Fresh Off Its Helsinki Listing, IQM Shows Investors a €102 Million Backlog — and a €60 Million Loss
IQM Quantum Computers, the Finnish superconducting-qubit maker that became Europe's highest-profile public quantum listing this summer, used its first results since the IPO to make a simple argument: it sells real machines to real customers. The company reported an order backlog of €102.1 million as of August 3 and confirmed its full-year 2026 outlook, according to The Quantum Insider.
The headline financials show a company still early in its commercial ramp. First-half 2026 revenue came in at €8.9 million against an operating loss of €60.5 million, per The Quantum Insider's account of the report. For the full year, IQM is guiding to €42 million to €47 million in revenue and €65 million to €75 million in new order intake — implying a sharply back-loaded year that depends on system deliveries landing on schedule.
What separates IQM from many quantum peers is its unit economics narrative. The company says it has sold 26 full-stack quantum systems since 2018 and delivered 17 of them globally — including its first U.S. installation, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in June. It has also invested more than €40 million to expand its proprietary semiconductor fabrication and says manufacturing capacity now supports production of up to 30 systems annually.
The balance sheet is the IPO's clearest dividend. IQM emerged from its July 3 listing on Nasdaq Helsinki with €309.4 million in cash, and CFO Jan Kuerschner told investors the dual listing 'fundamentally transformed our balance sheet,' providing what he called a runway 'well into Q2 2028,' per The Quantum Insider. Nasdaq Helsinki approved the listing application on July 2, with trading commencing the following day, according to the company's GlobeNewswire announcement.
Chief executive Jan Goetz framed the debut in grander terms, calling it a milestone in moving quantum computing 'from research excellence into customer-ready infrastructure.' The strategy is distinct from U.S. rivals that emphasize cloud access to a small number of flagship machines: IQM sells on-premises systems to governments, supercomputing centers and universities, a model that generates lumpy but tangible revenue and builds an installed base it can upgrade over time.
The comparison with the American pure plays is instructive. IQM's first-half revenue of €8.9 million exceeds what Rigetti or D-Wave produced in their most recent quarters, but trails far behind IonQ's $80.1 million second quarter. Its €102.1 million backlog, however, is the kind of forward-looking metric public quantum investors have learned to prize after a summer in which bookings, not roadmaps, moved stocks.
IQM's first print as a public company will not settle the debate over whether hardware sales or cloud services is the better quantum business model. But by confirming guidance in its debut report — rather than resetting expectations, as newly listed companies often do — the company bought itself something scarce in this sector: credibility with a shareholder base that has been burned before.
