A quantum computer has a peculiar problem. Making its processor better does not settle the question of how to connect it to the next processor. That connection is the business of Nu Quantum, an IQ Capital portfolio company. It is also a useful introduction to the investor: look beneath an impressive machine and ask which missing part prevents it from becoming useful.
- IQ Capital funds B2B companies built around science and engineering.
- It leads early rounds and can support selected companies through growth.
- Its recurring opportunity: infrastructure that makes another technology work.
The glamour belongs to the finished invention. The commercial opening often belongs to its plumbing. IQ Capital’s portfolio makes that proposition tangible: batteries for working robots, networking for quantum processors, autonomy for earthmoving equipment. A reader need not follow venture capital to appreciate the question running through these businesses. What has to work before everything else can?
01 / The cheque buys a translation problem
IQ Capital invests in pre-seed, seed and Series A businesses across Europe and beyond. Its current published first tickets range from $1m to $10m, with follow-on capacity of up to $40m through growth opportunity funds. The target is B2B deep tech: companies whose commercial prospects depend on a substantive technical advance.
There are two constituencies here. Founders need money and help turning technical capability into something buyers want. Limited partners supply fund capital in pursuit of investment returns. The firm’s work sits between them, selecting companies and supporting their development towards an eventual exit. Its portfolio spans enterprise software, computing, biology, energy and security.
A pitch can begin with remarkable science, but eventually someone must explain the purchase order. Who needs the product? Which existing expense, delay or limitation does it remove? IQ Capital’s emphasis on commercialisation makes those questions central to its identity. They are also the questions that keep a university spinout from remaining an elaborate demonstration.
02 / Three founders who know the awkward middle
Kerry Baldwin, Max Bautin and Ed Stacey founded the firm in 2005. Their biographies offer a better explanation of its approach than a sector list. Baldwin has invested in deep tech since 1998 and specialises in commercialising spinouts. Stacey began in electronic engineering and gained manufacturing experience. Bautin helped a young mobile operator grow and exit.
Those backgrounds connect the laboratory, the factory and the market. Stacey’s stated focus includes the interaction between technical development, product-market fit and business strategy. Treating those as connected problems is useful: a technical improvement can change the customer proposition, while a customer requirement can change what the engineers should build next.
The firm publishes a testimonial from causaLens chief executive Darko Matovski describing support through product-market-fit iterations. That is a portfolio founder’s endorsement, with the interests that implies, but it captures the service IQ Capital wants founders to associate with its capital.
“When it came to scaling IQ Capital doubled down”
Darko Matovski · CEO, causaLens
Testimonial published by IQ Capital
03 / Follow the missing component
Nu Quantum develops the networking layer for distributed quantum computers. In a September 2026 interview published by IQ Capital, founder Carmen Palacios-Berraquero explains that larger processors and interconnected processors are complementary approaches. The constraint is practical performance: academic demonstrations of linking processors still need substantial engineering to become useful systems.
Nyobolt reveals another version of the same opportunity. In May 2026, the battery company announced a $60m Series C at a $1bn valuation, with IQ Capital participating. Its markets include autonomous machines and AI data centres. For a warehouse robot, charging time affects working time; a battery specification becomes an operating consideration.
Gravis Robotics applies autonomy to excavators. Its founder describes a difficulty with borrowing approaches from predictable mining routes or self-driving vehicles: construction changes beneath the machine. The company instead supports a range from operator assistance to full autonomy. Its published interview reports a 23% productivity improvement on an Argentine pipeline project against a manual benchmark.
These businesses offer a practical lesson rather than a universal recipe. Identify a constraint, measure it where customers operate, and explain its economic effect. A benchmark from one construction project does not establish performance on every site. Different machines, soils and working conditions still matter.
04 / Patient capital has an address book
The funding structure matters because technical development and commercial expansion require different kinds of support. In June 2023, IQ Capital announced a $200m final close for Venture Fund IV and the launch of a second $200m growth fund. Those figures describe investment funds, not the management firm’s sales or a single startup’s financing.
Different currencies. Separate commitments. Neither figure is Fund V’s total size.
In January 2026, the British Business Bank committed up to £50m to Fund V. It dates its relationship with IQ Capital to Fund I in 2006 and says it has backed all seven funds. Invest-NL separately announced €15m for Fund V. The Dutch institution links that investment to strengthening its domestic deep tech ecosystem.
IQ Capital operates alongside other specialist investors, including Amadeus Capital Partners, which also invests from seed to growth. Technical literacy alone therefore cannot explain its position. The more particular proposition combines its founders’ experience, company support and access to subsequent capital. Founders must judge whether that combination suits their own development timetable.
05 / A factory is a useful reality check
The portfolio’s September 2026 news provides a suitably physical example. Isembard announced a 160,000-square-foot Southwark headquarters and precision factory, serving aerospace, defence and robotics customers. Its office overlooks production, bringing software development close to the operation it is supposed to improve. The factory floor is a demanding reviewer of software claims.
IQ Capital’s own writing applies similar scrutiny to self-driving laboratories. A February 2026 essay by Jonno Evans and Kush Desai argues that reliable operations, comparable data and reproducibility must underpin scientific AI. Models cannot rescue experimental results that fail to transfer between instruments or sites. The infrastructure has to earn its keep.
For a founder approaching IQ Capital, the useful preparation is concrete: show the technical advantage, the buyer, the evidence from operating conditions and the next milestone the money will purchase. For everyone else, its portfolio offers an enjoyable habit of attention. When someone presents a splendid invention, look for the connection, battery or production system it still requires.