Pure-play Quantum · VC Firm

Ground State Ventures

Pure-play global quantum fund (rebranded April 2026 from QDNL Participations; Fund II at $88M, 26% above target, nearing final close) investing exclusively in expert quantum talent across hardware, software, sensing, photonics, communications and infrastructure. 15 portfolio companies, one in stealth. Acts as global gateway to the Dutch quantum ecosystem (Quantum Delta NL, QuTech, TU Delft).

Active Amsterdam, NetherlandsFounded 2023

Investment thesis

Ground State Ventures (formerly QDNL Participations, rebranded April 2026 as Fund II reached $88M, 26% above the $70M target, nearing final close) is a global pure-play quantum VC. Launched March 2023 by Quantum Delta NL, headquartered in Amsterdam with offices in London and San Francisco. Fund I (EUR 15M, Dutch focus, fully committed) has been succeeded by a globally mandated Fund II. Initial cheques $500k to $1.5M, typically leading rounds, with follow-on capacity through Series A and beyond.

Dutch Fund I portfolio: Qblox (modular quantum control), QuantWare (superconducting processors, backed at EUR 20M Series A March 2025 and $178M Series B May 2026, Intel Capital among new investors), QphoX (microwave-optical transduction), Q*Bird (QKD), Orange Quantum Systems (chip testing, EUR 12M seed Aug 2025), QT Sense (life-sciences sensing, followed in EUR 4M seed Feb 2026), plus QuantaMap and Fermioniq on tooling and software.

Fund II global deployment started late 2025: SiC Systems (first US ticket, Oct 2025), Quantum Elements (LA, AI-native quantum dev platform, Oct 2025), EuQlid ($3M seed Nov 2025, lead), Diffraqtion (MIT and University of Maryland quantum camera satellite spinout, $4.2M pre-seed Jan 2026, lead), Rhonexum (Swiss cryo-electronics, $1M pre-seed Mar 2026, lead), and Sygaldry (Chad Rigetti's quantum-accelerated AI server company: GSV backed both the $34M seed led by Initialized Capital, Aug 2025, and the $105M Series A led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, closed March 2026). 15 companies, one still in stealth.

Unusually deep quantum operator bench: Ton van 't Noordende (Founder & General Partner), Chad Rigetti (Partner, founder of Rigetti Computing), Kris Kaczmarek (Partner since May 2026, ex-ORCA Computing, ex-2xN); Special Advisors Charles Marcus (ex-Microsoft Quantum Lab Copenhagen) and Nadia Carlsten (CEO of the Danish Centre for AI Innovation, ex-SandboxAQ). Connected to Infinity, Quantum Delta NL's free spin-out support program for Dutch researchers.

Anti-thesis

The patterns that trigger a fast no with this fund.

  1. No quantum-adjacent plays: Ground State Ventures backs real qubits, photonics, cryogenics, sensing or component hardware, not AI-for-quantum wrappers or post-quantum crypto SaaS
  2. No late-stage or growth-only rounds: tickets are $500k to $1.5M lead at pre-seed and seed; Series B narratives without prior relationship are out of scope
  3. No founders without scientific depth: the fund exists to de-risk scientist founders out of QuTech, TNO, TU Delft, CWI, MIT, Stanford or equivalent research labs; non-technical CEOs with an outsourced physics team do not fit
  4. Founder-partner overlap to price in: GSV partner Chad Rigetti founded portfolio company Sygaldry, which GSV backed at seed and Series A; the firm discloses it openly, but founders pitching competing quantum-AI infrastructure should expect an information asymmetry on that board
  5. No geographic free pass either way: Fund I (EUR 15M) was Netherlands-only; Fund II is genuinely global (5 US companies, 1 Swiss, talks in India and Australia), so a Dutch address alone is no longer an edge; research-group pedigree is

Notable quantum portfolio

Full portfolio
QbloxQuantWareQphoXQ*BirdOrange Quantum SystemsQuantaMap

Frequent co-investors