Deals · DeepTech

Coherence Quantum raises €2.78M seed to build the control layer for quantum computers

An Espoo-based deep-tech company building cryogenic signalling and control platforms — the precision electronics that initialise, manipulate, and read out qubits — for quantum computer hardware manufacturers.

ProYarn Desk · October 20, 2026Read this in French

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Coherence Quantum (Espoo, Finland) has raised a €2.78M seed led by Lifeline Ventures, the Helsinki-based venture fund. Mårten Mickos — former CEO of MySQL and HackerOne — joined as an angel investor. The company was founded by Aashish Sah (CEO), Suman Kundu (CTO), and Erkki Soininen (CPO).

What Coherence Quantum builds

Quantum computers require two distinct layers to function. The first is the quantum layer — the qubits, which store and process quantum information at temperatures near absolute zero. The second is the control layer — the precision electronics that send signals into the cryostat to initialise qubits, execute gate operations, and read out their states. This control layer is currently a bespoke engineering problem: each quantum hardware company builds its own from custom components because no commercially available system provides the performance required.

Coherence Quantum is building that commercial platform. The company's cryogenic signalling and control systems are designed to handle qubit initialisation, gate operations, and readout at the signal quality levels required by leading quantum hardware developers, and to scale as qubit counts grow — reducing the control-electronics cost that accumulates under the current custom-build model with each additional qubit.

Lifeline Ventures' infrastructure week

Lifeline Ventures re-invested in Ambio (Helsinki, €5.1M seed, recycled plastics quality prediction, published 19 October 2026) in the same period as leading the Coherence Quantum seed. The fund is making consecutive hardware-infrastructure bets — Ambio on physical material supply-chain reliability, Coherence on physical electronics precision. In both cases, the investment logic is the same: build the enabling layer that makes the underlying system reliable enough to scale commercially.

Mårten Mickos' angel participation adds enterprise commercialisation experience. Mickos scaled MySQL (acquired by Sun Microsystems for $1B) and HackerOne (through its Series E); his background in building enterprise software businesses from technical foundations is directly relevant to the challenge of selling a precision hardware platform to quantum computing labs.

Funds will support hardware development and team expansion.

Why it matters to investors

Quantum computing coverage tends to focus on the qubit — the fundamental unit of quantum computation — and on the race to build systems with enough qubits at low enough error rates to outperform classical hardware. The control layer is less discussed and harder to appreciate from the outside, but it is a genuine bottleneck. Every qubit requires precision cryogenic electronics to initialise, manipulate, and read out its state — typically at temperatures close to absolute zero. Most quantum hardware companies currently build this control layer in-house, from custom components, because no commercially available system provides the performance they need. Coherence Quantum is building that commercial platform. The market is small today but has a clear structural growth driver: as quantum hardware manufacturers scale from tens of qubits to hundreds and eventually thousands, the custom control electronics become an untenable engineering cost that scales with each added qubit. Standardising the control layer is the obvious solution — it just requires someone to build a platform good enough to displace the custom-build approach. Lifeline Ventures is a continuity thread for regular ProYarn readers. The Helsinki fund re-invested in **[Ambio](/en/deals/ambio)** (Helsinki, €5.1M seed, recycled plastics quality prediction, published 19 October 2026) and now leads Coherence Quantum's seed in the same week. Both are bets on physical infrastructure — Ambio addressing material reliability in the recycled plastics supply chain, Coherence Quantum addressing signal precision in quantum computing hardware. Different categories; identical investment logic: build the layer that makes the underlying system trustworthy enough to scale commercially. Mårten Mickos joins as an angel investor. Mickos was CEO of MySQL (sold to Sun Microsystems for $1B in 2008) and later CEO of HackerOne; his background is in enterprise software commercialisation. The combination of a hardware-focused lead and an enterprise-software angel is a signal about the intended route to market — selling a precision hardware platform to quantum computing labs, which are simultaneously research institutions and commercial technology programmes. The 18-month risk is capital intensity. Deep-tech hardware at €2.78M is thin runway; each iteration of cryogenic control hardware requires fabrication cycles that are slow and expensive. The seed needs to produce enough technical evidence — demonstrated signal integrity at qubit operating temperatures, integration with at least one hardware platform — to support a Series A before the iteration budget runs out.

Sources

Seed DeepTech Finland Lifeline Ventures

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