Qunnect

Cover Block

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

• Website: https://www.qunnect.inc
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/qunnectinc

Summary and Signal

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 roughly $18.5M: a 2022 Series A of $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

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 [Laser Focus World] [LinkedIn]. The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab Quantum Stream.

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 $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.

The Product and the Stack

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 [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 [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 [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 [Qunnect, 2025]. Most quantum memory research relies on cryogenic cooling, so a room-temperature device would address one of the harder operational obstacles to scaling quantum networks beyond point-to-point links.

Reported customer-facing deployments now include NYU and Columbia in New York [New Scientist], Montana State University [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 [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

Quantum networking is moving from physics demonstration to procurement-line item. The inflection is being driven 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].

Market sizing for the specific entanglement-source-and-memory hardware niche is not publicly available in the cited research. The demand drivers visible in the cited sources are concrete. 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 [PRNewswire].

Regulatory and macro tailwinds include the U.S. National Quantum Initiative and equivalent European programs. The countervailing macro force is timeline risk: the most ambitious applications of quantum networking are widely expected to take a decade or more to mature.

Metric	Value
Qunnect disclosed funding to date	$18.5M
Reported headcount	32 employees
Confirmed live network deployments	5+

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Deployment counts confirmed by multiple press releases; market sizing is not publicly available in the cited research.

The Competitive Field

Qunnect occupies a narrow slice of the quantum stack, the physical-layer hardware that distributes and stabilizes entanglement over deployed fiber. The segment splits into three groups: large incumbents and well-funded deeptech players (IBM, Cisco, SandboxAQ), specialist quantum networking and quantum communications vendors, and post-quantum cryptography software vendors.

Qunnect's defensible edges are concrete. It has live, named deployments in metropolitan fiber on two continents, including a 17.6-kilometer Brooklyn-to-Manhattan link [New Scientist] [Mondo News], a Berlin link [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]. The room-temperature memory claim 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.

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. The loser-if path: if a larger incumbent 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.

Opportunity

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.

Qunnect's plausible upside case is that it becomes the Cisco-of-quantum-networking at the physical layer. 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]

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

1. [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
2. [LinkedIn] Qunnect company page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/qunnectinc
3. [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
4. [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/
5. [Forbes, 2021] Mehdi Namazi on the 2021 The Next 1000 | https://www.forbes.com/profile/mehdi-namazi/
6. [Interesting Engineering] Scientists teleport quantum data 19 miles across Berlin in live test | https://interestingengineering.com/science/quantum-teleportation-test-berlin
7. [LinkedIn] Mael Flament profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/maelflament/
8. [LinkedIn] Mehdi Namazi profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehdinamazi1/
9. [LinkedIn] Noel Goddard, CEO at Qunnect | https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-goddard-b973225
10. [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
11. [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
12. [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
13. [Qunnect, September 2025] Carina deployed at Montana State University to establish first quantum entanglement network in the Northwestern United States | https://www.qunnect.inc
14. [Qunnect, October 2025] U.S. Air Force taps Qunnect to advance quantum networking for defense applications | https://www.qunnect.inc
15. [PitchBook] Qunnect 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/226449-01
16. [CB Insights] Qunnect - Products, Competitors, Financials, Employees, Headquarters Locations | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/qunnect
17. [New Scientist] Carina suite deployed to NYU and Columbia for entanglement distribution in New York City | https://www.newscientist.com
18. [Mondo News] Carina rack used for entanglement swapping over 17.6-kilometer fiber-optic connection between Brooklyn and Manhattan | https://mondonews.com
19. [PRNewswire] Carina deployed in quantum testbed network in Berlin in partnership with Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs | https://www.prnewswire.com