Pasqal Plots Nasdaq Listing After $500M Raise, 100x Jump

Pasqal, a Paris-based startup building quantum computers, is preparing to list on Nasdaq — a move that comes on the back of more than $500 million in fresh funding and a valuation increase of roughly 100x.

The deal so far

According to SEC/SPAC filings, Pasqal is moving toward a US public listing. Sources differ on timing: one report describes the float as happening "later this year," while another specifies the listing is planned for the second half of 2026. No details have emerged on the structure of the SPAC deal itself or the identity of the SPAC partner, and no baseline valuation was disclosed — making the scale of the reported 100x increase difficult to independently verify.

Why Nasdaq, why now

Pasqal CEO Wasiq Bokhari has been direct about the rationale: the move to Nasdaq, he says, is necessary to access funding that "does not exist in Europe." He has also argued that Europe is at a systematic disadvantage for quantum computing funding compared to the United States — a comment that points to a broader capital gap facing deep-tech founders on the continent, not just Pasqal specifically.

The governance question

SEC/SPAC filings flag French state influence on Pasqal as a disclosed risk, though the extent and mechanism of that influence have not been specified in available materials. For a company preparing to meet US public-market disclosure and governance standards, this is a factor likely to draw continued scrutiny from investors and regulators alike.

Why founders should care

Pasqal's move suggests some European deep-tech founders increasingly view US capital markets as more accessible for financing at scale — a pattern that may become more common among capital-intensive sectors like quantum computing.
The reported ~100x valuation increase, if representative of broader investor sentiment, could indicate strong appetite for quantum computing as a category — though the lack of a disclosed baseline makes this hard to contextualize with confidence.
Bokhari's comments on a European funding gap may be a signal worth taking seriously: founders in capital-intensive sectors could benefit from building diversified, cross-border fundraising strategies rather than relying solely on European capital pools.
The flagged risk around state influence is a reminder that founders with government backing should think early about how that relationship might be perceived — and disclosed — if a public listing is ever on the roadmap.

What's still unclear

Several gaps remain in the public record: the exact SPAC structure, the identity of the SPAC partner, the timeline over which the $500 million was raised, and a clear picture of how French state involvement functions in practice. Sources also disagree on whether the listing lands this year or in the second half of 2026 — a distinction that matters for anyone tracking the deal's momentum.

For now, Pasqal's trajectory — a nine-figure raise, a dramatic valuation jump, and a US listing push explicitly framed as a response to European funding constraints — offers an early data point for founders weighing where and how to raise in capital-intensive, deep-tech categories.