Published:
Oct 03, 2026
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger put a hypothetical cat in a sealed box with a vial of poison and a radioactive atom, and argued that quantum theory left it both alive and dead until someone looked. He meant it to show how absurd the theory sounded. Nine decades later, the industry his cat came to symbolize is in a similar state. Sundar Pichai reckons quantum is roughly where AI was five years ago, while Christophe Jurczak of Quantonation calls it a "perpetual five-year technology". Investors have stopped waiting for the box to open. More than $4b of venture capital has gone into quantum this year, Oratomic raised the sector's largest-ever first round at $300m, and Quantinuum listed on Nasdaq at more than $15b.
The awkward question is who will pay for it? The exponential gains so far apply to breaking encryption, which is not much of a business model, unless you count the roughly 7 million Bitcoin sitting in addresses that have already exposed their public key on-chain, worth about $470b. EU financial supervisors warned last week that threats could materialize before any viable commercial application, suggesting quantum's first profitable customer may be a thief. For the law-abiding, IonQ argues most of the value will come from quadratic speed-ups that turn a 24-hour calculation into a 17-minute one, exactly the sort of leg-up banks pay for.
McKinsey puts the prize in finance at $400b to $600b by 2035. Derivative pricing and credit risk are the headline acts, but the working examples sit elsewhere. Intesa Sanpaolo and IBM found a quantum model flagged fewer legitimate transactions as fraud, echoing Mastercard's results.
When investors finally open the box, they may find Schrödinger's cat alive, well, and working in the…….. fraud department.
Portfolio News
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Ziina joins the UAE's biggest banks in Visa's agentic commerce sandbox - Ziina has joined Visa's Agentic Ready program in the UAE alongside Emirates NBD, Mashreq and ADCB, testing agent-initiated payments in a live, production-grade environment. New Visa research finds fewer than 3% of UAE enterprises have deployed agentic AI, but almost 60% plan to spend in it within two years. Read more
Plaid links Amex business cards to Perplexity AI skills - American Express has tapped Perplexity to offer eligible US Business Card holders a curated library of AI Skills, from cash-flow forecasting to tax prep. Plaid provides the read-only connection between cardholder transaction data and Perplexity Computer, and an Enterprise subscription is required. Read more
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Schrödinger's Cat Burglar
EU watchdogs warn quantum could break blockchain encryption - European supervisory authorities said in their Autumn 2026 risk report that advanced quantum computers could break the cryptography securing blockchains, with roughly 6.9 million bitcoin, about $586b, sitting in exposed legacy or reused addresses. Brussels wants post-quantum transitions starting by end 2026. Read more
Can quantum turn ‘magic’ into money? - According to the FT, investors are betting quantum's path to profit runs through pharma and Wall Street. VC has poured more than $4bn into the sector this year, while Quantinuum and IQM have both gone public. Read more
Industry News
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Wall Street questions Nvidia's chip-backed AI financing plan - Banks and credit investors are pushing back on Nvidia's $500b chip-backed financing plan, doubting GPUs can serve as long-term collateral and seeking stronger guarantees. Lenders typically underwrite GPUs over three to four years, versus Nvidia's claim that top chips earn revenue for a decade. Read more
Finastra deploys AI to help banks fix payment issues - Finastra has launched Repair Recommendations within its generative AI OperatorAssist tool, which identifies payment discrepancies, analyses root causes and suggests compliant corrections for human review. The bank software provider says it cuts exception-handling time, reduces errors and speeds onboarding of new operations staff. Read more
LNG tanker carrying US gas hit by suspected cyberattack - An LNG tanker bringing US gas to Italy suffered a systems failure its crew reported as a suspected cyberattack, losing access to some internal controls. The Vivit Africa LNG idled off Italy, then turned back toward Algeciras without discharging its cargo. Read more
NatWest trials AI audio-visual spending insights tool - NatWest will trial a generative AI tool, built on its proprietary small language models, that lets customers explore spending through natural voice and text conversations, starting with Royal Bank of Scotland customers. It also added a fraud triage agent to its Cora digital assistant. Read more
Zilch taps banks for London IPO next year - UK consumer lender Zilch has invited investment banks to pitch for roles on a planned London flotation as soon as next year. Valued at $2bn in 2021, the buy-now-pay-later group cut losses to £10.5m and aims to be profitable by listing. Read more
Nubank in talks to buy Monzo - Nu Holdings has held talks to acquire the UK digital bank, at a valuation of roughly £8-10b pounds. It would be the Brazilian fintech's largest deal, giving it instant UK and European scale against Revolut. Read more
Monzo courts private equity after Nubank walks away - Takeover talks collapsed over the up to £10bn price Monzo wanted, so the UK digital bank is now in early discussions with CVC and Advent International about selling a stake of up to 15 per cent to fund growth. Read more
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Select Financings
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Charter Space - El Segundo based insurance brokerage for satellite operators and other space companies raised $5m in Seed funding led by Crystal Venture Partners. Read more
Duqu - Amsterdam based startup providing AI-driven invoice financing raised €1.5m in pre-Seed funding led by Curiosity VC. Read more
Elio Mortgage - New York City based AI-native mortgage origination platform raised $5.1m in pre-Seed funding led by Motive Partners and Social Leverage. Read more
Erad - Riyadh based Shariah-compliant SME financing platform raised $22m in Series A funding led by Middle East Venture Partners. Read more
F2 - New York City based agentic operating system for global credit raised $5m in new funding led by Golub Capital. Read more
Frank - Lisbon based insurtech for insurance brokers raised €2.9m in new funding led by Armilar and Start Ventures. Read more
Givestar - London based charitable fundraising platform raised $12m in growth funding led by Mercia Ventures. Read more
Jeeves - Miami based stablecoin-native banking platform for enterprises raised $110m in Series C funding led by CoinFund. Read more
Mona - San Francisco based AI platform helping small businesses access capital and financial coaching raised $3.5m in new funding led by Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners. Read more
Outmarket AI - San Francisco based insurtech automating paperwork for commercial insurance agencies and brokers raised $34.5m in Series B funding led by SignalFire. Read more
PERPTools - Oviedo based AI-native perpetuals trading platform raised $8m in pre-Seed and Seed funding led by DEXTools Ventures and Orderly Network. Read more
Tenora - London based FX and corporate-treasury technology startup raised £5.5m in Series A funding led by Fexco. Read more
Wealthcome - Bordeaux based wealth-management technology platform raised €15m in Series B funding led by Breega. Read more
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