Bifrost Electronics appoints Doug Campbell as CEO

ARVADA — Bifrost Electronics Inc. has named veteran Colorado technology entrepreneur as its new CEO as the quantum-hardware company prepares to take its first product to market.

Campbell brings more than two decades of experience with technology startups in  leadership in commercial electronics, aerospace systems and hardware manufacturing. He is best-known as co-founder and former CEO of Louisville-based Solid Power Inc., a solid-state battery developer that went public in 2021. 

He also co-founded Roccor LLC, a supplier of deployable structures for small satellites. The company was acquired by Redwire Space Solutions LLC in 2020. 

Campbell’s appointment came six months after the departure of founding CEO Zenith Tillemann-Dick.

Bifrost, a spinoff of the Colorado School of Mines located on the Elevate Quantum campus in Arvada, develops electronic hardware used in quantum computers. The company has raised $5.5 million, led by Caruso Ventures, with participation from Range Ventures and other investors.

Its first product, the Heimdall Amplifier, is designed to amplify signals used to read qubits in superconducting and spin-based quantum computers.

Existing quantum amplifiers rely on Josephson junctions, which can require magnetic shielding, additional cryogenic lines and control electronics and are manufactured with specialized processes with nanometer tolerances. The Heimdall Amplifier is more robust, easier to scale, and requires less control hardware, the company says.

“The Bifrost team has built something the quantum industry genuinely needs, and I’m glad to be joining at this inflection point,” Campbell said in a written statement. “I’ve spent my career taking deep-tech start-ups out of university labs and into production at scale.”

Campbell said his focus will be building “operational and commercial discipline to get the Heimdall Amplifier into customers’ hands.”

Bifrost co-founder and head of research and development Connor Denney said the company expects to conduct additional testing of the amplifier over the next several months.

“Doug gives us the executive bandwidth leadership to allow us to focus on what we do best — pushing the technology forward — while he builds the commercial engine around it,” Denney said in a written statement.

Bifrost said existing quantum-limited cryogenic amplifiers range from $25,000 to $45,000 each at research-grade volumes. The company expects its manufacturing approach to significantly reduce the cost of the Heimdall Amplifier and allow for manufacturing at higher volumes.

The company plans to roll out the amplifier later this year.

Campbell co-founded Solid Power in 2011 spinoff of the University of Colorado Boulder to commercialize all-solid-state battery technology. He formed development partnerships with BMW, Ford and SK On before going public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company in 2021. 

Dan Caruso, managing director of Caruso Ventures and a Bifrost board member, said Campbell’s appointment reflects the quantum industry’s shift toward commercialization.

“Doug’s leadership role at Bifrost is another signal that quantum tech is moving into large-scale production,” Caruso said in a written statement. “Doug is the right person to guide the company and map a successful path to commercialization with customers in the quantum sector as well as national labs and defense in the long term.”

Share on Facebook on LinkedIn