Series A over € 80 million for photonics startup Q.ANT

Berlin/ Stutt­gart — YPOG advi­sed Cherry Ventures, UVC Part­ners and imec.xpand on the expan­sion of the Series A finan­cing round of Stut­t­­gart-based photo­nics startup Q.ANT. With the new capi­tal raise, the total volume of the Series A finan­cing increa­ses to over USD 80 million, making Q.ANT the largest finan­cing in the field of photo­nic compu­ting in Europe to date. 

Q.ANT GmbH, a high-tech company and pioneer in the field of photo­nic compu­ting, is taking its vision of a sustainable photo­nic AI infra­struc­ture to the next level with this successful finan­cing round. The current finan­cing round was supported by the exis­ting inves­tors and streng­the­ned by the newly joined Duquesne Family Office. The rene­wed commit­ment under­lines the confi­dence in Q.ANT’s tech­no­logy plat­form and growth stra­tegy. The finan­cing comes in a chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment and marks a signi­fi­cant mile­stone for the Euro­pean deep tech scene. 

Q.ANT deve­lops photo­nic chips for high-perfor­­mance appli­ca­ti­ons and plans to use the capi­tal now provi­ded to signi­fi­cantly expand its produc­tion capa­ci­ties at the Stutt­gart site and signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate the further deve­lo­p­ment of the photo­nic AI infra­struc­ture. At the same time, the deve­lo­p­ment of further inno­va­tive fields of appli­ca­tion and part­ner­ships is to be driven forward. 

Back in July 2025, YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to inves­tors Cherry Ventures, UVC Part­ners and imec.xpand in Q.ANT’s EUR 62 million finan­cing round.

About Cherry Ventures

Cherry Ventures is a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal fund based in Berlin, London and Stock­holm. Since its foun­da­tion in 2013, Cherry Ventures has been inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive start-up teams from the early stage sector. The port­fo­lio compri­ses over 130 compa­nies, inclu­ding Flix­Bus, Auto1 and Moss. Cherry Ventures curr­ently mana­ges a USD 500 million fund and supports start-ups through all stages of growth. — https://cherry.vc

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a leading venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B tech start-ups and has offices in Munich and Berlin. With over EUR 600 million in assets under manage­ment, the VC typi­cally makes initial invest­ments of between EUR 1 and 10 million and invests a total of up to EUR 30 million per startup — parti­cu­larly in the areas of DeepT­ech, Clima­te­Tech, mobi­lity and software/AI. As an inde­pen­dent part­ner of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s leading startup hub, UVC Part­ners has unique access to exclu­sive deal flow, more than 1,000 compa­nies and SMEs as well as talent from the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich, one of the best tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties in Europe. UVC Part­ners’ invest­ment port­fo­lio includes Flix, Isar Aero­space, planqc, Proxima Fusion, Reverion, Tacto, TWAICE, Deep­Drive, STABL and many more. All port­fo­lio compa­nies and their foun­ders bene­fit from the team’s exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence, their ability to build sustainable cate­gory leaders and the Unter­neh­mer­TUM network that acce­le­ra­tes market entry. — https://www.uvcpartners.com

About imec.xpand

imec.xpand is a global venture capi­tal fund based in Leuven, Belgium, specia­li­zing in ground­brea­king inno­va­tions in semi­con­duc­tor and nano­tech­no­logy. imec.xpand invests in compa­nies with disrup­tive poten­tial world­wide and supports foun­ding teams in acces­sing state-of-the-art infra­struc­ture and inter­na­tio­nal networks. The current fund amounts to EUR 300 million and includes nume­rous pionee­ring compa­nies driving inno­va­tion in photo­nics and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. — https://imecxpand.com/

Advi­sors Cherry Ventures, UVC Part­ners and imec.xpand : YPOG

Benja­min Ullrich(Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Emma Peters (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Funds), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg
Benja­min von Mangoldt (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin
There­sia Hein­rich (Corpo­rate), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Silke Ricken (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin

https://www.ypog.law