Qunnect
Develops hardware for scalable quantum networking to enable the quantum internet.
Website: https://www.qunett.com
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Qunnect |
| Tagline | Develops hardware for scalable quantum networking to enable the quantum internet. |
| Headquarters | Brooklyn, NY |
| Stage | Series A (with 2025 extension) |
| Business Model | Hardware + Software |
| Industry | Deeptech |
| Technology Type | Quantum Computing / Quantum Networking |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (4): Mael Flament, Mehdi Namazi, Noel Goddard, Eden Figueroa |
| Funding Label | Series A + Extension |
| Total Disclosed | ~$18.5M (Series A 2022 + Extension 2025) |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://www.qunnect.inc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/qunnectinc
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
Qunnect is a Brooklyn-based deeptech company building the physical-layer hardware needed to move quantum networking from university optics benches into operating telecom fiber. It is one of a small number of vendors with equipment already deployed in live, multi-node testbeds [Laser Focus World] [Qunnect, 2025]. The company traces back to quantum optics research associated with co-founder Eden Figueroa's lab, with co-founders Mael Flament and Mehdi Namazi commercializing what they describe as the first room-temperature quantum memory in 2021. Noel Goddard joined as CEO to lead the company through productization [Cisco Investments] [Qunnect, 2025]. Its flagship Carina suite of polarization-entangled photon sources and stabilization racks is the company's commercial entry point, currently powering an entanglement-distribution link between New York University and Columbia University over a 17.6-kilometer Brooklyn-to-Manhattan fiber span [Mondo News] [New Scientist]. Carina has also been deployed in a Berlin testbed with Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs, at CERN's newly inaugurated quantum lab, and most recently at Montana State University and on an Air Force-backed defense networking program [PRNewswire] [Qunnect, 2025-09-09] [Qunnect, 2025-10-09]. Capitalization is modest by deeptech standards: a 2022 Series A of roughly $8.5M followed by a $10M oversubscribed extension in mid-2025 led by Airbus Ventures with participation from Cisco Investments, SandboxAQ, Quantonation and others [Future of Computing] [Qunnect, 2025]. Headcount is reported at roughly 32 [PitchBook]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the watch items are the cadence of new Carina deployments outside the New York and Berlin reference sites, conversion of defense and research pilots into recurring hardware revenue, and whether the company's room-temperature memory work moves from press claim to a shipping product line.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Qunnect press releases, Cisco Investments, Laser Focus World and PitchBook.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series A (extended 2025) |
| Business Model | Hardware + Software |
| Industry / Vertical | Deeptech / Quantum Infrastructure |
| Technology Type | Quantum Networking (entanglement distribution, quantum memory) |
| Geography | North America (HQ Brooklyn, NY); deployments in US and EU |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | 4 co-founders, science + entrepreneurship blend |
| Funding | ~$18.5M disclosed across Series A and extension |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Qunnect was founded out of quantum optics research associated with Stony Brook University and co-founder Eden Figueroa's group. Co-founders Mael Flament and Mehdi Namazi set out to take quantum networking components out of laboratory environments and into hardware that could sit in a telecom rack [Cisco Investments] [Laser Focus World]. Noel Goddard joined as CEO in 2020 and is described in third-party coverage as combining a scientific background with prior entrepreneurial experience, a profile the company has positioned as central to its translation strategy from physics paper to product [Laser Focus World] [LinkedIn]. The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab Quantum Stream, one of the more established programs supporting quantum hardware companies.
The milestone arc reported in public sources begins with the 2021 commercialization claim around a room-temperature quantum memory, followed by the 2022 Series A of roughly $8.5M backed by Airbus Ventures, Quantonation, SandboxAQ, New York Ventures, Hamamatsu Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, Motus Ventures and Cisco Investments [Future of Computing] [Qunnect, 2025]. By 2024 and into 2025 the company had moved into reference deployments: an entanglement-swapping demonstration over a 17.6-kilometer fiber link between Brooklyn and Manhattan connecting NYU and Columbia [Mondo News] [New Scientist], a testbed in Berlin with Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs [PRNewswire], an installation at CERN's quantum lab announced in September 2025 [Qunnect, 2025], and the launch of ABQ-Net in New Mexico with Roadrunner Venture Studios in November 2025 [Qunnect, 2025]. The Series A extension closed in mid-2025 at $10M, led by Airbus Ventures with participation from Cisco Investments [Qunnect, 2025].
The company's October 2025 announcement of an engagement with the U.S. Air Force on quantum networking for defense applications marks the most recent expansion of its customer profile beyond academic and telecom partners [Qunnect, 2025-10-09].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Qunnect press releases, Cisco Investments and Laser Focus World.
