According to McKinsey’s 2026 Quantum Technology Monitor, investment in quantum technology startups reached €11.15 billion ($12.6 billion) in 2025, 6.3 times more than a year earlier. Only 3% came from public sources, including governments, sovereign wealth funds and universities. In 2024, their share had been roughly one-third.
That can look odd next to the size of the quantum programmes being announced by governments. The numbers are describing different things. Public commitments can pay for laboratories, university research, testbeds, training and infrastructure. The capital that goes onto a startup’s balance sheet comes from a different mix of sources.
When I look at the funding picture, I separate money that builds the ecosystem from money that finances the company. European quantum founders need both, but one does not automatically provide the other.
Europe does not lack quantum research capacity. The MIT Quantum Index estimates that the EU produces 22% of global quantum-computing publications and 17% of the top 10% most-cited papers in the field. The UK and Germany each account for 6% of those highly cited papers.
The training base is expanding as well. The same report counted 69 master’s degrees worldwide with “quantum” in the degree name. Germany had 12, the highest number of any country, and the UK had 10.
Public programmes support much of the environment around that research: universities, laboratories, shared infrastructure and training. A company can benefit from all of it without receiving the programme’s money as equity. A national quantum commitment may improve the conditions for building a startup while financing very little of the startup itself.
The 2025 funding data makes the split visible. Investment in quantum technology startups rose sharply, while the share coming from public sources fell to 3% from roughly one-third a year earlier.
Public support still underpins the sector, but company financing increasingly comes through other channels. Venture and private equity investors, corporates, and public markets supplied most of the capital going directly into quantum companies.
For a founder, the useful question is not simply how much a government has committed to quantum. It is where the money is intended to go. A programme may support university research, shared infrastructure, workforce development or direct company funding. These routes can all strengthen the same ecosystem, but they do not create the same financing options for a startup.
Large national commitments are often reported as evidence of how much capital is moving into quantum. For a company building its financing plan, the headline amount is not enough.
I would look first at how the programme is allocated and who can receive the money. Funding directed to national laboratories or universities can strengthen the technology base without appearing on a startup’s balance sheet. Investment in infrastructure or training may reduce barriers for companies across the ecosystem, but it is different from capital that a founder can use to finance the business directly.
This does not make those programmes less valuable. Quantum companies need the research base, specialist talent and infrastructure they help create. The distinction becomes important only when founders start treating ecosystem funding as a measure of how much company financing is available.
The same logic applies when comparing countries. A large public commitment can make one market a better place to develop quantum technology without necessarily making it easier to raise the private capital required to scale a company.
Quantum companies can spend years moving from research towards systems that are ready for wider commercial use. The funding environment changes during that journey.
The sources of capital flowing into quantum companies have already shifted. Venture and private equity remain important, but corporate and public-market capital have also become significant parts of the sector’s financing.
European founders do not need to predict every source of future capital at the beginning. They do need to know which parts of the development plan are covered by the money already available and which are not.
That is particularly relevant in Europe. Research, training and public infrastructure are genuine advantages. They can make it easier to start a quantum company and develop the underlying technology. They do not remove the need to finance the company itself as it moves towards commercial scale.
The sector is attracting far more capital than it did only a few years ago. For European founders, the useful question is not whether money is flowing into quantum. It is which part of that money can reach their company, what it can fund and what they will need after it runs out.
Source: EU-Startups
