Quantinuum’s British Founder Becomes Billionaire After $15 Billion IPO

InnovationQuantinuum’s British Founder Becomes Billionaire After $15 Billion IPOThe U.S.-U.K-based startup raised $1.68 billion in its Nasdaq debut, valuing cofounder Illyas Khan’s stake at $2.2 billion.ByIain Martin, Forbes Staff. I'm a senior editor at Forbes and cover tech and venture capital.Follow AuthorJun 09, 2026, 01:26pm EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Quantinuum Ilyas Khan became a billionaire after the quantum startup he founded listed on the Nasdaq last week.© 2023 Bloomberg Finance LPHoneywell-backed quantum computing company Quantinuum raised $1.68 billion in an initial public offering last week, making its British founder Illyas Khan a billionaire. The listing, which is the largest to date for a quantum startup, valued Quantinuum at over $15.6 billion after it sold 28 million shares at $60 each on June 3. Its shares opened at $58 per share on June 9. Khan, who owns around 15% of the company, is now worth $2.2 billion. Quantinuum was formed in 2021 when Honeywell’s quantum unit based out of Broomfield, Colorado, merged withKhan’s startup Cambridge Quantum Computing, which wrote software for quantum computers. Honeywell’s team had built a new type of quantum computer; rather than running on silicon chips, it instead used ions trapped in place with lasers to execute computations. Honeywell had previously backed Khan's business and invested $300 million as part of the merger, when Khan became the joint company’s chief product officer and vice chairman. In May, Quantinuum was named as one of nine quantum-related startups that the Trump administration plans to award $2 billion in grants and take equity stakes in. IBM and chip maker GlobalFoundries received the bulk of the grants, meant to spur research into new supercomputers that could drive scientific breakthroughs or overpower existing encryption standards. Google issued a warning in March that such computers would be capable of breaking into the encrypted systems used by banks and governments as early as 2029. A wave of quantum startups have gone public over the last year: France’s Pasqal and American and Canadian quantum labs Infleqtion and Xanadu each listed via mergers with blank-check companies. That’s after rival quantum startups Rigetti Computing and D-Wave saw massive runups in their share prices driven by excitement about artificial intelligence, and the prospect that quantum computing could spark a new wave of scientific discoveries. Quantinuum declined to comment. Khan did not respond to a request for comment. Like its rivals. Quantinuum has tiny revenues and steep losses that its new investors will need to bear. The company posted a $192 million loss last year on revenues of just $30.9 million. Japan’s Riken research institute and the U.S. government accounted for the bulk of those earnings. Despite Quantinuum being staffed with a battery of PhDs and research scientists, Khan doesn’t have the typical background of a deeptech founder. British-born Khan worked at investment banks Schroders and Nomura in Hong Kong in the 1990s before founding early startup accelerator Tech Pacific. It went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2000. Khan wrote that he was inspired to start a quantum startup after meeting with Stephen Hawkings in 2013. He would later become the chairman of the British physicist’s foundation. More from ForbesForbesInvesting Superstar Yasmin Razavi Turned A $75 Million Check Into A $3 Billion AI WindfallBy Iain MartinForbesCursor Hits $4 Billion Annualized Revenue Ahead Of SpaceX IPOBy Richard NievaForbesWhy Pfizer And Eli Lilly Are Betting On This $1.3 Billion AI Drug Discovery StartupBy Amy Feldman Got a tip? Share confidential information with Forbes.Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions