DeteQt, a quantum sensing startup spun out of the University of Sydney, has secured pre-seed funding from some of the best-known deep tech VCs to accelerate development of its diamond-on-chip technology.
The startup raised $750,000 from Main Sequence Ventures and US-based ATP Fund off the back of a $3.3 million contract with Defence last year, as a jumping off point for future investment.
It plans to use the funding to almost double the size of the business and push ahead with a new prototype ahead of another raise next year, according to co-founder and chief executive Jim Rabeau.
“It’s ultimately to position us for a much bigger raise next year, where we’re going to be going from prototype to bigger scale,” he told InnovationAus.com ahead of the Quantum Australia Conference in Brisbane.
DeteQt, which was founded by Dr Rabeau and Professor Omid Kavehei in 2023, is developing quantum magnetometers for real-world applications like navigation, critical minerals detection and medical imaging.
It combines nitrogen-vacancy diamond technology (much like Quantum Brilliance) with traditional silicon chip fabrication (through Global Foundries) to arrive at a low-cost, scalable and manufacturable solution.
Dr Rabeau, the former president of Infleqtion’s Australian arm and a one-time CSIRO director of quantum technology, said it was this “unique value proposition” that led to grant funding from the Defence Innovation Network.
“It was really bringing those two things together that positioned us to get the funding from the Defence Innovation Network and then to do something really pretty unique in having a silicon chip with a diamond sensor,” he said.
With the initial Defence Innovation Network grant, DeteQt were able to further develop the tech, which has been licenced by University of Sydney, having originated from work done at the Nano Institute.
“Now we have a control and measurement chip and we have our diamond quantum chip, and we basically put them together,” he said of the technology pioneered with Professor Kavehei, the company’s chief scientific officer.
“It’s like a sandwich without anything in the middle. It’s like two pieces of bread coming together and they talk to each other.”
DeteQt is now looking to the future, with plans to have a prototype available to demo before the end of the year that allows it to tap into markets outside of navigation.
It also plans to set up an entity in the United States, which Dr Rabeau said was about creating a “springboard for us to consolidate all the tech and the customer conversations”.
“We have this technology which is very close to application-ready, and the wave of possibilities of actually deploying this to industries that are actually ready for the kind of tech that we’re bringing,” the Adjunct Professor said.
“I think this wave of quantum sensing and near term applications, compared to quantum computing, is quite exciting, and we’re in a really, really good place to do that.”
Dr Rabeau also said that having a “strong” contract with the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator meant that the company was less reliant on additional VC funding.
“That’s pretty unique for a small startup like ours, and so [with that investment] we’re kind of going really hard to deliver what we said we’re going to do, get in front of customers and more investors, and really ramp up our next generation development and production.”
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