ColdQuanta appoints Scott Faris as CEO
BOULDER — ColdQuanta hired Scott Faris as CEO and formed the company into three divisions for quantum computing, quantum research for clients and its cold-atom technology.
Faris has been chief business officer at Orlando-based Luminar Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: LAZR) since 2016; the sensor and software maker for autonomous vehicles went public in December and has a market cap of about $6.3 billion. He was chief executive or chief operating officer with companies involved with electric vehicles, chipmaking, and precision optical instruments.
Execs
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ColdQuanta has been prepping products and services for clients, hiring senior executives and readying a funding round.
Dan Caruso, a co-founder and former executive of Level 3 Communications and Zayo Group Holdings Inc., has been board chair and interim chief executive since March.
The company in early Spring named C-Suite execs over commercialization and finance. In May, it hired Sarah Schupp, former vice president of business banking at Boulder-based Elevations Credit Union, to oversee the company’s branding and human resources.
Schupp tweeted last week about company hiring. Roughly three-dozen job openings include positions in Boulder and in Madison, Wisconsin, for software engineers, physicists and an IT director.
Units
Caruso in May told a London-based telecom industry journal that ColdQuanta would deliver a quantum computer this year. Some of ColdQuanta’s computing work will include “quantum research as a service” for clients.
Its third unit has been developing technology to freeze atoms to near-absolute zero, at which point they can be used to create highly accurate sensors for various applications.
Quantum computing has been a largely theoretical area of research but is said to herald advances in data storage and computing.
Money
CQ in May raised $20 million in bridge funding from investors including Boulder-based Foundry Group after a $32 million Series A in November and $30 million in seed investments and government R&D grants and contracts through 2019. More recently, it won $2.5 million in federal money this past April.
New York-based investment bank PJ Solomon has been working on a $100 million Series B round.
