QuantumDiamonds Raises $104 Million to Scale Quantum Chip Inspection

QuantumDiamonds has raised €91 million ($104 million) to expand production of its diamond-based chip inspection systems. The round pairs a €15 million ($17.14 million) equity investment led by World Fund with €76 million ($86.83 million) in non-dilutive money from the European Chips Act, funded by the German federal government and the Free State of Bavaria. The company says it’s the only startup to receive manufacturing funding under the Chips Act, sitting alongside established names like GlobalFoundries and Carl Zeiss.

What the technology does

Specifically, QuantumDiamonds, a 2022 spin-out of the Technical University of Munich, uses quantum sensors built from synthetic diamonds to find defects buried inside advanced chips. According to the July 9 press release, atomic-scale flaws in the diamond can detect tiny magnetic fields, which lets the system image current flowing through a chip and pinpoint the location and depth of a defect without destroying the part. Its first commercial product, the QDm.1, does this at the nanoscale.

The problem it targets is real money. Conventional inspection tools struggle to see defects hidden inside modern 3D chip architectures, and lower yields raise costs. The company cites industry analysis showing that a single percentage point of yield improvement can be worth millions of dollars a week on a high-volume device.

Where the money goes

QuantumDiamonds employs 70 people and plans to more than double its engineering team over the next year. It will use the funding to deliver lab systems to chipmakers and develop faster wafer-level inspection for use inside fabs. Indeed, the company reports it’s already working with nine of the world’s ten largest semiconductor manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the raise follows a fast expansion. QuantumDiamonds set up a Taiwan hub in March 2026 and installed its first U.S. and Asia systems in the following weeks, in California and in Hsinchu. Later this year it expects to open the first section of a €152 million ($173.67 million) production plant in Munich to build its current and future machines.