QuantaMap: EIC Accelerator Bet on Quantum Chip Defect Imaging

When a quantum chip underperforms, its makers can usually measure that it is worse than designed but not where on the chip the problem sits. QuantaMap, a 2022 spin-off of Leiden University, builds a microscope meant to answer that question: a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID, mounted at the tip of an atomic force microscope probe and scanned across a chip at the cryogenic temperatures where quantum hardware runs.

The EIC Accelerator selected the project, NAUTILUS, at its 1 October 2025 cut-off for blended finance; the Commission announced 61 selected companies, QuantaMap among them, on 17 February 2026. CORDIS records an EU contribution of €2,499,999 under a grant signed on 27 May 2026, for a project running from 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2028. Holland High Tech reported the same €2.5 million grant, supplemented by an equity investment whose amount has not been published.

A magnetometer on the tip of a probe

A SQUID is a superconducting loop that responds to tiny magnetic fields, and the field around a wire reveals the current flowing in it. Put the loop at the apex of a probe and drag it over a chip, and the result is a map of where current actually flows, where energy is lost as heat, and where stray magnetic defects sit. The NAUTILUS objective in CORDIS names defects and spurious currents as causes of decoherence, the loss of the quantum states a chip computes with, and calls current methods for diagnosing them inadequate.

The instrument began as a research tool. Leiden University says Matthijs Rog and Kaveh Lahabi started building it in 2021, and that Lahabi, who needed to measure several properties of quantum materials at once, realised the same measurements mattered for quantum chips and filed a patent that led to the company. No patent number could be found in public searches.

The technical description was published as "Tapping-mode SQUID-on-tip Microscopy with Proximity Josephson Junctions", first posted in August 2025 and later printed in Nano Letters. The authors, including QuantaMap staff and founders, report a probe that needs no lasers, images currents, magnetism, dissipation and topography at the same time, and resolves currents as small as 100 nA without cryogenic amplification. Quantum Computing Report described it as imaging four properties in a single scan. A second preprint, on supercurrent channels in a kagome superconductor, was posted in June 2026 with QuantaMap staff among the authors.

What NAUTILUS promises

The CORDIS objective sets out what the EIC is paying for. The company says its platform detects magnetic fields, currents, radio-frequency signals and dissipation invisible to other tools, images several properties three to four times faster than measuring them one after another, reaches below 10 nm resolution in AFM mode and below 100 nm with the SQUID, and works at millikelvin temperatures. It claims customers would reach market 25% faster and gain 10 percentage points of manufacturing yield.

The commercial targets are steeper: to grow "from a prototype stage to manufacturing and selling fully commercialised NAUTILUS systems", with revenue growth of 200% a year and 85 full-time employees by 2030. CORDIS gives no total project cost and, five months into the project, shows no periodic report.

Early users, and a product still to come

The company's website claims "5 happy customers" and "3 microscopes running", shows the logos of QuantWare, Rigetti Computing, TNO, LMU Munich and Stanford University under a customers heading, and quotes a Rigetti engineer saying QuantaMap's measurements can feed the company's chip simulations. None of these relationships has been announced by the other side in a source found for this article, and no contract value is public.

In an October 2026 Bits&Chips article, written in close collaboration with the company, QuantaMap said it is working with a select number of academic labs and quantum companies. Jobst was quoted: "These are minimum viable products. We're aiming to launch our real product in 12 to 18 months." Counted from the article's date, that is between October 2027 and April 2028, inside the grant period, which ends in May 2028.

1. Working multi-channel microscopePublishedSimultaneous current, magnetic, dissipation and topography imaging described in the Nano Letters paper.
2. CustomersClaimedFive customers and named logos on the company site; no customer announcement found.
3. Commercial NAUTILUS systemNot yetCurrent offerings are minimum viable products, per the CEO in October 2026.
4. 25% faster development, 10 points more yieldClaimNo customer data published.

Funding and partners

QuantaMap's first round, €1.4 million announced in December 2023, was led by QDNL Participations together with a Quantum Delta NL grant for SMEs, according to Silicon Canals and TNW; it was meant to pay for staff, a prototype and a faster commercial launch. The company's website also shows the logo of Ground State Ventures among its backers and partners, without describing the relationship.

Around that money sit regional and national projects. DeteQT, started in April 2024 with Orange Quantum Systems, worked on a shared data architecture combining the two firms' chip diagnostics and was wrapped up in March 2026. QUACIMI, with TNO from June 2025, images micromagnets on spin-qubit chips under a Holland High Tech call. Qorrelations, a consortium with OrangeQS, TNO and VSL backed by a €1 million grant from the Kansen voor West III programme, started in May 2026 according to the company.

On the equity side, the EIC's results note says investments come through the EIC Fund and are tailored to each company. QuantaMap's own announcement describes an equity component by the EIB. No amount or completed investment had been published by 4 November 2026.

Where it fits in EU policy

The Commission's Quantum Europe Strategy of 2 July 2025 plans a quantum design facility and six quantum chip pilot lines, and announced a Quantum Act proposal for 2026. The European Parliament's summary adds a quantum chips industrialisation roadmap for 2026. The Parliament's summary does not mention chip metrology or testing; the case for the link is QuantaMap's own, set out in the CORDIS objective, that inadequate defect diagnosis limits the yield and scalability of quantum chips. CORDIS tags 40% of the NAUTILUS budget to the digital agenda and 40% to artificial intelligence.

Jobst sets a limit on the market himself. He told Bits&Chips: "I don't expect we'll ever make close to as many quantum chips as we make semiconductor chips." According to the article, the company will therefore prioritise sensitivity and coverage over throughput.

The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.