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BlueYard Capital
BlueYard Capital is a Berlin-based thesis-driven deep-tech VC founded 2016 by Jason Whitmire and Ciarán O'Leary, with ~€500M AUM across three funds.
Investment thesis
BlueYard Capital is a Berlin-based thesis-driven deep-tech VC founded 2016 by Jason Whitmire and Ciarán O'Leary, with ~€500M AUM across three funds. Invests pre-seed to Series A across decentralized tech, quantum, AI, bio, space. Cheques €500k-€5M.
Quantum exposure is dual-bet: SEEQC (superconducting digital-quantum hybrid, early backer) and Groq (AI inference silicon, quantum-adjacent tensor-stream architecture). Both reflect BlueYard's contrarian computing thesis — architectural alternatives to mainstream paradigms.
Value-add: tight-knit European deep-tech community; thesis-driven introductions to co-investors (USV, Accel) aligned on computing infrastructure.
Not a quantum specialist — computing-architecture thesis that happens to include quantum. Useful co-investor for founders pursuing non-consensus computing paradigms.
Anti-thesis
The patterns that trigger a fast no with this fund.
- Concentrated portfolio model (15 to 20 companies per fund) means a single quantum bet must return the fund, high pressure to pick a winner in a category with unclear modality leader
- Berlin / Europe base is strong on photonics (PsiQuantum spinouts, Pasqal-adjacent talent) but weaker on superconducting (IBM / Google dominate US), modality bias may misallocate
- Founders Jason Whitmire and Ciaran O'Leary have crypto and open-source backgrounds, quantum requires different technical pattern matching
- Long-hold philosophy is genuine but European LP base has less appetite for 12+ year holds than US endowments
- Public thesis emphasizes decentralization and open networks themes that don't naturally map to quantum's centralized, capital-intensive hardware reality
Notable quantum portfolio
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