Product and Technology
MIXED
Qunnect's commercial product line centers on the Carina suite, a set of rack-mounted entanglement sources and stabilization tools designed to operate over standard telecom fiber rather than in a controlled lab environment [PUBLIC] [Qunnect, 2025]. In the Brooklyn-to-Manhattan deployment, Carina equipment was used to perform entanglement swapping over a 17.6-kilometer fiber-optic connection linking research nodes at NYU and Columbia, a configuration described in coverage as one of the first persistent metropolitan entanglement-distribution networks in the United States [PUBLIC] [Mondo News] [New Scientist]. The same product family underpins a Berlin testbed run with Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs that was used in a quantum teleportation demonstration across approximately 19 miles of urban fiber [PUBLIC] [Interesting Engineering] [PRNewswire].
The second pillar of the technology story is the company's room-temperature quantum memory, which Qunnect describes as commercialized in 2021 [PUBLIC] [Qunnect, 2025]. Most quantum memory research relies on cryogenic cooling, so a room-temperature device, if it performs at the fidelities and storage times required for repeater applications, would address one of the harder operational obstacles to scaling quantum networks beyond point-to-point links. Public materials do not disclose detailed performance specifications, so investors should treat the memory claim as directionally important but technically unverified outside the company's own communications [PUBLIC].
Reported customer-facing deployments now include NYU and Columbia in New York [New Scientist], Montana State University as the anchor of what the company calls the first quantum entanglement network in the Northwestern United States [Qunnect, 2025-09-09], CERN's quantum lab in partnership with Single Quantum [Qunnect, 2025], the Berlin testbed with Deutsche Telekom [PRNewswire], a U.S. Air Force engagement [Qunnect, 2025-10-09], and ABQ-Net in New Mexico via Roadrunner Venture Studios [Qunnect, 2025]. End-use cases referenced in company materials span finance, energy, telecom and defense, though the publicly described traction is concentrated in research and defense networks rather than commercial buyers [PUBLIC] [PRNewswire].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Deployment locations are confirmed by Qunnect releases and tier-2 press; performance specifications and unit economics are not publicly disclosed.
Market Research and Opportunity
PUBLIC
Quantum networking is moving from physics demonstration to procurement-line item. The inflection is being driven less by quantum computing itself than by national-security interest in quantum-secure communication and by telecom carriers preparing for a long transition to quantum-augmented infrastructure [Qunnect, 2025-10-09] [PRNewswire].
As an analogous frame, the broader quantum technologies market is widely tracked by industry analysts and government bodies, and quantum networking is generally treated as the infrastructure layer that connects future quantum processors and secures classical communications via quantum key distribution. Market sizing for the specific entanglement-source-and-memory hardware niche is not publicly available in the cited research, and investors should request third-party sizing reports directly rather than rely on company-provided estimates.
The demand drivers visible in the cited sources are concrete even where the sizing is not. National laboratories and defense agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are funding metropolitan testbeds. Qunnect's deployments at CERN, with Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs, with the U.S. Air Force, and through Roadrunner Venture Studios in New Mexico all point to government and government-adjacent procurement as the early revenue surface [Qunnect, 2025] [Qunnect, 2025-10-09] [PRNewswire]. Telecom incumbents are exploring quantum-secure links as a forward-looking line item in carrier-grade infrastructure planning, and the Berlin partnership is one example of that posture [PRNewswire]. The adjacent and substitute markets that matter most are post-quantum cryptography (a software-only path to quantum-resilient security that does not require new hardware) and cryogenic quantum repeater approaches developed inside larger labs and incumbents.
Regulatory and macro tailwinds include the U.S. National Quantum Initiative and equivalent European programs, both of which have funded quantum networking research and pilot deployments. The countervailing macro force is timeline risk: the most ambitious applications of quantum networking, distributed quantum computing and large-scale repeater networks, are widely expected to take a decade or more to mature, which compresses the window for early hardware vendors to build durable revenue from interim use cases.
| Sizing Claim | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Qunnect disclosed funding to date | ~$18.5M | [Qunnect, 2025] [Future of Computing] |
| Reported headcount | ~32 employees | [PitchBook] |
| Confirmed live network deployments | 5+ (NYC, Berlin, Montana, CERN, ABQ-Net) | [Qunnect, 2025] [New Scientist] [PRNewswire] |
The table reframes what is verifiable today: this is a small-team, modestly-capitalized hardware company whose differentiation is measured in named live deployments rather than in a sized addressable market. For a quantum networking vendor at this stage, that deployment count is a meaningful proxy for commercial readiness.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Deployment counts confirmed by multiple press releases; market sizing is not publicly available in the cited research.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
Qunnect occupies a narrow slice of the quantum stack, the physical-layer hardware that distributes and stabilizes entanglement over deployed fiber. The competitive analysis below is therefore written as a prose map of adjacent categories rather than a like-for-like comparison table.
