Everyone is funding quantum. Almost nobody is commercializing it.
Capital has arrived in quantum, and it has concentrated at the top. Quascade takes the opposite position: a services-funded studio that acquires and builds around the credible research the megadeals leave behind.
The market backdrop we're underwriting against.
Figures published by McKinsey & Company,
Quantum Technology Monitor 2026, April 2026.
Increase in quantum start-up investment from 2024 to 2025, reaching $12.6 billion.
Of that 2025 investment concentrated in just ten deals — leaving the rest of the field underfunded.
Share of 2025 investment from public sources, down from roughly a third the year before.
Large companies already spending over $10 million a year on quantum — the services demand we monetise.
Four propositions we're willing to be judged on.
The bottleneck moved downstream
Progress is no longer limited mainly by qubit counts. It is limited by integration, supply chains, delivery and capital — commercial problems, not scientific ones. That is a services and company-building opportunity, not a hardware bet.
Concentration creates the opening
With most capital flowing to a handful of large deals, credible research elsewhere has no commercial partner. We buy into that gap at sensible entry valuations rather than competing in megadeals.
Services fund the venture engine
Advisory, applied R&D and deployment revenue covers studio operating cost. That structurally changes the return profile: we are not burning fund capital to survive between exits.
Regulation creates the first market
Post-quantum migration is demand created by compliance timelines through 2027–2030, not by adoption curves. It is the rare deep-tech vertical with a deadline attached.
How value accrues.
Two arms that feed each other. The services arm is a business in its own right; it is also the studio's sourcing, distribution and diligence engine.
Services generate revenue
Enterprise advisory, R&D programmes and deployment work produce cash, covering operating cost without drawing on venture capital.
Client work reveals demand
Sitting inside enterprise buying centres tells us what customers will actually pay for — before we commit to building anything.
We take IP positions
Licences and equity in sourced research, structured at pre-commercial valuations, wrapped in business architecture the inventors can't build.
Companies spin out
Each venture inherits the studio's customer relationships at launch, then raises independently. Value realises on those events.
Projected 2035 market for quantum technology itself — hardware, software and services — of which quantum computing accounts for $43–71 billion. That is the addressable market for companies selling quantum, distinct from the $1.3–2.7 trillion of economic value created for those using it.
Source: McKinsey & Company, Quantum Technology Monitor 2026: A commercial tipping point, April 2026.
The risks, stated by us rather than found by you.
Any serious diligence process surfaces these. We would rather open with them.
- Timelines slip. Fault-tolerance roadmaps across the industry remain uncertain and near-term ROI on quantum computing is hard to quantify. Our answer is a first vertical driven by compliance rather than by capability.
- Services can crowd out ventures. A profitable consultancy is a real temptation. Governance and capital allocation between the two arms is a live design question, not a solved one.
- Sourcing quality is the whole game. A studio is only as good as its deal flow. We are building institutional relationships rather than relying on inbound.
- Talent is scarce and getting scarcer. Hybrid quantum-classical work needs people who understand both. We compete for them from Bengaluru and Dubai rather than from the most expensive markets.
Request the full thesis.
The detailed memo covers sourcing pipeline, capital structure, the services model economics and our first target ventures.