---
title: Swiss Quantum Computing Startup ZuriQ Raises $25.5 Million to Scale Two-Dimensional Trapped-Ion Chips
description: Swiss ETH Zurich spin-out ZuriQ has raised $25.5 million led by Quantonation to scale trapped ion quantum computing on a junction-free two-dimensional design.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-07-28T06:57:17.849Z
updated: 2026-07-28T09:03:23.779Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/zuriq-quantum-computing-seed-funding
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/zuriq-founders.webp
categories: Artificial Intelligence, Startups
content_type: News
region: Zurich
publication: Sovereign Magazine
about:
  - type: Organization
    name: ZuriQ
    description: Swiss quantum computing company spun out of ETH Zurich in 2024, developing trapped-ion quantum processors on a natively two-dimensional architecture using Penning micro-traps.
    url: https://zuriq.com
    foundingDate: 2024-04-01T00:00:00.000Z
    industry: Quantum Computing
---

ZuriQ, a [quantum computing](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/post-quantum-encryption-2030-federal-deadline) company [spun out of ETH Zürich](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/mosaic-soc-edge-ai-chip-ar-glasses), has raised $25.5 million in seed funding to develop processors laid out in two dimensions, on the argument that the design its larger rivals are racing to scale is what is holding the field back.

The round is led by Quantonation, with Forward.one, Extantia and Firgun Ventures joining, alongside all existing investors from the $4.2 million pre-seed announced in January 2025. [ZuriQ](https://zuriq.com/) was founded in spring 2024 by Pavel Hrmo, Tobias Sägesser and Shreyans Jain, out of Professor Jonathan Home's ETH Zürich laboratory.

## Trapped Ion Quantum Computing and Its Scaling Problem

Trapped ion machines hold individual charged atoms in place with electromagnetic fields and use lasers to control and read them. Each ion is one qubit. The standard method, first proposed more than two decades ago and still the basis of most commercial systems, uses rapidly oscillating electric fields, an arrangement known as a Paul trap. Those fields confine the ions to what is effectively a one-dimensional chain. Anything larger has to be assembled by stitching chains into a grid using junction structures, and ions must be shuttled through those junctions to reach qubits elsewhere on the chip.

ZuriQ's processors are two-dimensional from the outset. Penning micro-traps hold each ion with a static magnetic field rather than the oscillating fields of a conventional trap, which removes the need for junctions altogether. Ions can be moved in any direction across the chip.

"What makes this approach powerful is geometry," said Home, who advises the company on the science. A line of ions grows one ion at a time, he said, while a two-dimensional array grows with the area of the chip, which on a standard chip is the difference between tens of ions and many thousands. "Just as important, the ions can be moved freely in three dimensions, so they can be connected together far more flexibly, and that connectivity is what ultimately makes a quantum computer more capable."

## Quantum Computing Companies Double Down on Junction Designs

The commercial front-runners in trapped ion quantum computing have spent the past decade making the one-dimensional design work at larger scale. [Quantinuum](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/quantinuum-softbank-quantum-enterprise-use-cases-21706) [launched its Helios machine in November 2025](https://www.quantinuum.com/blog/quantum-milestone-turning-a-corner-with-trapped-ions) with 98 physical barium ion qubits and 48 logical qubits, and described the system as the first commercial machine to include an ion junction. Logical qubits are assembled from groups of physical qubits using error correction, and are the count that matters for running real algorithms. IonQ took the acquisition route, paying $1.075 billion for the British trapped-ion firm Oxford Ionics in a deal announced in June 2025 and completed in September.

Scale is the measure on which trapped ions trail the rest of the field. Ion qubits hold the accuracy records, with two-qubit operations above 99.9% fidelity on Quantinuum's machines, and any ion can interact with any other, where a superconducting qubit can only talk to its neighbours on the chip. But superconducting machines from IBM and Google, and neutral-atom systems from companies such as QuEra and Atom Computing, already run hundreds to more than a thousand physical qubits, while trapped-ion systems remain in the tens to low hundreds.

