Insider Brief
- Groove Quantum secured €10 million in EIC Accelerator funding to scale its germanium-based quantum chip technology.
- The Delft startup was one of 40 companies selected from over 1,000 applicants to receive a mix of grant and equity support.
- Groove’s qubits use standard semiconductor processes, aiming to build scalable quantum processors for practical applications.
A Dutch startup building quantum chips from germanium has secured €10 million from the European Innovation Council Accelerator, a vote of confidence in its plan to make quantum computing scalable using mainstream semiconductor processes.
Groove Quantum, based in Delft, was one of only 40 companies selected from over 1,000 applicants across Europe to receive funding under the EIC Accelerator program, according to Startup Rise. The award includes a €2.5 million grant and additional equity investment from the EIC Fund, which aims to back high-risk, high-impact technologies in sectors such as deep tech and advanced computing.
“From a thousand applicants, we were selected as one of the top 40 deep-tech startups in Europe,” the Groove Quantum team writes in a LinkedIn post. “The jury highlights our technology as: ‘Groove’s germanium qubits are a bright standout in a crowded field.’ This milestone enables us to keep scaling up qubit counts rapidly while maintaining state-of-the-art fidelities, bringing practical quantum computing closer to reality.”
Groove’s approach centers on building qubits — or quantum bits — out of germanium, a material that can be processed using the same equipment and techniques as today’s silicon chips. That compatibility, the company believes, could allow quantum processors to be scaled more quickly and affordably than rival platforms that require exotic materials or cryogenic complexity. The company’s design focuses on increasing qubit counts while maintaining high fidelity, a requirement for real-world quantum applications such as drug discovery, cryptography and advanced simulation.
As reported by Startup Rise, Groove Quantum was praised by the EIC jury for its standout approach in a crowded quantum computing field. Germanium qubits, according to the company, are compact and high-performance, traits that make them ideal candidates for building processors with millions of qubits, an eventual milestone for fault-tolerant quantum computing. The startup’s core activities involve qubit design, chip fabrication and integration with existing hardware systems.
Founded in 2024 by Anne-Marije Zwerver and Nico Hendrickx, Groove is a spinout from QuTech, the Netherlands’ leading quantum research center. The team remains closely tied to Delft’s broader quantum ecosystem, which includes academic, public, and industrial stakeholders working to make the Netherlands a hub for quantum technologies.
Groove’s success reflects growing investor interest in semiconductor-compatible quantum platforms, which are seen as more commercially viable than lab-scale prototypes that lack clear paths to mass production, the startup media outlet reported. With this funding, Groove will attempt to bridge the gap between lab demonstrations and industrial-scale quantum hardware, targeting chip-level integration as a path toward cost-efficient and powerful processors.
The EIC Accelerator program awarded a total of €230 million in its most recent round, with 87% of selected companies receiving blended finance—meaning a mix of grant and equity backing—while the rest received one or the other. In addition to capital, selected companies gain access to mentoring, coaching, and investor matchmaking services to help them scale more effectively.
