Qunnect

Qunnect is a company that is building field-deployable hardware solutions to support optical, long-distance and quantum-secured communication. In particular, Qunnect focuses on engineering novel quantum memory and source technologies.

Qunnect technology utilizes light-matter interfaces at room-temperature to store and transfer information securely. The companies long-term goal is to develop hyper-secure long-distance communication networks, that offer advantages such as fast and highly accurate cyber-threat detection capabilities.

The company has developed several portable modular technologies required to build a fully protected quantum cryptographic network. These include portable atomic quantum memories and quantum entanglement photon sources. Through collaborations with the Brookhaven National Labs and ESnet, Qunnect's products will be field-tested on fiber networks connecting Brookhaven to NYC.

Founded in 2017, to commercialize technologies developed at Stony Brook University's Quantum Information Technology (QIT) group. The founders are CEO Mehdi Namazi, CTO Mael Flament, and CSO Eden Figueroa the director of the QIT lab. Qunnect has an exclusive license to QIT’s cutting edge technology through the Research Foundation for SUNY (State University of New York). Headquartered in Stony Brook, New York, the company's R&D facility is located in the Center for Excellence in Wireless Information Technology, Stony Brook.

Qunnect's technology is funded by $1 million in combined National Science Foundation grants, a $50,000 National Science Foundation Innovation Corps prize earmarked for commercialization, a $50,000 Stony Brook University Discovery Prize for the QIT group, and a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the Department of Energy.

In January 2020, Qunnect announced the closing of $800,000 in seed funding, an oversubscribed financing cycle backed by the Accelerate NY Seed Fund, French venture-capital fund Quantonation and private investors.