Q-CTRL raises $290 million in Salesforce Ventures-led Series C

Q-CTRL raised US$290 million in a Series C led by Salesforce Ventures, securing new capital to expand its products, scale globally and continue its autonomy and aerospace programs.

The company named Affinity Partners, AMD Ventures, EDGE Group, MPower Partners, Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation and SPARX Asset Management as new investors. Returning backers included Alpha Edison, Alumni Ventures, Bullhound Capital, DCVC, In-Q-Tel, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Main Sequence, Ridgeline, Salus Ventures and Square Peg. Q-CTRL called itself a newly minted unicorn but did not disclose an exact valuation or financing terms.

Q-CTRL develops software designed to reduce errors in quantum hardware. IBM’s Quantum Platform describes Q-CTRL’s tools as providing automated, AI-driven error suppression and mapping time-evolution workloads to hardware while counteracting device noise.

In May, IBM Research said Q-CTRL used IBM quantum hardware for a materials simulation involving up to 60 interacting electrons. IBM attributed the comparison to Q-CTRL: the workflow took about two minutes instead of 100 hours and produced results within 1% of a leading classical method. The opened sources did not independently reproduce those figures.

Q-CTRL is also developing Ironstone Opal, a navigation system that measures variations in Earth’s magnetic and gravitational fields. The company says AI-powered software filters platform interference, compares live readings with geophysical maps and combines quantum sensors with an inertial-navigation unit to determine position without GPS.

Q-CTRL claims the system improves positioning by more than 100 times, meets a 0.3-nautical-mile navigation requirement with 95% confidence and is 20 times more resilient in motion. The opened sources did not include an independent test report validating those figures.

The financing announcement said the navigation technology is being deployed on commercial aircraft and autonomous vehicles. Q-CTRL’s product page, however, describes Ironstone Opal as available for presale and refers to selected partners conducting field trials and integration demonstrations. The scale and commercial status of those deployments remain unclear. Airbus listed Q-CTRL’s sensor-based navigation technology among notable outcomes from its startup engagement in its 2025 board report.