US-Ukrainian quantum startup Haiqu raises $4M

Haiqu, which develops technologies to increase the efficiency of quantum computers, had announced the closing of $4 million pre-seed round. The round was led by the American funds MaC Venture Capital and Toyota Ventures, with the participation of SOMA capital, Ukrainian u.ventures, SID Venture Partners, Roosh Ventures, as well as private investors.

• Haiqu was founded by American Richard Givan (CEO) and Ukrainian Mykola Maksymenko (CTO) in 2022 within the Canadian deeptech accelerator Creative Destruction Lab.
• Richard Givan is a graduate of Stanford University and a former employee of Mitsubishi Electric. Mykola Maksymenko is a former researcher at the German Max Planck Institute, the Israeli Weizmann Research Institute, ex-vice president of SoftServe’s R&D, and head of the Technology Management program at the UCU Business School.
• According to the developers, Haiqu makes it possible to get the most out of limited and error-prone quantum computers, thus enabling them to perform computational tasks that until recently were impossible. The company’s solutions combine quantum informatics with artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
• Haiqu solves the main problems that hinder the implementation of quantum computing applications: the limited number of qubits and the high sensitivity to errors of quantum processors in the near future. The technology increases the productivity of quantum equipment and allows expanding the application of quantum computing for a wide range of tasks in finance, the automotive industry, biotechnology, and other areas.
• The startup plans to allocate investments into product development and the development of a partner ecosystem for its market launch.