Aquark Technologies: seed round success supercharges brand awareness for UK quantum startup

Given how important a seed fund can be to a company's growth trajectory, when quantum sensing startup Aquark Technologies secured a significant €5 million seed round led by the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), the company wanted to shout about it far and wide.

Adding to Aquark’s achievement was the fact that while public investment in quantum technology is up (and still rising), now is a trying time for quantum technology startups looking to engage VCs. It has been widely reported that private funding for quantum startups is down compared to 2022’s record highs - a decline largely attributed to funds being drawn away by the more mature Artificial Intelligence (AI) market.

So, whilst pulling in investment is a fantastic achievement for any startup, for Aquark Technologies it was something particularly special. The Company generated funds from both sides of the investment landscape with MBDA, a corporate alliance between aerospace and defence specialists Airbus, BAE Systems, and Leonardo, joining public investors EIFO and UKI2S, managed by Future Planet Capital.

Andrei Dragomir, Aquark Technologies

"TFD didn't just help us break into the market; they put us on the map and amplified our voice within the community, making sure our innovative ideas were heard loud and clear."

Challenges

Coverage of funding news can be instrumental in driving market awareness, spotlighting company technology and differentiators, and showcasing a startup's growth trajectory. However in an era of eye-watering funding rounds, where early-stage AI companies regularly pull in more than $100 million, securing interest in smaller round sizes can be difficult.

Cutting through the noise on this (and the continuing AI hype cycle) to bring quantum into the emerging tech conversation was going to be a core challenge, in addition to addressing misconceptions around the viability of quantum technologies. Honing the messaging around the fundraise was therefore critical.

TFD quickly identified that the news could speak to a broader, more impactful story about growing global interest in quantum sensing, and the potential of quantum to completely transform the world we live in. Not only this, but it had the power to flip the rhetoric on its head around quantum being a ‘long-term’ solution to existing world problems by demonstrating that its products are being used today to transform critical industries and infrastructure.

Our Approach

Ensuring these messages resonated was going to be crucial to communications success. Before developing our go-to-media strategy, we determined three key elements that would make this announcement stand out:

World firsts: Aquark is the first DIANA (Defence Accelerator for the North Atlantic) cohort company to receive direct investment from the NIF and the first quantum company to receive investment from NATO. The NIF's involvement formally recognises Aquark Technologies solutions as a key facilitator in the Alliance’s goal to prioritise "quantum-readiness" under its first-ever quantum strategy.
Industry landscape: GPS vulnerability could cause up to £1bn in daily losses, with GPS interference incidents increasing by 2,000 per cent between 2018 and 2021. Aquark Technologies’ quantum sensing technology has the potential to dramatically reduce this figure in the future, which could have a significant positive impact on various mission-critical industries.
Making quantum a reality: This funding brings Aquark Technologies’ products closer to broader use, enabling accelerated global deployment, increasing collaboration, and capability development for production at scale. This is a key area of concern, as commentators have suggested VCs may be mistakenly viewing quantum as a technology with longer-term rather than immediate potential.

When drafting the news release, we made sure to elevate these messages, and leveraged Aquark Technologies’ investors to provide proof points as to why the technology is going to be transformative. We worked closely with the NIF to ensure consistent messaging and maximise impact on launch day.

We identified key commentators on quantum, offering them a chance to view the news ahead of our go-live day and clarify any questions they might have, adapting the story angle according to their specific interests: whether that be UK innovation, startups and funding, or the technology itself. On launch day, we facilitated interviews to provide journalists with additional context.

To amplify our results, we created a social media strategy that would push the news out to Aquark Technologies’ network, highlighting the company’s success to key stakeholders. Not only this, but by sharing coverage of the announcement and interacting with engaged community members, we grew the Aquark Technologies LinkedIn channel by 30%, bringing many potential new investors, partners, talent, and more to their network.

Jonathan Emery, Head of Commercial Operations at Aquark Technologies

“The coverage generated by TFD has been great. Throughout, we’ve been well supported by the team who’ve focused on getting the good news out to make an impact through the noise. We see explaining where Aquark is going as a critical function of growth. A huge amount of our potential markets don’t realise that miniaturised quantum sensors are ready for use outside the lab now. TFD’s support has seen us tell our story to our most crucial audiences.”

Key Results:

8 pieces of tier 1 coverage (incl. The Next Web, Sifted, The Quantum Insider, Tech Funding News)
14 pieces of editorial coverage in total
15.3M potential reach on published articles
2 media interviews were held with Aquark Technologies’ Founders
Engagement more than doubled across Aquark Technologies’ LinkedIn page
Website traffic peaked in line with key media coverage of the announcement.