Rigetti Computing, one of the most visible quantum hardware startups, today announced that it is going public through a merger with the Supernova Partners Acquisition Company II SPAC. Once the transaction closes, Rigetti’s ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange will be “RGTI.”
The transaction values Rigetti at about $1.5 billion and the company expects to receive about $458 million in cash, including a $100 million PIPE (private investment in public equity) deal subscribed to by a group of investors including T. Rowe Price, Bessemer Venture Partners, Franklin Templeton and In-Q-Tel. There is also a new group of strategic investors here, including Keysight Technologies and Palantir Technologies. Ampere Computing, which is mostly known for its Arm-based servers, is also making a direct investment.
Supernova’s Michael Clifton will join the Rigetti board after the transaction closes.
According to CrunchBase, Rigetti has raised just under $200 million in VC capital since it was founded in 2013.
In addition to the financial news, Rigetti also published an updated roadmap, that projects the company will produce 1,000-qubit machines in 2024 and 4,000-qubit ones by 2026. Currently, its systems scale to 80 qubits. The company argues that the proceeds from the SPAC and PIPE transaction will allow it to accelerate the development of its next-gen quantum processors.
“In the next decade one Rigetti quantum computer could be more powerful than today’s entire global cloud,” said Rigetti Computing CEO and founder Chad Rigetti. “Rigetti is the leading innovator in this space. Our team has solved the most pressing scientific problems associated with bringing quantum computing to market by creating a scalable computer and high-performance integration with existing computing systems. We plan to use this capital to accelerate our product development and accelerate our goal to bring this transformational computing capability to every major industry.”
Going public through a SPAC merger seems to be a bit of a trend for quantum computing companies right now. Rigetti competitor IonQ, after all, raised about $650 million through this same process only a few days ago.
