Bengaluru's Quanfluence raises $10 million to build photonic quantum computer

Quanfluence, a Bengaluru start-up building a quantum computer that runs on light, has raised US$10 million (about Rs 92 crore) in a round led by Chiratae Ventures, the company announced on Wednesday, 7 October 2026. Rainmatter, the investment arm of the brokerage Zerodha, joined the round, and existing investor Pi Ventures also put in money. The company, founded in 2021 and incubated at IIT Madras, said it will use the funds to build a full-stack photonic quantum computer, combining its own photonic chips, control electronics and software in one system.

Quantum computing is one of the hardest areas of deep technology, and most serious efforts worldwide are run by large companies or heavily funded start-ups in the United States, Europe and China. A ten-million-dollar round for an Indian hardware team is small by global standards, but it is a significant bet for Indian venture capital, which has traditionally preferred software and consumer businesses with quicker returns.

Quanfluence has chosen photonics, which uses particles of light rather than super-cooled circuits, as the basis for its machine. Photonic approaches can work at or near room temperature for some components, which may make them cheaper to run, though building large, reliable machines remains an unsolved engineering problem everywhere. The company says it has already designed and made several photonic and electronic integrated circuits and shown it can generate quantum states of light.

The start-up is not waiting for a full quantum computer to earn money. Its optical Ising machine, which handles optimisation problems such as scheduling or routing with many linked variables, is already on sale. Reports say it has sold around three of these machines, rents access remotely on a usage basis and runs paid pilots with 10 to 15 companies. The company claims the machine is up to 100 times faster than traditional optimisation methods; that is the company's own figure and has not been independently tested.

For readers watching India's deep-tech scene, the round also shows how academic research from IIT Madras and IISER Mohali is being turned into companies with commercial products, and how investors such as Rainmatter are backing longer-horizon hardware bets.

Short-term: The money will fund chip design, hiring and work on the first small quantum processors, while sales and pilots of the optical Ising machine continue.

Long-term: If it meets its 2029 target, Quanfluence would be one of the few Indian companies with a home-grown quantum hardware stack, which could matter for research, industry and strategic computing needs.

Who is affected: Indian deep-tech founders and investors, researchers and students in photonics and quantum science, and companies that need to solve complex optimisation problems.

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