IQM Quantum Computers, the Finnish quantum hardware maker, is going public through a SPAC merger that values the company at $1.8 billion. The deal, announced this week, pairs IQM with Nordic Quantum Acquisition Corp, a special purpose vehicle backed by a consortium of European institutional investors. It is the largest quantum computing listing in European history and one of the most significant deep tech IPOs the continent has produced.

The timing is deliberate. Quantum computing has entered a phase where government funding is flowing, enterprise pilot programs are expanding, and the competitive landscape is consolidating around a handful of serious hardware players. IQM is betting that going public now gives it the capital to scale manufacturing and the credibility to win national quantum infrastructure contracts across Europe. The broader Finnish deep tech ecosystem continues to attract international attention.

IQM was founded in 2018 as a spinout from Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The company builds superconducting quantum processors, the same core technology approach used by IBM and Google, but with a focus on co-designed systems tailored to specific computational problems rather than general-purpose quantum machines.

The company has raised approximately EUR 280 million in private funding across multiple rounds, with investors including the European Investment Fund, Tesi (Finland's state industrial investment company), World Fund, and several sovereign wealth vehicles. Its most recent private round in late 2024 valued IQM at roughly $1.2 billion, meaning the SPAC merger represents a 50% step-up from the last private valuation.

IQM's revenue to date has been modest by public company standards: approximately EUR 40 million in 2025, generated primarily from quantum computer sales to national research labs and government-backed quantum computing centers. The company has delivered systems to Finland, Germany, and Spain, and has contracts in various stages with research institutions in France, Poland, and South Korea.

SPACs have a complicated reputation. The 2021 SPAC boom and subsequent bust left many investors skeptical of the vehicle, and for good reason: dozens of companies that went public via SPAC at inflated valuations have since seen their share prices collapse. IQM's decision to use a SPAC rather than a traditional IPO reflects both pragmatism and the specific challenges of taking a deep tech company public in Europe.

Traditional IPOs require a company to demonstrate a clear revenue trajectory and near-term path to profitability. Quantum computing companies cannot do that honestly. The technology is pre-commercial in any meaningful sense. What IQM can demonstrate is technical milestones, government contracts, and a roadmap that requires significant capital to execute. The SPAC structure allows the company to present forward-looking projections that would be restricted in a traditional IPO prospectus.

Nordic Quantum Acquisition Corp raised $400 million in its IPO last year, and the merger terms include an additional $300 million in committed PIPE financing from existing IQM investors and new institutional participants. The combined $700 million in proceeds will fund IQM's manufacturing expansion, research operations, and commercial deployment for the next three to four years.

IQM is not the only European quantum computing company, but it is the most commercially advanced. The continent has produced several credible players across different technological approaches, each backed by significant government and private capital.

The table above tells you something important: IQM's $1.8 billion valuation puts it squarely between the European private players and the US public companies. If you believe European quantum computing deserves a valuation premium for its government-backed demand pipeline and growing strategic importance, the number is defensible. Comparisons with IonQ and Rigetti suggest the valuation is aggressive but not unprecedented for the sector.

One of IQM's underappreciated strengths is the depth of government support behind it. Finland has committed over EUR 70 million specifically to quantum computing research and infrastructure, and IQM has been the primary commercial beneficiary. The country's first 50-qubit quantum computer, installed at VTT's facilities in Espoo, was built by IQM and partially funded by the Finnish government. Sweden, by contrast, has been criticized for underinvesting in frontier technology.

This model, where national governments fund quantum computing centers and contract the hardware builds to domestic companies, is replicating across Europe. Germany, France, and Spain have all established national quantum strategies with budgets exceeding EUR 1 billion. IQM has positioned itself as the European vendor of choice for these programs, competing primarily against IBM and Google rather than other European startups.

The risk for public market investors is that government contracts are lumpy and politically dependent. A change in government priorities or a shift in EU funding allocation could slow IQM's order pipeline. The company has acknowledged this risk in its SPAC prospectus, noting that government-backed revenue represented approximately 70% of its 2025 total.

IQM's public listing is ultimately a test of whether European capital markets can support pre-revenue deep tech at scale. The continent has historically struggled with this. Deep tech companies that need years of capital-intensive R&D before generating meaningful revenue have typically either stayed private, relocated to the US, or been acquired by larger American firms.

If IQM trades well and uses its public currency to accelerate growth, it could open the door for other European quantum, AI, and advanced computing companies to follow the same path. If the stock struggles under the weight of its valuation relative to current revenue, it will reinforce the narrative that Europe cannot support homegrown deep tech champions in public markets.

The quantum computing market is still fundamentally a bet on physics. No one has built a commercially useful, error-corrected quantum computer yet. IQM's thesis is that it can get there within five to seven years, and that the journey requires public market capital and visibility. At $1.8 billion, the market is being asked to price in a future that does not exist yet. Whether that is visionary or premature depends entirely on what happens inside IQM's fabrication facility in Espoo over the next few years.