Salesforce Ventures leads $290 million round, putting Q-Ctrl above $1 billion

The deal and who joined

Q-Ctrl said Thursday it closed a $290 million round led by Salesforce Ventures, pushing the company's valuation past $1 billion. The company called the financing oversubscribed.

Existing backers returned, including the CIA's venture arm In-Q-Tel and Lockheed Martin Ventures. Among the newcomers were Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, AMD Ventures, plus Edge Group, the UAE's defense conglomerate. Bullhound Capital, a European technology-focused firm, also took a significant stake in the round.

What Q-Ctrl is building and why now

Q-Ctrl is taking quantum tech out of the lab and into navigation. Its sensors are designed to keep aircraft and ships on course when GPS is unavailable, a growing need as jamming and spoofing tied to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East disrupt satellite navigation and raise safety concerns.

Chief Executive Officer Michael Biercuk said the company's system can pinpoint position to within 10 meters. The company is piloting the system across commercial aviation, self-flying drones, and maritime shipping.

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Customers and the broader push into quantum sensing

Biercuk said Q-Ctrl holds contracts with DARPA, the Australian and British navies, and Airbus SE. Militaries and government agencies are also testing sensing and other experimental technologies from quantum firms like Q-Ctrl and Infleqtion Inc.

Biercuk added that the company's software helps stabilize quantum computers by reducing errors. Error correction is viewed as essential to making quantum machines useful for complex tasks beyond classical computing, with potential in health, finance, and energy. As he put it, "Think of our software as the equivalent of noise-canceling headphones."

Why it matters for your portfolio

Q-Ctrl sits at an interesting intersection: navigation-grade sensors for near term use and software aimed at taming error in future quantum hardware. That combo lines up with immediate demand from aviation and defense while keeping optionality if quantum computing scales into practical workloads.

The bottom line: defense dollars are already testing quantum sensing, and enterprise budgets could follow if error reduction unlocks more compute. Keep an eye on who Q-Ctrl signs next and how quickly its 10-meter positioning moves from trials to deployments.

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