Equal1 Secures €10 million in European Innovation Council Accelerator Funding
Equal1 Laboratories (Equal1), the University College Dublin (UCD) silicon quantum computing spin-out, has secured €10 million in blended (grant and equity) funding through the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme.
Equal1 is among 99 innovative start-ups and SMEs, from 21 countries, which have been awarded a total of €627 million through this Horizon Europe programme to help them bring their technologies to the market.
Equal1 is addressing a major challenge for the quantum computing industry, to scale the number of qubits so that a quantum computer can tackle useful, real-world problems. The company’s quantum technology is particularly suited to quantum Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
AI is transforming every aspect of our lives from self-driving vehicles to AI-designed drugs. However, the amount of energy required by these applications means that it is now a material and growing contributor to global carbon output and hence global warming. Equal1’s quantum computing technology will enable vastly better performance at a fraction of the energy.
Equal1 was founded by Dr Dirk Leipold, Mike Asker and Professor R. Bogdan Staszewski as a spin-out from the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and its research and development teams are based in NovaUCD and in Silicon Valley, California.
Jason Lynch, COO, Equal1 said, “We are delighted to have won €10 million in blended funding in the latest EIC accelerator awards. The is a huge validation of our team and our game-changing plans for silicon quantum-enhanced machine learning.”
He added, "This investment will enable the company to expand the R&D team in Ireland very significantly over the next 12 -18 months. We will be hiring engineers in areas of AI, silicon, software and quantum computing. We are very appreciative of the support from EIC and our other investors.”
Last October the company announced that it has closed a multi-million euro funding round led by btov Industrial Technologies with Atlantic Bridge and other Equal1 investors, including 808 Ventures and Enterprise Ireland, bringing to over €10 million the funding secured by the company.
Click here for further information on all successfully funded companies in this latest EIC accelerator round.
ENDS
20 December 2021
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications and Media Relations Manager, UCD Research and Innovation, NovaUCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie.
Editors Notes
Equal1 leverages commercially available semiconductor technology to deliver quantum computing solutions that empower businesses to overcome data-intensive AI challenges today. With its much smaller carbon footprint, our scalable, cost-effective technology provides a quantum computing path that will impact the trajectory of AI. This means we enable our customers to more effectively leverage the power of AI to develop useful, real-world solutions. www.equal1.com
The EIC Accelerator offers start-ups and SMEs grants of up to EUR 2.5 million combined with equity investments through the EIC Fund ranging from EUR 0.5 to EUR 15 million. In addition to financial support, all projects benefit from a range of Business Acceleration Services that provide access to leading expertise, corporates, investors and ecosystem actors.
Since its launch in March 2021, over 4,000 start-ups and SMEs have sent their ideas and over 1800 have submitted full applications to the cut-offs in June and October. The companies announced today were among the 1098 who submitted to the second cut-off on 6 October, while the 65 companies selected following the June cut-off were announced already in October. https://eic.ec.europa.eu/eic-funding-opportunities/eic-accelerator_en