Milan, May 11, 2026, 17:18 CEST
- Algorithmiq raised €18 million and shifted its global headquarters from Helsinki to Milan, putting Italy at the center of its commercial push.
- The round was led by United Ventures and CDP Venture Capital, with Inventure VC participating, and brings total funding to €36 million.
- The move comes weeks after Algorithmiq, working with Cleveland Clinic and IBM, won a $2 million Wellcome Leap prize for quantum work tied to cancer drug discovery.
Algorithmiq has raised €18 million and moved its global headquarters to Milan, a bet that software will shape how quantum computers move from laboratories into commercial use. The company and investors said the financing is Italy’s largest venture capital investment in a quantum startup.
The timing matters because much of the quantum industry still focuses on hardware — the machines themselves. Algorithmiq is instead building the “algorithmic layer,” meaning the software, algorithms and workflows that help quantum hardware perform useful tasks in chemistry, materials science and life sciences. Tech
The fundraise also follows a recent technical win. IBM said Algorithmiq, Cleveland Clinic and IBM used quantum computing to simulate processes in photodynamic therapy, a cancer treatment based on light-activated drugs, running experiments on up to 100 qubits; a qubit is the basic unit of information in a quantum computer.
“Quantum advantage” means a quantum system can solve a useful problem better than a conventional computer can. Algorithmiq said its Wellcome Leap Q4Bio work showed a scalable path toward that goal in drug discovery, though the broader field remains early and still depends on better hardware and validation outside research settings. Algorithmiq
Milan will become Algorithmiq’s base for commercial operations, while the company keeps significant operations in Finland. It also has operations in the UK, Ireland and the United States, according to the company statement.
Chief Executive Sabrina Maniscalco said 2026 would bring “more meaningful applications of quantum” and that the funding would help the company scale while working with large quantum players. “As quantum computing matures, the question is shifting from who can build the biggest machine to who can make the machines matter,” she said. Tech
United Ventures wrote that the new capital would help Algorithmiq scale its team beyond 100 people by 2028, with senior commercial hires and work toward “quantum utility” — practical, useful output from quantum systems — among the priorities. The investor said the company already has more than 40 researchers and engineers across four countries. United Ventures
Italy has been trying to sharpen its position in quantum technologies. The final Italian Strategy for Quantum Technologies went online in September 2025, after adoption by the Interministerial Committee for the Digital Transition, with goals spanning research, industry, international positioning and governance.
The competitive context is still led by hardware names. Algorithmiq says it works with groups including IBM, Google and Rigetti, but its pitch is not to build the machines; it wants to sell the software layer that makes them useful to industrial customers.
“With quantum, Europe has the opportunity to set the pace rather than follow it,” said Jacopo Drudi, partner at United Ventures. He called the move of Algorithmiq’s team to Milan “a win not just for United Ventures, but for the country.” Pulse 2.0
Tommaso Calarco, chair of the Quantum Community Network, said Europe needed more decisions that connect scientific excellence, entrepreneurship and long-term industrial ambition. “Italy is well placed to play a role in this context,” he said. Tech
The risk is that quantum hardware may not mature fast enough for software companies to turn technical progress into steady revenue. IBM said Q4Bio aimed at algorithms that could run on quantum computers expected within three to five years, a timeline that still leaves room for delays, limited customer uptake and hard proof-of-value work in drug discovery.
