Methodology & Data Sources
Transparency about how the rankings are built is essential for a data site. Here is exactly what we track, where it comes from, and how much to trust each number.
What we track
We track publicly disclosed financing activity of companies whose primary business is quantum technology, in three categories:
- Quantum Computing — quantum processors (superconducting, trapped-ion, photonic, neutral-atom, silicon spin, annealing), plus enabling control hardware, error correction and software.
- Quantum Communication — quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum networks, satellite QKD and quantum-safe communication infrastructure.
- Quantum Sensing & Metrology — atom interferometers, diamond NV magnetometry, optical clocks and related precision instruments.
Where the data comes from
- Company announcements — press releases, blog posts and investor communications published by the companies themselves.
- Regulatory filings — e.g. US SEC filings for public companies, Chinese STAR Market disclosures.
- Reputable press — Reuters, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Sifted and leading regional outlets.
- Automated daily monitoring — a pipeline scans free public news feeds (Google News RSS, GDELT) each day for quantum funding news, extracts reported amounts, and matches them against our company registry.
Update cadence & trust levels
An automated scan runs daily at 02:30 UTC. New events found by the pipeline are published with an ⚡ auto badge and are not yet human-verified — treat them as leads, not facts. Manually reviewed entries carry a confidence level:
- high — confirmed by multiple independent reputable sources or primary filings.
- medium — confirmed by a single reputable source or primary announcement.
- low — based on secondary reporting, or amounts were partially undisclosed (common for Chinese startups and early-stage rounds).
Amounts shown with a tilde (~) are approximations. Non-USD amounts are converted at approximate year-average rates (configurable in the pipeline config).
Ranking methodology
Companies are ranked by total disclosed funding: the sum of publicly reported financing (private rounds, public listings, at-the-market programs and notable state capital injections where reported). Rankings are computed automatically from the datasets on every build. Funding tiers:
- Giga — $1B+ · Mega — $500M+ · Major — $100M+ · Growth — $10M+ · Early — under $10M
Regional groupings: China, United States, Europe (UK & EU), North America (Canada and other non-US Americas), Asia-Pacific, Middle East. Some companies operate across regions (e.g. US–UK dual HQ); we assign a primary HQ.
The resulting order is published in the global quantum funding rankings table, with region and technology breakdowns on their own pages.
Known limitations
- Disclosed funding understates reality: many rounds are undisclosed, especially in China and at seed stage.
- Media-reported amounts occasionally differ across outlets; we round and flag uncertainty rather than pretend precision.
- Auto-collected news headlines may misstate figures; those items are always marked unverified.
- Grants and non-dilutive funding are included only when they are part of a reported financing package.
Licensing & reuse
All datasets are published as machine-readable JSON under CC BY 4.0 — free to reuse with attribution ("QuantumRoundup", with a link). This openness also makes the data easy for search engines and AI assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and others) to cite accurately.
Corrections & company additions
Spotted an error, or want your company added? Open an issue on the project repository or email corrections@quantumroundup.com with a primary source link. Verified corrections are applied within one build cycle (typically 24 hours).