IQM goes public as quantum’s timeline stays unknown

IQM goes – IQM, Finland’s full-stack quantum company, listed on Nasdaq after a SPAC merger at about a $1.9 billion valuation—but its first public day was subdued. The result clashes with the momentum in quantum investment, especially as U.S. plans push for a fault-tolera

By the end of Thursday, IQM’s debut still felt unfinished.

The full-stack quantum company out of Finland went public on the Nasdaq through a SPAC merger at a valuation of about $1.9 billion. The opening wasn’t the problem—share prices simply didn’t pop. They spent most of the day below the IPO price. a lukewarm welcome for a sector that has lately been fueled by hype. hope. and massive public spending.

One reason the market looked unconvinced was sitting in plain sight in IQM’s own prospectus. The company warned that “large-scale commercial traction of quantum computing technology may never occur.”

Quantum companies, even the ones with big claims, tend to hedge. But investors appear to have taken IQM’s caution personally—especially as the industry keeps charging forward anyway.

IQM isn’t selling a hypothetical future. It sells physical quantum computers and a cloud service today. and its customers use the technology for tasks like simulations and optimizations. Its customer list includes VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Germany.

“We sell computers into advanced supercomputing centers and data centers, and we sell computing time through the cloud,” its CEO and co-founder Jan Goetz said.

In IQM’s world, that’s progress you can count. The company says it grew from eight customers in 2024 to 22 in 2025, including two recent customers from the private sector. That kind of growth is exactly what investors want to see—until they ask the harder question that IQM itself can’t answer: when will demand scale beyond niche use cases?.

Scaling, in quantum terms, depends on “quantum advantage,” the moment quantum chips start outperforming classical computers for a larger range of complex and lengthy tasks. When that happens, it could open new use cases—from biotech to fintech—and could also force a reckoning with encryption.

But IQM’s own stance makes the timeline uncomfortable. No one, not even a company building quantum computers, can say when quantum advantage will arrive.

Still, money is flowing. Investors have been doubling down on quantum companies public and private. encouraged by President Trump’s recent executive orders aimed at accelerating the timeline for quantum. In response, the U.S. Department of Energy has committed to deploying “the world’s first fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant quantum computer” by 2028.

For a company like IQM, the U.S. push matters because it’s already moving hardware and strategy into the same ecosystem. Goetz said IQM has recently established a quantum tech center in Maryland and deployed a computer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is part of the DOE.

“We can benefit directly from it,” he said.

Yet IQM isn’t making the kind of clean break that some European tech companies do when they chase American growth. Alongside its IQMX ticker in the U.S.—where many of its quantum peers are listed—IQM is due to debut tomorrow on Nasdaq Helsinki. The company expects continued support there, including from Tesi, Finland’s sovereign wealth fund.

Finland remains the backbone of its identity. IQM was founded in 2018 as a spinout from Aalto University in Espoo. a tech and quantum hub near Helsinki where two-thirds of its staff still work. But the company is not small enough to be one-city rooted: another hundred of its 420-person team are based in Munich. with the remainder split across various locations to support its global deployment roadmap.

That geographic split also shows up in how IQM justified its route to going public.

In its prospectus. IQM said the dual presence appealed to RAAQ. the blank check company that helped it go public via a SPAC. “As evidenced by over €200 million in public support for IQM. European sovereign states and companies have supported IQM’s emergence as a prominent quantum computing company in Europe. IQM also demonstrated its ability to operate outside of Europe,” the RAAQ board wrote.

Goetz, for his part, sounded proud of the symbolism. IQM is positioning itself as the first European quantum company to list in the U.S. French competitor Pasqal has also announced plans to go public via a SPAC, but IQM says it got there first—“within a hair’s breadth.”

“It always feels good to be first and to be a pioneer, but ultimately it’s about long-term success,” Goetz said.

The financial mechanics behind the listing are substantial, but the company is careful not to pretend the race has easy answers. The SPAC process is expected to generate new liquidity for IQM—approximately €198 million after costs, or $226 million. IQM had already raised $300 million last September.

“It’s a big success raising very shortly after the Series B,” Goetz said. The broader reason, he implied, is simple: to position itself more prominently in a race filled with unknowns.

For now, the market’s first reaction suggests that even quantum believers want more than ambition. IQM’s public debut landed with a reminder that the core promise of the technology—big commercial traction—may not arrive on anyone’s schedule, or at all.

IQM quantum computing Nasdaq SPAC merger Nasdaq Helsinki quantum advantage fault-tolerant quantum computer U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory Tesi Jan Goetz Finland VTT Leibniz Supercomputing Centre