The segment splits into roughly three groups. The first is large incumbents and well-funded deeptech players whose quantum networking work sits inside broader portfolios: IBM, Cisco (a Qunnect investor through Cisco Investments) and SandboxAQ (also an investor) all have quantum-adjacent activity, and any of them could in principle build or acquire competing hardware. The second group is a cohort of specialist quantum networking and quantum communications vendors emerging from European and North American research programs, several of which focus on quantum key distribution appliances rather than entanglement distribution. The third is the post-quantum cryptography software vendors who address the same security pain point with a different architecture, no new hardware required.
Qunnect's defensible edges today are concrete and short in number. It has live, named deployments in metropolitan fiber on two continents, a 17.6-kilometer Brooklyn-to-Manhattan link with Columbia and NYU [New Scientist] [Mondo News], a Berlin link with Deutsche Telekom [PRNewswire], an installation at CERN [Qunnect, 2025], a Montana State research network [Qunnect, 2025-09-09], and an Air Force engagement [Qunnect, 2025-10-09]. That deployment surface is genuine technical credibility and a procurement reference list that is hard for a brand-new entrant to match in twelve months. The room-temperature memory claim, if it holds up under independent benchmarking, is a second potential moat because it removes the cryogenic operating constraint that limits competing approaches. The perishable side of the edge is that none of the deployments are disclosed as recurring commercial revenue contracts; they read as research and pilot installations, and a better-capitalized competitor could displace the company at the production-procurement stage.
The most plausible 18-month scenario splits into two paths. The winner-if path: if Qunnect converts at least one of the Air Force engagement, the CERN installation, or the Deutsche Telekom testbed into a multi-year hardware-and-service contract, it establishes itself as the default vendor for entanglement-distribution hardware in Western government and research procurement, a position that is very hard to dislodge given the certification and integration costs in those buyers. The loser-if path: if a larger incumbent (IBM, a major telecom equipment vendor, or a SandboxAQ-style integrator) bundles a comparable entanglement source into a wider quantum security product before Qunnect's pilots convert to production contracts, Qunnect risks being relegated to a research-instrument supplier with limited commercial scale. The cap table itself, with Cisco and SandboxAQ as investors, partially hedges this risk by aligning the company with two of the most plausible bundlers.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If quantum networking matures on the timeline that government and telecom buyers are currently planning for, the company that supplies the entanglement-source hardware those networks run on is positioned to become a default infrastructure vendor for an entirely new layer of telecommunications.
The headline opportunity. Qunnect's plausible upside case is that it becomes the Cisco-of-quantum-networking at the physical layer: the standard hardware vendor whose racks sit inside national-lab testbeds, defense networks, telecom carrier pilots, and eventually production quantum-secure backbones. The reason this outcome is reachable rather than aspirational is that Qunnect already has the reference deployments other vendors will be measured against. Live links at NYU/Columbia, with Deutsche Telekom in Berlin, at CERN, at Montana State, and on a U.S. Air Force program are the kind of named, multi-jurisdictional reference list that becomes self-reinforcing in procurement-driven markets [New Scientist] [PRNewswire] [Qunnect, 2025] [Qunnect, 2025-10-09]. Combine that with a cap table that includes both a strategic networking incumbent (Cisco Investments) and a strategic deeptech integrator (SandboxAQ), and the path from research instrument to standard infrastructure component has at least two named distribution channels [Qunnect, 2025].
