Bengaluru-based deeptech startup Quanfluence has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Chiratae Ventures, as it looks to build a full-stack photonic quantum computer that combines photonic chips, control electronics and software into a single system, the Economic Times reported.
Founded in 2021, Quanfluence was started by former semiconductor engineers Sujoy Chakravarty (CEO), Ravi Mehta (COO) and Biman Chattopadhyay (CTO), who spent over a decade together at Texas Instruments before founding Silicon and Beyond in 2012 — a chip-design startup acquired by Synopsys in 2018. The wider founding team includes Aditi Vaidya, Sandeep Goyal and Anil Prabhakar, professors at IISER Mohali and IIT Madras, who advise the company.
Quanfluence's bet is photonic quantum computing: using light instead of superconducting electrical circuits as the computational medium. Because photonic systems don't need cryogenic refrigerators operating near absolute zero, the machines can work at room temperature — slashing infrastructure cost and complexity versus conventional quantum hardware. Its prototype Time-Multiplexed Coherent Ising Machine tackles optimisation problems in machine learning, material science and AI, with a roadmap targeting its first set of qubits by 2029.
The round follows a $2 million seed round led by pi Ventures in 2024. Quanfluence is part of India's deeptech push under the National Quantum Mission, which is channelling public capital into quantum hardware, networking and cryptography built in India.
Why it matters for founders
This is what patient deeptech capital looks like: founders with a prior exit, a second-time team, and a genuinely differentiated technical bet (room-temperature photonics). Chiratae writing a $10M cheque into quantum hardware signals that Indian VCs are now willing to fund 10-year technology arcs, not just 18-month SaaS sprints. For deeptech founders: your unfair advantage is the team's ability to survive the valley of death — Quanfluence's founders proved that once at Silicon and Beyond, and investors are underwriting the repeat.