technological breakthroughs while also having a very strong commercial model? Of course, it might sometimes create a bit of friction, but I think this can be positive friction in the way that our sales team is also pushing the technology because they say, hey, we really need this feature.

13:42We really need this to get the customers excited. So I think you can always turn it into something positive. But actually also what we realized is that some of our researchers, they're actually great salespeople and they also love to commercialize it because it's the first time that they see that someone really values what they're doing and they're even willing to pay money for it right because if you're on the university side you write a paper you maybe get famous within the scientific community and people listen to your talk and read your paper but seeing that someone is actually willing to buy what you have developed this actually gives a lot of additional motivation boost to quite a few of

14:18Jan Goetz:our engineers well i imagine it's a it's an amazing thing for them to go through right building something that's so valuable that people will pay millions for and and how have you found that do you are you still doing a lot of selling or you you know have you have you built a team that are kind of managing that process now well in a way of course every day i'm selling the story of the company and i talk obviously also to our important customers our important partners i talk to politicians investors so that's my kind of most of the the time of my day is telling the story so in a way selling what we do.

14:52And yeah, it seems that so far this has been quite a successful approach.

14:58Jan Goetz:Amazing. And I think I've read, I don't know how accurate this is, but I think that you're planning on going public, I think towards the end of Q2. Is that right? So yeah, we announced now that we have signed the business combination agreement, but the whole transaction still need to close. And nobody knows exactly how long this takes because we have to file with the SEC. So there might be more or less comments from the SEC. But yeah, the expectation is that this brings us at some point in summer with the closing of the deal. Amazing. And how do you feel about it? Is there anything that you need to get ready internally to get you ready for that date?

15:35Jan Goetz:Or is it just the sort of the contracts and the legal stuff? Of course, we have been preparing for this internally already for quite some time, getting the processes ready and getting the communication kind of policies and all of this lined up. So I think we are quite ready from an organizational point of view for it. Yeah, it's interesting. And I guess, how long have you been thinking about this? You raised a huge Series B at the end of last year. Was part of that raise to think, okay, we need to be well capitalized to enable us to go public? Well, I said the goal was always to build a profitable business.

16:09And then the question was how to get there. Of course, we could have raised more private rounds. but raising private rounds for such kind of growth stories in Europe is also not the easiest thing to do. So kind of taking the route towards the public markets has always been kind of in the back of the mind of people as one option. And then after we raised the Series B last year, obviously we kind of discussed amongst the board and others. And at some point it became clearer and clearer that this is not really the best way to go forward.

16:41Jan Goetz:Do you think there's a problem in Europe with a lack of large capital rounds for companies like yourselves? Well, it's a challenge. I think it's getting maybe better and we see larger funds being established also on the European level. But it's still a challenge, I think, especially for deep tech and kind of technology as such in Europe. Yeah, because I know that you're involved in a number of the European organizations, the Innovation Council, the Quantum Consortium. How bullish are you on Europeans, the tech landscape within Europe? I think we have great technology and I think the challenge that we have is scaling it up, right?

17:26And making sure it stays in Europe and we bring the value back to Europe. Because this really is also for kind of the long term wealth and let's say for our kids and their kids. to make sure that they still have something that they can actually use to defend their leadership position. So from this perspective, I'm super passionate about making kind of tech from Europe a success.

17:50Jan Goetz:Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And that's why for me personally, I thought it was great to do the dual listing. It's amazing to be able to do both and to sort of retain some sort of European, yeah, to have the European excitement as well. what else do you think europe needs to do to sort of unlock companies like yourselves is it is it just capital is there other friction involved you know people are always criticizing europe and european union for over regulation um what do we need to do to unlock more frontier technology companies like iqm yeah i think it's of course creating a single market is usually the the thing that people talk a lot about it creating the legal structures i think now we have this eu inc for example coming up so topics are developing in the right direction you can always say it should happen faster that's fair enough but I think the willingness is there even on the highest political level to make it a success obviously we also need the people who know how to scale businesses and who know how to ramp it up and this is something where I think in Europe still there are not so many people who have been building large tech organizations in the past so bringing talent into Europe, let's say from the US or other places and bringing this experience here, I think this is also a very crucial point going forward.

19:07Jan Goetz:Amazing. Well, look, I'm super excited to see you go public. I think it's going to be an amazing success story for Europe as a whole and for them specifically. Best of luck with it all. And thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.