Tokyo-based Yaqumo, a startup building scalable neutral-atom quantum computers, said today it has closed a seed extension from New Hampshire-based Alumni Ventures — the U.S. firm's first-ever Japanese investment. The round was co-executed through Alumni Ventures' North American AV Seed Fund and its newly established Japan + US Bridge Fund, which is designed to wire together the two countries' deep-tech ecosystems.
Building Quantum Computers On Cold Ytterbium
Yaqumo was founded in 2025 by CEO Kazuhiro Nakashoji and is headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. The company is pursuing a hardware-software co-design framework focused on raw gate speed, compressing operation latency to minimize the time qubits are exposed to ambient noise. Its architecture uses cold Ytterbium (Yb) isotopes as a scalable neutral-atom platform, an approach that has emerged as one of the most promising paths to fault-tolerant quantum computing.
From Seed To North America
The investment fits Yaqumo's playbook of stacking quality strategic backers. The startup raised a JPY 700 million seed in August 2025 from ANRI, Beyond Next Ventures, and Kyoto University Innovation Capital alongside grant funding from NEDO, then closed a $4.4 million seed extension led by Paris-based Quantonation in April 2026. Alumni Ventures' check stretches that runway and opens U.S. relationships ahead of expansion into North America.
Investor Endorsement
Alumni Ventures has raised more than $1.4 billion since its 2014 founding and invested in more than 1,600 venture-backed companies. "Yaqumo is an exceptionally compelling startup that combines Japan's deep research foundation in quantum mechanics with a strong business vision for realizing practical quantum computers," said Michael Phillips, the firm's Chief Legal Officer and Asia Pacific managing director. Nakashoji called the deal a "strong vote of confidence in our ambition to move beyond research and development in Japan and pursue commercialization in global markets, including North America."
The bet lands as quantum commercialization accelerates: Microsoft just unveiled its Majorana 2 topological qubit, Quantinuum priced a $1.68 billion Nasdaq IPO, and IonQ broke ground on a 256-qubit Dublin testbed.
Reporting based on coverage from The Quantum Insider and Quantum Computing Report.