Quandela: The photonic pioneer

The photonic pioneer

Quandela is advancing optical quantum computing through single-photon sources and integrated photonic circuits. It launched MerLin, its open-source quantum machine learning framework, achieving 20,000-fold acceleration via NVIDIA CUDA-Q integration, and OVHcloud has integrated its 12-qubit Belenos processor into a sovereign cloud platform.¹⁶

After demonstrating a 100,000-fold reduction in the optical components required for fault-tolerant computation,¹⁷ Quandela delivered Lucy to EuroHPC and GENCI at the CEA's TGCC facility.¹⁸ In June 2026 it validated a low-latency path between its photonic processors and NVIDIA infrastructure via NVQLink, and strengthened its leadership with a new chief operating officer and chairman as it moves into industrialisation.

Our mandate

Zaz Ventures secured funding for Quandela across four funding instruments covering both product development and public procurement. We supported the EIC Accelerator Grant (€2.5 million) and EIC Accelerator Equity (€7.3 million), both received in 2023, which industrialised modular single-photon emitters and built cloud-accessible photonic processors. We then supported the winning bid for a EuroHPC tender received in 2024, placing Quandela hardware inside European supercomputing centres, and have supported a successful EIC STEP Scale-Up Equity application in 2025.