“EPFL is a fantastic place to set up a company”

Simone Frasca was awarded an EPFL Quantum Innogrant of 100k CHF to support his new startup, QanovaTech, a collaboration between laboratories at EPFL and ETH Zurich. He is one of the first people at EPFL to be given the new status of Sciencepreneur, allowing him to continue working at the lab while developing his company, and to secure additional Innosuisse and NCCR SPINnovate grants.

What does it mean to be a Sciencepreneur?

This is a new program at EPFL that enables scientists to stay in the lab after their postdoc to incubate startup projects. This also allowed me to receive three grants: the first one was the EPFL Quantum Innogrant, which is a fantastic opportunity supported by the Vice Presidency for Innovation and Impact and the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (QSE Center). It provides me with funds to support my living costs while dedicating my energy to building Qanova Tech and to transfer the technology from the university to a startup. The grant is specifically directed towards making a startup.

The second grant was an Innosuisse Grant, which complements perfectly the Innogrant from EPFL,as it has allowed us to expand our team by hiring three more people, and cover cleanroom expenses. While the Innosuisse is a great format and really meant to build a startup, it leaves us little flexibility for small-sum expenses, while the Quantum Innogrant turned out to be a great, flexible tool to start this journey. Then I also received a SPINnovate grant from NCCR Spin.

Why did you choose the startup path?

I did my PhD at EPFL in Edoardo Charbon’s Advanced Quantum Architectures (AQUA) lab and then came to work with Pasquale Scarlino at the Hybrid Quantum Circuits (HQC) lab for my postdoc. HQC was a new lab when I started – as was AQUA at the time – so Pasquale was setting everything up. Building a cryogenic setup takes time, and sometimes the know-how needs to be built from scratch, unless you can pay a premium for it. However, sometimes even the premium is not enough, and one thing that we couldn't buy easily were good parametric amplifiers.

Parametric amplifiers are used to read the very small signals that come from quantum computing operations. Amplifiers produce an amount of noise which is non-negligible, meaning they can reduce the accuracy of measurements. So, we needed amplifiers that produce the least amount of noise possible, and that are also more versatile, functioning across a range of frequencies, making them suitable for many different experiments and setups. There was not any amplifier on the market that could check all these boxes.

That’s why a couple of years ago we started collaborating with the lab of Andreas Wallraff at ETH Zurich on traveling wave parametric amplifiers (TWPA). A TWPA is the closest device of what you want from a quantum experiment readout line: low-noise, large bandwidth, and good saturation power. And this is why we're very excited to be working on this technology. We saw a gap in the market, and we thought that it would be great to bring a new solution to this technological need.

Do you have a timeline for when Qanova Tech will be launched?

I think we will be able to incorporate by mid‑2026, driven largely by the growing demand for high‑performance TWPAs. At the moment, we are completing several pilot programs, testing our prototypes in different laboratories. These collaborations are extremely valuable, as they allow us to gather detailed feedback from real experimental environments and refine the devices before bringing them to market.

On the scientific and technological side, the roadmap is very clear: we know exactly what needs to be done to reach the performance targets we envision. What we are still shaping are the other key components of the business, such as distribution strategy, pricing models, and identifying the most efficient path to scale production. This part of the journey requires a different mindset and new expertise, and we are taking the time to build it properly.

Along with the grants, what have been some of the most important factors that have enabled you to take the entrepreneurship path?

EPFL is a fantastic place to set up a company, because there is a lot of support from different areas. I worked with Isabel Casado and André Catana at the Startup Launchpad and they've been extremely supportive and helpful on many levels. This is the same for the QSE Center, where I worked with Philippe Caroff and Charlotte Vandenberghe, who have helped put me in contact with the right people at the right time, increase my network, and are always there for discussion. And then, of course, Pasquale Scarlino and Andreas Wallraff have been incredibly helpful on the scientific side, which is why they will serve as co-founders and scientific advisors for the company.

This supportive environment at EPFL has helped me feel more comfortable. Because of course, it’s a bit of a jump in the dark, right? You go and work hard and hope that everything goes the right way, but you also need support.