Insider Brief
- Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG has begun trading on the Düsseldorf Stock Exchange following its SPAC merger with Fonterelli SPAC 4 AG, becoming what it says is Germany’s first publicly listed pure-play quantum computing company.
- Founded in 2021 as an LMU Munich spin-off, the company develops the hardware-agnostic Luna software platform for quantum optimization applications across industries including manufacturing, energy, logistics and finance.
- Aqarios said the public listing will support continued investment in its technology, workforce and commercial expansion while building on partnerships with organizations including BASF, E.ON, MTU Aero Engines and the QuCUN research consortium.
PRESS RELEASE — Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG has begun trading on the Düsseldorf Stock Exchange following the completion of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) transaction, a move the company says makes it Germany’s first publicly listed pure-play quantum computing company.
The Munich-based quantum software developer announced in a company blog post that it completed its merger with Fonterelli SPAC 4 AG and is now publicly listed as Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG. The company said the listing is intended to provide additional capital and visibility as it expands its quantum software platform and pursues broader commercial adoption across industrial sectors.
The company, founded in 2021 as a spin-off from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU Munich), focuses on quantum optimization software designed to help businesses solve computationally intensive problems in areas such as supply chain management, energy systems, manufacturing and financial portfolio optimization.
Chief Executive Officer Michael Lachner said the public listing comes as quantum computing increasingly becomes an industrial technology rather than solely a research effort.
“Quantum computing will help determine industrial competitiveness in the years ahead — and we want that value creation to happen in Germany and Europe,” Michael Lachner, CEO of Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG, said in the post. “As, to our knowledge, the first publicly listed quantum software company in Germany, we’re making this future technology as accessible to investors as it already is to our industrial customers. With Luna, we’ve shown that quantum computing is relevant for businesses today — hardware-agnostic, application-driven, and scalable.”
Aqarios‘ primary product is Luna, a software platform that allows businesses to develop and run quantum-enabled optimization applications without requiring expertise in quantum computing. Rather than tying customers to a specific quantum computer, Luna is designed to work across multiple hardware providers, automatically selecting the most appropriate classical and quantum resources for a given problem.
The hardware-agnostic approach reflects a growing trend within the quantum software industry. Because quantum hardware remains fragmented across multiple architectures — including superconducting, trapped-ion, neutral-atom and photonic systems — many enterprise software companies have focused on providing platforms that can operate independently of any single quantum processor.
According to Aqarios, Luna combines classical and quantum computing resources to determine which portions of a problem are best suited for each type of computation. The company said the platform has already been deployed in commercial settings and received the Quantum Effects Award 2025 in the category of Quantum Computing Software and Algorithms.
Since its founding, Aqarios has built partnerships with several large German industrial companies, including BASF, E.ON and MTU Aero Engines. Those collaborations have centered on applying quantum optimization techniques to business problems where conventional computing approaches may become computationally expensive.
The company also participates in QuCUN, the Quantum Computing User Network, a German research consortium that includes SAP, BASF and LMU Munich. The initiative is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space and is intended to develop an open quantum computing ecosystem for industrial users.
Beyond research collaborations, Aqarios said it is expanding commercial applications through partnerships such as its work with fintech company Divizend on quantum-assisted portfolio optimization.
The public listing comes amid growing activity in Europe’s quantum technology sector, where governments and private investors have increased funding for quantum computing research, software and hardware development. While several publicly traded companies worldwide develop quantum technologies, relatively few are listed on European exchanges, and most combine quantum activities with broader technology businesses.
The company’s leadership team will continue to be led by Lachner. The supervisory board is chaired by Dr. Sebastian Kern, with Dr. Sebastian Feld, a professor at TU Delft, serving as vice chairman, and Dr. Thomas Gabor, a research fellow at the University of Exeter, completing the board.
Aqarios said proceeds and access to public capital markets will support continued investment in its software platform, hiring and customer expansion as it seeks to increase adoption of quantum computing across industrial markets.