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Defense Standard | Qunnect becomes the standard entanglement-source hardware vendor for U.S. and allied defense quantum networks | A multi-year follow-on contract from the Air Force engagement converting pilot to production | Air Force engagement already announced [Qunnect, 2025-10-09]; defense procurement favors incumbent vendors with live deployments |
| Telecom Embedded | Carina hardware ships inside carrier-grade quantum-secure links rolled out by Tier-1 telcos | Deutsche Telekom (or a peer) commercializing the Berlin testbed architecture | T-Labs partnership already operating a live link in Berlin [PRNewswire]; Cisco Investments on the cap table provides a second telecom channel |
| Research Backbone | Qunnect powers the metropolitan and inter-lab quantum networks funded under the U.S. National Quantum Initiative and EU equivalents | Additional city or regional networks following the NYC, Montana and ABQ-Net templates | Multiple deployments already shipped in 2025 [Qunnect, 2025-09-09] [Qunnect, 2025] |
What compounding looks like. The flywheel in physical-layer infrastructure is reference-driven: each named deployment lowers the procurement risk for the next buyer, and each integration with a carrier or defense customer creates certification and interoperability work that is expensive to redo with a competing vendor. Qunnect's 2025 cadence, NYC link, Berlin link, Montana, CERN, ABQ-Net and the Air Force engagement, is the early shape of that flywheel. The room-temperature memory work is the second compounding vector: if the company can ship a memory product alongside Carina, it stretches its physical-layer footprint from sources and stabilization into the repeater layer, multiplying the dollars-per-deployment without multiplying the customer-acquisition cost.
The size of the win. No public market-cap comparable exists for a pure-play quantum networking hardware vendor at scale, and any sizing here should be read as a scenario rather than a forecast. As an analogous frame, networking infrastructure incumbents in adjacent transitions (optical components, secure communications appliances) have produced public companies in the multi-billion-dollar range when they captured the standard-vendor position during a category build-out. If the Defense Standard or Telecom Embedded scenarios above play out across a multi-year horizon, the upside case for Qunnect is becoming the named hardware standard in a category that does not yet have one (scenario, not a forecast). The downside bound is the more typical deeptech outcome: a successful research-instrument business that is eventually acquired by a strategic, of which the company already has at least two on its cap table.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Scenarios are grounded in confirmed deployments and investors; outcome sizing is illustrative and not based on a named third-party forecast.
Sources
PUBLIC
[Cisco Investments] From Theory to Reality: Cisco Investments Backs the Future of Quantum Networking through Qunnect | https://www.ciscoinvestments.com/from-theory-to-reality-future-quantum-networking-qunnect
[LinkedIn] Qunnect company page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/qunnectinc
[Laser Focus World] Qunnect is on a mission to build the quantum internet | https://www.laserfocusworld.com/quantum/article/55297244/qunnect-is-on-a-mission-to-build-the-quantum-internet
[Future of Computing] Qunnect: Shaping The Future of Scalable Quantum Networking | https://www.future-of-computing.com/qunnect-shaping-the-future-of-scalable-quantum-networking/
[Forbes, 2021] Mehdi Namazi on the 2021 The Next 1000 | https://www.forbes.com/profile/mehdi-namazi/
[Interesting Engineering] Scientists teleport quantum data 19 miles across Berlin in live test | https://interestingengineering.com/science/quantum-teleportation-test-berlin
[LinkedIn] Mael Flament profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/maelflament/
[LinkedIn] Mehdi Namazi profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehdinamazi1/
[LinkedIn] Noel Goddard, CEO at Qunnect | https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-goddard-b973225
[Qunnect, 2025] Quantum Networking Pioneer Qunnect Raises $10 Million in Oversubscribed Series A Extension Spearheaded by Airbus Ventures with Participation from Cisco Investments | https://www.qunnect.inc/press-release-2025-06-24
[Qunnect, November 2025] Roadrunner Venture Studios and Qunnect Launch ABQ-Net, New Mexico's First Quantum Network | https://www.qunnect.inc/press-releases/2025-11-19
[Qunnect, September 2025] Single Quantum and Qunnect partner with CERN QTI on Quantum Networking Experiments at Newly Inaugurated Quantum Lab | https://www.qunnect.inc/press-releases/2025-09-24
[Qunnect, September 2025] Carina deployed at Montana State University to establish first quantum entanglement network in the Northwestern United States | https://www.qunnect.inc
[Qunnect, October 2025] U.S. Air Force taps Qunnect to advance quantum networking for defense applications | https://www.qunnect.inc
[PitchBook] Qunnect 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/226449-01
[CB Insights] Qunnect - Products, Competitors, Financials, Employees, Headquarters Locations | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/qunnect
[New Scientist] Carina suite deployed to NYU and Columbia for entanglement distribution in New York City | https://www.newscientist.com
[Mondo News] Carina rack used for entanglement swapping over 17.6-kilometer fiber-optic connection between Brooklyn and Manhattan | https://mondonews.com
[PRNewswire] Carina deployed in quantum testbed network in Berlin in partnership with Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs | https://www.prnewswire.com
Articles about Qunnect
- Qunnect Is Wiring Brooklyn and Manhattan Into a Working Quantum Network — The Carina hardware suite is already running entanglement experiments across NYU, Columbia, CERN, and a 17.6-kilometer fiber link under the East River.