NVIDIA's NVentures includes Alice & Bob in its quantum collection.

      The Paris-based cat-qubit firm has added NVentures to its already impressive cap table, which includes support from FFC, AVP, and Bpifrance, while strengthening its collaboration with Nvidia through CUDA-Q. Alice & Bob, a quantum hardware company with bases in Paris and Boston that specializes in creating fault-tolerant machines using its proprietary cat-qubit architecture, has welcomed NVentures, Nvidia's venture capital division, to its cap table as part of an extension of its €100 million Series B funding round. The financial details of this new investment remain undisclosed, with the announcement made by the company on Friday.

      The first tranche of the Series B was completed in January 2025 and was led by Future French Champions, AXA Venture Partners, and Bpifrance, achieving a valuation of €100 million (approximately $104.9 million at that time). This funding round was among the largest recorded for European quantum hardware and signified that French sovereign capital, facilitated by Bpifrance and the state-supported FFC initiative, was willing to invest significantly in developing fault tolerance with a domestic player. The NVentures investment adds to the existing backers rather than replacing them.

      Nvidia's interest in Alice & Bob is driven by both a strategic opportunity and software integration. Over the past year, Alice & Bob has been integrating its cat-qubit technology with Nvidia's CUDA-Q platform and the NVQLink interconnect, which Nvidia employs to connect accelerators and QPUs. This integration aligns with Nvidia’s broader strategy for quantum computing: rather than developing its own QPU, it aims to serve as the classical computing and software infrastructure that any credible quantum system must support.

      The portfolio of NVentures reflects this strategy, having invested over the last nine months across various major hardware approaches, including a $600 million funding round for Quantinuum (ion trap) at a $10 billion valuation, funding for QuEra (neutral atoms), and a $1 billion Series E for PsiQuantum (photonic), along with the investment in Alice & Bob (superconducting cat qubits). Nvidia’s approach is hardware-independent and focuses on software, intending to provide its tools to whichever architecture successfully achieves fault tolerance first.

      Alice & Bob's technical foundation is that bosonic cat qubits can minimize bit-flip errors at the hardware level, which the company believes will allow it to achieve fault tolerance with thousands of physical qubits instead of the millions needed by less protected superconducting designs. The company aims to have a "useful" quantum computer operational by 2030, a goal that aligns with the new funding.

      This funding comes at a time when state involvement in the quantum sector is significant. Recently, the US Commerce Department announced $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding for nine quantum companies, acquiring equity stakes along with the grants. Since 2021, France has pursued a similar strategy through its €1.8 billion national quantum plan and the Proqcima program, in which Alice & Bob is recognized as one of the two national quantum hardware champions.

      Details about the size of the investment, the valuation post-extension, or any potential board observation rights from NVentures have not been disclosed. Alice & Bob has been cautious about what it reveals concerning its cap table, and further specifics are unlikely to emerge unless future funding rounds provide clarity.