Avidgor Willenz led the funding of Quantum Machines

Israeli entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz, who recently sold Habana Labs to Intel for approximately $2 billion, led the recent funding for the Tel Aviv based Quantum Computing startup, Quantum Machines. The company announced that it has secured $17.5M in funding to accelerate the already rapid adoption of the company’s Quantum Orchestration Platform.

Quantum Machines (QM) has developed a complete hardware and software solution for the control and operation of quantum computers. Its Quantum Orchestration Platform (OPX) works with all quantum technologies, giving researchers and development teams everything they need to run the most complex quantum algorithms and experiments. It lays the ground for tackling some of the most challenging hurdles facing quantum computing, such as complex multi-qubit calibrations, quantum-error-correction, and scaling up to many hundreds of qubits.

Willenz (photo above) said that he had decided to back QM after the massive enthusiasm he’s witnessed from across the quantum computing industry. “The race to commercial quantum computers is one of the most exciting technological challenges of our generation,” said Willenz. “Our goal at QM is to make this happen faster than anticipated, and establish ourselves as an essential player in this industry.”

Quantum Machines' Quantum Orchestration Platform (OPX)
Quantum Machines’ Quantum Orchestration Platform (OPX)

QM was founded in 2018 by Drs. Itamar SivanYonatan Cohen and Nissim Ofek, three physics Ph.Ds who met at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. Today the QM team has grown to nearly 30 employees, about half of them are physicists. The company said its Orchestration Platform has already been adopted by multinational corporations and startups. In January, 2020 the company had joinedthe IBM’s Q Network. As part of the collaboration, a compiler between IBM’s quantum computing programming languages, and those of QM will be developed.

The IBM Q Network brings together startups, research labs and Fortune 500 companies including, the University of Oxford, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ExxonMobil, Accenture and others, together with IBM scientists and engineers. IBM Q Network members have access to IBM’s quantum expertise and resources, open source Qiskit software and developer tools, and cloud-based access to the IBM Quantum Computation Center, which now includes 15 computers, including a 53-qubit system.