French quantum firm Pasqal surges 73% in Nasdaq debut, bags $360M in SPAC merger cash

Pasqal, one of Europe's most prominent contenders in the race to build commercially useful quantum computers, began trading on Friday under the ticker PSQL, shares and warrants also trading under PSQLW. The stock surged up to 73% in early trading before settling to trade 40% higher.

The company went public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp II, which closed on 27 August, a day after shareholders approved it. The transaction valued Pasqal at about $2 billion. The deal left the loss-making company with approximately $360 million in cash to expand production.

That $360 million figure fell short of the roughly $500 million in gross proceeds anticipated in earlier filings, due to SPAC redemptions — the mechanism by which shareholders decline to participate and take their money back. Even so, the cash pile is one of the largest ever at the disposal of a European quantum company. Europe’s quantum sector raised around €1.05 billion during 2026, meaning Pasqal’s single balance sheet accounts for close to a third of the continent’s annual funding, according to The Next Web.

Pasqal's Nasdaq debut coincides with a broad tech boom linked to the take-up of artificial intelligence. It also follows U.S. President Donald Trump's order on accelerating quantum technology development. The Commerce Department signed preliminary agreements for about $2 billion in incentives to nine quantum companies. Pasqal is not among them, but has French government backing through state investment bank Bpifrance, which participated in financing linked to the merger.

The valuation will draw scrutiny. The deal was struck in March at $2 billion pre-money against 2025 revenue of €16.5 million ($19.15 million at current exchange rates), a multiple of roughly 100 times. The filings conceded that commercial traction for quantum computing may never occur.

Pasqal generated revenue of €16.5 million in 2025 and is one of the few quantum firms that already have commercial contracts. Its customers include the world's biggest oil company Saudi Aramco, which is exploring using its machine for modelling underground reserves. The Next Web reported that Pasqal also counts Crédit Agricole CIB and LG Electronics as customers, and that the Aramco machine is Saudi Arabia’s first quantum computer.

Pasqal has deployed seven neutral-atom quantum processing units, including four at national supercomputing centres in France, Germany, Italy and Canada, with three more in production. Its plants in France and Canada can produce up to 13 machines a year, the company told Reuters. The machines support over 25 commercial and research applications across energy, financial services and materials science.

The neutral-atom approach traps individual atoms in arrays of laser light and manipulates them with further lasers, avoiding the extreme cryogenics required by superconducting qubits. Pasqal passed 1,000 atoms in a processor in 2024.

“Today is not a finish line; it is an acceleration point,” said chief executive Wasiq Bokhari, framing the listing as a move from foundational science to industrial-scale deployment. The proceeds go towards manufacturing capacity at Pasqal’s Palaiseau headquarters, work on fault tolerance, the cloud and software platform, integration with classical high-performance computing, and international expansion. A dual listing on Euronext Paris is also planned.

Pasqal co-founder Alain Aspect shared the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for proving quantum entanglement, the phenomenon behind quantum computers. His later work controlling atoms with lasers contributed more directly to Pasqal’s processors. Aspect chairs the board in a non-executive capacity, and Bpifrance has a seat through Nicolas Berdou. The Next Web reported that France retains a veto over significant non-French and non-EU stakes, requiring approval from the Ministry of the Economy — an unusual condition for a company listed on an American exchange.

Quantum processors are being developed to tackle specialised problems in fields such as drug discovery, materials science and financial modelling, but persistent errors have limited their reliability at scale. Google expects uniquely quantum applications within five years, while IBM targets a large-scale, fault-tolerant machine by 2029. Timelines vary widely and the industry has yet to find the breakthrough application that propelled artificial intelligence into widespread use.

Quantum companies that reached public markets before Pasqal have traded on narrative more than numbers, with considerable volatility. Pasqal now joins that group with a revenue line most investors treat as a rounding error and a technology story they treat as the asset, per The Next Web. Choosing Nasdaq over Paris was a decision about capital depth, and Bokhari has stated as much. France has spent heavily to reach this point, including a €500 million programme backing domestic quantum champions. Pasqal is the first of them to face a daily share price.