New British $250 Million Specialist Quantum Fund Invests in Photonic Inc.

Insider Brief

• Firgun Ventures, a new $250 million London-based quantum fund, has made its first investment in Canada’s Photonic Inc., a company selected by DARPA as having a credible path to utility-scale quantum systems.
• Photonic, co-founded by Dr. Stephanie Simmons and backed by investors including Microsoft, Mubadala and the Royal Bank of Canada, is developing fault-tolerant quantum systems using a silicon-based, photonics-integrated architecture.
• The investment underscores growing cross-border collaboration between UK and Canadian quantum ecosystems and supports Photonic’s efforts to scale commercial quantum computing and networking platforms.

PRESS RELEASE — Firgun Ventures, a new, London-based, $250 million Quantum fund, announces its first investment, backing Photonic Inc., a Canada-based global leader and one of the quantum computing companies globally selected by DARPA as having a credible path to utility-scale quantum systems. The company was co-founded by Dr Stephanie Simmons, who was named among the UNESCO 2025 International Year of Quantum 100 last year.  

The Vancouver-based company already announced a £25M investment in a UK R&D Centre last year. Firgun’s investment further adds to the strategic cross-border collaborations between the UK and Canadian quantum ecosystems, and also reflects Firgun’s conviction that the most transformative quantum companies will be built through international partnerships.  

Photonic Inc is advancing fault-tolerant quantum systems through its Entanglement First architecture, which integrates silicon-based qubits with native photonic connectivity to support scalable, modular quantum computing architectures. One of the very few quantum companies that Microsoft directly invested in, the company is backed by other leading institutional and corporate investors, including Mubadala, Royal Bank of Canada, and Planet First. Firgun Ventures is thrilled to form part of such a stellar group of investors. 

This approach is designed to enable the development of commercial-scale quantum computers and quantum networks by integrating photonics at the architectural level, Photonic Inc aims to unlock practical quantum advantage across applications including materials discovery, drug development, optimisation and national security.  

“Photonic Inc represents the kind of company we set out to support,” said Dr Kris Naudts, Co-Founder of Firgun Ventures. “Scaling quantum computers is critical to unlocking exponential speed-ups that will provide the power to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Photonic Inc’s architecture tackles the scaling challenge head-on, and the strength of their scientific foundations and team gives us strong confidence in their long-term potential to redefine what is possible in quantum computing. Not to mention our getting a front seat in the Canadian quantum ecosystem”. 

The scaleup has attracted backing from leading strategic and institutional investors and has participated in highly competitive U.S. government research and development programmes focused on scalable quantum computing, including programmes supported by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).   

Zeynep Koroturk, co-founder of Firgun Ventures said: “Firgun backs quantum founders at the point where technical breakthroughs must translate into scalable, commercial businesses,” said Zeynep Koruturk, Co-Founder of Firgun Ventures. “Photonic’s architecture has the potential to unlock meaningful applications across sectors, while enabling new approaches to complex problem-solving that could help strengthen and safeguard the global economy”.