Quanfluence | $10M (~₹92 Cr)

Founders: Sujoy Chakravarty, Ravi Mehta, Biman Chattopadhyay, Aditi Vaidya, Anil Prabhakar, Sandeep Goyal

Founded: 2021

HQ: Bengaluru

Sector: Photonic Quantum Computing / DeepTech

What they do

→ Building a universal photonic quantum computer focused on optimisation problems

→ IIT Madras-incubated, combines photonic chips, control electronics and software into one full-stack system

→ Its optical Ising machine uses light waves as computational units, operates at room temperature unlike conventional quantum systems needing complex cooling

→ Targets logistics, workforce scheduling, risk management and financial optimisation use cases

The Funding

→ Raised $10 million (~₹92 crore)

→ Led by Chiratae Ventures, with Rainmatter by Zerodha and existing investor pi Ventures participating

→ Follows a $2M seed round in December 2024 led by pi Ventures

→ Capital earmarked for building out its photonic chips, control electronics, software and next-gen quantum processors

Why it matters

→ Has already commercialised its optical Ising machine, sold ~3 machines and running paid pilots with 10–15 corporations

→ Plans a four-qubit quantum computer near-term, targeting ~100 qubits by 2029 and early processors by 2027

→ Testing a version capable of processing 10–25 million permutations for complex optimisation problems

→ Aims for a fault-tolerant, general-purpose quantum computer within five to six years

Is room-temperature photonic quantum computing India's shot at leapfrogging the cooling-infrastructure race, or is commercial-scale quantum still decades away regardless of approach?