Honeywell is reportedly considering an IPO for its quantum computing subsidiary Quantinuum, potentially as early as next year.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the company has been in discussions with a number of investment banks ahead of a potential float on the US stock exchange.
Citing people with knowledge of the situation, the news outlet said Honeywell was seeking a valuation for Quantinuum of around $10 billion.
Quantinuum was founded in 2021 when Honeywell spun out its Quantum Solutions division and merged it with UK quantum computing startup Cambridge Quantum Computing. Honeywell owns a 54 percent stake in the company and IBM is also an investor.
In January, Honeywell announced it had closed a $300 million equity fundraise for Quantinuum, giving the quantum computing company a pre-money value of $5 billion. It was the first funding round undertaken by Quantinuum since the merger and brought the total raised by the company to $625m.
Earlier this month, Quantinuum signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a number of Singaporean institutions to provide the city-state with access to Quantinuum’s H-Series and Helios quantum computers and collaborate on quantum computing use cases.
A number of quantum computing firms have gone public in recent years. Quantum startups IonQ and Rigetti Computing both went public via Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) mergers in 2021, with IonQ’s $2bn merger with dMY Technology Group, Inc. III making it the first publicly traded quantum computing company.
D-Wave then became a public company in 2022 via a SPAC merger, entering into a definitive transaction agreement with DPCM Capital that saw the combined company valued at $1.6 billion. However, the company’s low stock price led to it twice facing a delisting from the New York Stock Exchange.
Although the company regained compliance in March after raising its share price back above a $1 average closing share price over a 30-day period, at time of writing, D-Wave’s share price is currently sitting at $0.99.
