Rigetti Computing

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Description

Rigetti Computing is a Berkeley, California-based developer of quantum integrated circuits used for quantum computers. The company also develops a cloud platform called Forest that enables programmers to write quantum algorithms.

History

Rigetti Computing was founded in 2013 by Chad Rigetti, a physicist who previously worked on quantum computers at IBM, and studied under noted Yale quantum scientist Michel Devoret. The company emerged from startup incubator Y Combinator in 2014 as a so-called "spaceshot" company. The company also went through enterprise revenue-focused The Alchemist Accelerator in 2014.

By February 2016, the company had begun testing a three-qubit (quantum bit) chip made using aluminum circuits on a silicon wafer. In March, the company raised Series A funding of US$24 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. In November, the company raised Series B funding of $40 million in a round led by investment firm Vy Capital, along with additional funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. Y Combinator was a smaller investor in both rounds.

By Spring of 2017, the company was testing eight-qubit computers, and in June, the company announced the public beta availability of a quantum cloud computing platform called Forest 1.0, which allows developers to write quantum algorithms.

In October of 2021, it was announced that the company plans to go public via a SPAC merger, with estimated valuation around $1.5 billion. This process will allow the company to raise an addition $458 million in funding, in addition to the $200 million raised previously. With this funding, Rigetti plans to scale its systems from 80 qubits to 1,000 qubits by 2024, and to 4,000 by 2026. The SPAC deal closed on 2 March, 2022, and the company began trading on the NASDAQ.