Insider Brief
- Mesa Quantum secures $3.7 million in seed funding to build a research facility and commercialize chip-scale quantum sensors, with applications across defense, space, and telecommunications.
- The company’s quantum sensors aim to provide GPS alternatives in environments where traditional systems fail, such as military zones, underwater, and in space.
- With additional funding from the Space Force, Mesa Quantum seeks to overcome size, weight, and power challenges, making quantum sensors scalable and usable in everyday technology, including smartphones and autonomous vehicles.
- Image: Mesa Quantum
PRESS RELEASE — Mesa Quantum, an innovative quantum sensing company, announced an oversubscribed seed funding of $3.7M led by J2 Ventures, a Boston-based fund focused on dual-use technologies, with participation from SOSV.
This investment enables Mesa Quantum to build a new research and development facility, hire top technical talent, and position themselves to commercialize chip-scale quantum sensors for deployment at scale. The technology has applications in defense, climate, energy, space, telecommunications, and several other key economic areas.
Satellite dependence, for everything from defense to commercial use cases, remains a large, growing, and underserved market. While the Space Force and other government agencies rely on Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites for Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), so too do most consumer electronics. However, GPS is vulnerable to jamming and spoofing attacks, which opens the door to catastrophic outcomes like power grid and telecommunication disruption, failure of military operations in the field, and disruptions to supply chain and transportation networks.
Mesa Quantum has already been awarded an additional Space Force grant of $1.9M for Alternative PNT(Alt PNT) applications, with several other awards they anticipate in short order as a part of their government scaling.
“Given the rise in our everyday technology’s reliance on GPS, it has developed into a single point of failure for our economy. Heightened geopolitical tensions have forced the U.S. government to seek alternative solutions to maintain our national security,” said Sristy Agrawal, CEO & Co-founder of Mesa Quantum. “Current generations of quantum sensors, such as atomic clocks, are not a viable alternative because of their size, weight, power consumption (SWaP), cost, and lack of at-scale manufacturability – all limitations Mesa Quantum is focused on overcoming.”
Mesa Quantum’s groundbreaking technology will result in more resilient, precise, and scalable methods for maintaining synchronization, determining position, and conducting measurements. Using chip-scale quantum sensors for alternative PNT will be indispensable in GPS-denied environments such as military-contested zones, underground, underwater, and in space.
“We have been focused on making an investment in this space for years, and Mesa Quantum is singular in its ability to produce leading-edge technology while servicing the massive commercial needs of what they are producing,” said Dr. Jon Bronson, Managing Partner at J2 Ventures.
“Our vision is to integrate chip-scale quantum sensors into everyday technologies, ranging from autonomous vehicles in the air, on the ground, and at sea, all the way to the smartphones we use daily,” said Dr. Wale Lawal, CTO and Co-founder of Mesa Quantum.
Mesa Quantum is currently hiring talent with experience in quantum physics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), semiconductor manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering. Candidates interested in joining a fast-moving and dynamic deep-tech startup should visit the company’s website for more information.