ZuriQ's argument is that both are committed to a design that will be hard to convert to two dimensions later. "The trapped-ion companies that started the race began with one-dimensional designs that were useful stepping-stones, but the real challenge is whether they can successfully pivot to two dimensions as they attempt to scale," said Hrmo, ZuriQ's chief executive. "We spent longer in the lab, and that time allowed us to identify an alternative route that is inherently easier to scale."

## Penning Trap Quantum Computing: From Paper to Prototype

The approach was set out in a [2020 paper in Physical Review X](https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.10.031027), and the first experimental demonstration of a single ion held in a Penning micro-trap was published in [Nature in March 2024](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07111-x), weeks before the spin-out was formed.

![ZuriQ's Penning micro-trap demonstrator system at ETH Zurich](https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/zuriq-lab.webp)

ZuriQ now has a working demonstrator, developed in 18 months with researchers at ETH Zürich: a 3x3 array of nine individually controlled ions, which the company says is the largest two-dimensional array of its kind demonstrated so far. The chips were fabricated by [Infineon under a manufacturing partnership announced in July 2025](https://zuriq.com/news/zuriq-and-infineon-join-forces-to-advance-ion-trap-chip-technology/), which the company puts forward as evidence that the design can be produced on established industrial processes.

ZuriQ has grown from four people to 18 since the pre-seed, recruiting from IonQ, Xanadu and the Japanese photonics manufacturer Hamamatsu, and is now aiming to put hundreds of qubits on a single chip, though it has not said by when. Its own threshold for industrially useful quantum computing sits in the thousands of qubits, against the nine its demonstrator controls today. Hrmo has previously put commercial relevance seven to ten years away, a shorter horizon than the two decades some in the industry predict.

## Quantum Computing Investment in Europe at Record Levels

[European quantum startups](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/european-quantum-computing-race-accelerates-with-rare-five-qubit-system) raised about €1.5 billion in 2025, up roughly 170% on the previous year. Quantonation, the largest venture firm dedicated to quantum computing investment and an early backer of Pasqal and Quandela, closed a second fund at €220 million in February 2026.

Christophe Jurczak, founding partner at Quantonation, said: "A common misconception is that the quantum race is already decided, but that is far from reality." ZuriQ, he said, is showing that "there remain significant and transformational physics breakthroughs still to be made" in quantum architecture, and its scientific standing is why it has drawn global talent to join it and "build 2D-native quantum computers where trapped-ion qubits finally have the freedom to move and connect."

## FAQ

**Q: What is trapped ion quantum computing?**
It is one of the main approaches to building a quantum computer. Individual charged atoms, or ions, are held in place inside a vacuum chamber by electromagnetic fields, and lasers are used to put them into quantum states, connect them and read the results. Each ion acts as one qubit. Trapped ion qubits are prized for their accuracy and long coherence times, but getting large numbers of them onto a single chip has been the field's persistent problem, and it is the problem ZuriQ's funding is aimed at.

**Q: What is the difference between a Paul trap and a Penning trap?**
A Paul trap, the design used in most commercial trapped ion machines, holds ions using rapidly oscillating electric fields. That works well but confines the ions to a line, so larger processors have to link many lines together through junction structures. A Penning trap uses a static magnetic field instead. ZuriQ's micro-trap version of it lets ions sit in a two-dimensional array and move in any direction across the chip without passing through a junction.

**Q: What is a qubit in simple terms?**
A qubit is the quantum equivalent of a bit. A normal computer bit is either 0 or 1. A qubit can hold a combination of both at once, and qubits can be linked so that their states depend on each other. That is how quantum computers work through many possible answers at the same time rather than one after another. In ZuriQ's machines, each qubit is a single trapped ion, which is why the number of ions a chip can hold sets the ceiling on what the computer can do.

**About ZuriQ**

Swiss quantum computing company spun out of ETH Zurich in 2024, developing trapped-ion quantum processors on a natively two-dimensional architecture using Penning micro-traps.

[Website](https://zuriq.com)