Oratomic, a quantum computing startup founded by Caltech physicists, has raised $300 million in a Series A round co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Khosla Ventures. Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Lowercarbon Capital, and Bain Capital also participated.
The company uses lasers acting as optical tweezers to hold individual atoms in place as qubits. Oratomic’s key breakthrough lies in error correction: the startup discovered its approach can correct errors using roughly 10,000 to 20,000 qubits, far fewer than previously thought necessary.
“You would have not previously been able to convince any of us to start a quantum computing company, because we just thought it was way too far away,” said co-founder and CEO Dolev Bluvstein. “Only when we made this recent breakthrough did we simultaneously all change our minds.”
Unlike most quantum companies offering prototype systems to researchers, Oratomic plans to bypass the NISQ stage entirely and go straight to a fault-tolerant machine. The company aims to deliver the first utility-scale quantum computer by the end of the decade.
