By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Anne Kauranen
BRUSSELS, HELSINKI, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Finnish-headquartered IQM Quantum Computers is aiming to list its shares on the U.S. stock market via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company Real Asset Acquisition Corp, the companies said on Monday.
The transaction will give the European company an initial equity valuation of around $1.8 billion, IQM said.
Quantum computers, which are much faster than conventional computers, are seen as crucial for cybersecurity, attracting funding from such tech giants as Microsoft, Alphabet, IBM and Cisco as well as interest from several governments.
In October, quantum computing stocks on Wall Street jumped following a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. administration was considering taking stakes in such companies in exchange for federal funding.
IQM CEO Jan Goetz said the company, whose investors include Finnish and German governments’ investment funds as well as the European Commission’s European Innovation Council, was not involved in any projects aiming at U.S. federal funding.
Instead, the deal, which he expects to close around June, would attract additional capital, greater visibility, and potentially help generate more business, he told Reuters.
Dual use in security and defence, including code breaking, is what drives governments’ high interest in quantum computing, Goetz said.
“If you have a large enough quantum computer, you can break current encryption in some years,” he said.
Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) – which made a comeback last year after a prolonged lull – operate as shell companies that raise money in an initial public offering, to later merge with privately held firms and take them public.
Real Asset Acquisition will control roughly 10% of the company, which intends to keep its headquarters in Finland, Goetz said.
The company, which describes itself as a “global commercial leader”, also plans to list in Helsinki to become the first listed European quantum computing company.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in Brussels and Anne Kauranen in Helsinki; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Tomasz Janowski)
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