VCs embrace quantum computing in a crowded semiconductor market

VCs embrace quantum computing in a crowded semiconductor market

Wed, September 2, 2026 at 10:58 PM GMT+3 2 min read

VC investment in quantum computing notched a record $2 billion in Q2 across 23 deals, accounting for a third of dollars in the chips and datacenters vertical, according to a new PitchBook report.

Quantum's marquee event this quarter was Quantinuum's IPO, which accounted for most of the $19 billion in quantum exit value and was the first major test of the technology in public markets. On the VC side, Oxford Quantum Circuits raised a £260 million Series C led by Bullhound Capital.

Strategics are eyeing quantum technologies, too. Miraex, a quantum hardware startup, was bought in June following Quantum Circuits $538 million sale earlier this year.

Overall, investment in chips and datacenters fell for the second consecutive quarter, hitting $6.6 billion across 133 deals in Q2. Despite the pullback from recent highs, 2026 is still on pace to exceed 2025's record of $21.6 billion.

The declines were concentrated in semiconductor chip design startups, which posted their weakest quarter since Q1 2025 at $1.7 billion. While newer chip design entrants like Etched, d-Matrix, and Ricursive Intelligence are making waves, the dominance of larger players has given investors pause.

"If Nvidia owns 93% or 94% of the market and they still continue to blow out earnings every quarter, you become like, 'Well, if you're the other 6%, how do you win?'" asked David Yakobovitch, GP at DataPower Capital, a firm that backs AI infrastructure companies like Nscale, Cerebras, Groq, and Crusoe. "Is that market share going to go down enough to create enough money for all the other players?"

Even challengers with real momentum face a long road. "It's R&D, it's hard tech, it's deep tech, and chips often take years and years and years," Yakobovitch said, noting that it took companies like Cerebras and SambaNova a while to reach commercial viability.

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Still, an enormous amount of capital has chased startups that can remove AI bottlenecks at scale.

Anthropic signed a $35 billion computing deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda, The Wall Street Journal reported. That deal comes just weeks after Anthropic committed to a $45 billion, six-year agreement with Nscale for access to its compute capacity. And on the venture side, TensorWave raised a $350 million Series B in June at a $1.55 billion valuation, co-led by AMD Ventures and Magnetar.

This article originally appeared on PitchBook News