Guest Post by Dr. Kris Naudts and Zeynep Kortuturk, both Founding & Managing Partners and Donald Harmitt, Associate, all at Firgun Ventures, a global quantum-first VC firm investing in Series A/B scale-ups.
Few countries have managed to build a quantum industry. Canada has built four billion-dollar quantum companies in roughly two decades, a record no nation outside the United States has matched.
In May 2026, Nord Quantique, a Canadian quantum computing startup, became the latest, closing a $30 million round led by Fidelity at a $1.4 billion valuation. It joins other Canadian quantum computing firms, D-Wave, Xanadu and Photonic Inc. (one of Firgun Ventures’ portfolio companies) on a list that has become a subdued point of national pride. The cluster is the product of two decades of deliberate policy, world-class university research and a venture ecosystem that has learned, sometimes painfully, how to keep what it builds. For a country whose technology companies often face the gravitational pull of larger capital markets, it suggests that Canada has not only produced compelling quantum research, but has begun to commercialise quantum computing leaders.
The numbers around the sector are eye-catching. A National Research Council of Canada study suggests the domestic quantum industry could reach $139 billion by 2045, contributing$17.7 billion to GDP and supporting more than 157,000 jobs. These are projections but convey the scale of the bet Ottawa is now making. Announced quantum investment in the country has reached roughly $1.5 billion as of 2025, according to the recent McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor. Despite this, the question remains whether Canada can scale them into globally significant champions without losing them to the deeper capital pools south of the border.
