IQM raises PIPE to $146m with Finnish pension fund backing

Finnish quantum start-up IQM has bolstered its pre-listing war chest to $146m with backing from pension giant Ilmarinen.

Finnish quantum computing company IQM has upsized its private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing to more than $146m ahead of its planned SPAC merger and US stock market listing, after securing a new commitment from Ilmarinen, one of Finland’s largest private earnings-related pension insurance companies.

The new commitment from Ilmarinen builds on the previously announced $134m private placement round tied to IQM’s planned merger with SPAC partner Real Asset Acquisition Corp and public listing. The total private placement commitment from new and existing institutional investors now exceeds $146m.

The transaction places IQM at a pre-money equity valuation of some $1.8bn, with a cash position expected to reach up to $477m. The company posted 2025 revenues of $36m.

IQM plans to list its American depositary shares on the Nasdaq stock market and its ordinary shares on the Helsinki stock exchange on completion of the transaction. As SiliconRepublic.com reported in February, this would make IQM the first European quantum computing company to list publicly in the US.

Jan Goetz, co-founder and CEO of IQM, said the addition of Ilmarinen underscores confidence in the company’s technology roadmap and its ‘production quantum’ model, under which customers own, operate and build on their systems.

“This commitment signals that the market recognises our product readiness and the real value we’re delivering to customers tackling some of the world’s most complex problems,” he said.

Peter Ort, CEO and co-chair of Real Asset Acquisition, said: “We reopened the PIPE because the demand is there from institutional investors who recognise what IQM has built: operational quantum computers, active customer deployments and a commercial foundation that most of the quantum sector has yet to achieve.”

IQM builds full-stack, open-architecture quantum computers that can be deployed at premises or accessed via the cloud. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Helsinki, the company employs more than 350 people and operates across Europe, Asia and North America. The additional capital will be used, it said, to accelerate its technology development toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.

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