When ex-Zayo Group Holdings CEO Dan Caruso joined Boulder’s ColdQuanta as executive chairman and interim CEO in March, he did so with the intention of finding a permanent leader to bring the quantum computing startup through its next stages of growth.
Now, nearly six months later, the company has found that person in the form of newly appointed CEO Scott Faris.
Faris joins ColdQuanta after serving as chief business officer at Luminar Technologies, a publicly traded autonomous vehicle sensor company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. Faris served in the role for nearly five years, helping guide the company through its initial public offering in 2020.
ColdQuanta is developing quantum solutions to be used across computing, sensing and communications. The company’s Cold Atom Quantum Technology, which cools atoms to a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, will serve as the foundation for these applications.
Faris has spent his entire career working around technology, with a specific focus on optics and photonics. That familiarity sparked his interest in helping build ColdQuanta.
“I’m not an engineer, but I engineer companies,” he said.
Coming off his experience at another high-tech company, Luminar, Faris sees similarities in ColdQuanta’s journey, albeit a little earlier in its lifecycle.
“ColdQuanta is kind of where Luminar was about three or four years ago, so it’s not stepping back that far,” he said. “All the pieces are there, now it’s about building out the product organization and positioning it to be attractive to the customer base.”
In addition to Faris’ hire, ColdQuanta has reorganized its business into three divisions that each have a specific focus: quantum computing, quantum research as a service and cold atom technologies.
The company expects to launch Hilbert 1.0, a cloud-based 100 qubit quantum computer, in late 2021. In tandem, the company anticipates a commercial launch to customers across its three areas of focus later this year.
That diversification of business opportunities is something Faris said differentiates the local startup.
“Simply building computers is one piece of the entire quantum opportunity, and a lot of our competitors really are only positioned to play in a really small piece of it,” he said. “Because of our technology and the way we’re approaching quantum, we have the luxury of being able to pick and choose what we want to play in and we think the ones that will create substantial shareholder return are in our grasp.”
With Faris at the helm, Caruso will now transition into a permanent role as executive chairman.
“Quantum will affect nearly every industry over the next decade, providing widespread economic and technological impact. With its relentless focus on innovation, ColdQuanta is poised to lead this transformation and usher in the era of quantum,” Dana Anderson, ColdQuanta’s co-founder and chief technology officer said in a statement.
Earlier this year, ColdQuanta raised a $20 million round that brought its total outside funding to $74 million. The capital came from existing investors including Foundry Group, Global Frontier Quantum Opportunity Fund, LCP Quantum Partners and Maverick Ventures.
The company’s most recent raise prior to that came in November, as ColdQuanta raised a $32 million Series A funding round with a similar roster of investors. The company has, in the past, mentioned an impending Series B round and Faris said ColdQuanta would need to bring on additional outside capital to fulfill its goals in going to market.
“This is a race that takes capital and tech companies like this are always raising capital,” he said.
ColdQuanta now has about 100 employees and is looking to grow that number, particularly on the product side.
“We expect to continue to grow our employment base in the Denver-Boulder area in the next year and a half,” Faris said. He will also be relocating to Colorado in the coming months.
After leaving the autonomous field for a new role in quantum, Faris said he’s looking to replicate the success Luminar had at ColdQuanta.
“I took this role with one mission, to build a dominant quantum company on a global basis.”
