Exeter alumnus’s company raises £2 million in funding

The quantum number generator spin-out company, Quantum Dice, co-founded by Exeter College alumnus George Dunlop (2015, Mathematics and Statistics), recently completed its pre-seed fundraising round, raising £2 million.

Quantum Dice secured £1 million from a venture capital consortium led by the notable venture capital fund, Elaia Partner. The consortium also included IP Group plc, the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund managed by Midven, part of the Future Planet Capital group.

A further £1 million of non-dilutive grant funding was supported from the Quantum Investment Accelerator run by IP Group plc in partnership with Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s innovation agency.

Quantum Dice aims to secure a connected future by leveraging integrated photonics technology to develop the world’s first compact source-device independent quantum random number generator for encryption and cybersecurity. It seeks to address flaws within current encryption technology to stop systems from being breached.

Founded in April 2020, the company is a spin-out from the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics, where the DISC™ protocol was originally developed, in Oxford’s world-leading Quantum Optics research group headed by Professor Ian Walmsley.

Alumnus George Dunlop co-founded the company, along with Oxford graduates Marko Mayr, Ramy Shelbaya, Zhanet Zaharieva and Wenmiao Yu, all from the winning team of the inaugural Student Entrepreneurs’ Programme organised by Oxford Science Enterprises, the Oxford Foundry and Oxford University Innovation.

Recognising the potential value to cybersecurity that existed in the research done by the quantum optics group, the five co-founders set out development and go-to-market plan, which won them the competition leading to the birth of Quantum Dice.

Visit the Quantum Dice website.

Quantum Dice Team (Exeter Alumnus George Dunlop front left)