Insider Brief
- Rigetti’s numbers for 2022 Q4 include quarter revenues $6.1 million, compared to $1.8 million in 2021 Q4.
- Net loss for Q4 2022 hit $22.9 million, or $0.19 per share, compared to $14.1 million or $0.61 per share in 2021.
- Rigetti anticipates additional funds will be needed by late 2024 or early 2025 to continue its research and development efforts.
- Critical Quote: “We have strengthened our executive and operational management team and have implemented steps designed to improve our focus and operating efficiency. This included reducing our workforce in order to focus the organization and our resources on nearer-term strategic priorities and preserve available cash resources.” — Subodh Kulkarni, Rigetti Chief Executive Officer. “
Rigetti Computing, which has been buffeted by executive changes, layoffs and financial struggles, put in a solid performance for the last quarter of 2022 and assured investors the firm was focused on its next technical achievements. The company’s operating plan also indicates a need for additional funding in about two years.
The company, which trades on Nasdaq under RGTI, released its financial results for the fourth quarter and its 2022 numbers.
Highlights for the quarter include total fourth quarter revenues $6.1 million, compared to $1.8 million in the same period of 2021, according to a company statement.
Total operating expenses for the three months increased to $32.0 million, compared to $12.2 million in the same period of 2021. Net losses per share improved. The net losses for Q4 2022 hit $22.9 million, or $0.19 per share, compared to $14.1 million or $0.61 per share in 2021.
At the end of the quarter, cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale securities totaled $142.8 million.
“We have strengthened our executive and operational management team and have implemented steps designed to improve our focus and operating efficiency,” said Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, Rigetti Chief Executive Officer. “This included reducing our workforce in order to focus the organization and our resources on nearer-term strategic priorities and preserve available cash resources.
The company also offered annual numbers. According to the statement, the highlights include: total revenues of $13.1 million — compared to $8.2 million in 2021 — and net loss of $71.5 million, or $0.70 per share. In 2021, total revenues were $8.2 million, and net loss was $38.2 million or $1.64 per share.
Outlook
According to the statement, Rigetti will likely need to raise more money late 2024.
Rigetti’s current operating plan suggests the company will have cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale securities of between $65-$75 million at the end of 2023. Based on that, Rigetti anticipates it will need to raise additional funding by late 2024 or early 2025 to continue its research and development efforts .
“At our current stage of development, we believe that executing toward our roadmap and achieving our technology milestones are key to fueling our goal of achieving quantum advantage. We believe Rigetti has enormous potential and could be able to contribute tremendous value as quantum computing potentially becomes mainstream by 2030. We remain focused on meeting our objectives,” said Dr. Kulkarni.
Next Generation
Rigetti will be banking on performance increases from its next generation of chip, according to Kulkarni, who offered an informal overview of their roadmap in the statement.
“Our next generation 84 qubit chip known as the Ankaa-1, with its new architecture of square lattice and tunable couplers, was internally deployed for testing this month. This chip is a leap forward in architectural design and is already showing superior performance compared with our prior generation 80 qubit Aspen M3 system based on our internal analysis. We are using the Ankaa-1 internally within Rigetti and initial performance is demonstrating improved median 2-qubit fidelity and faster gate speeds compared with the Aspen M3. We currently anticipate launching availability of Ankaa-1 to select customers in mid-2023 as we continue to work to improve Ankaa-1 performance with the goal of reaching median 2-qubit fidelity of 98% to support the anticipated Ankaa-2 84-qubit system. Ankaa-2 84-qubit system, with anticipated improved design and further improvement in performance is expected to be deployed and made available for external customers in the fourth quarter of 2023, following which we plan to continue work on the Ankaa-2 to reach 2-qubit fidelity of 99%.
“In the event we reach 2-qubit fidelity of 99%, which we expect to reach in 2024, we plan to move to tiling 4 Ankaa chips to develop the anticipated 336 qubit Lyra system. We expect that if this milestone is achieved, it will enable vastly greater scale and serve as a key and exciting step to bring Rigetti closer to quantum advantage,” said Kulkarni.
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