Dutch quantum computing startup establishes base in Downtown Boston

At the Wednesday Qblox ribbon-cutting: Gregg Carman, General Manager & Head of North America for QBlox; Jeevan Ramapriya, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment (MOITI); Kim Tran, Attaché for Innovation, Technology & Science at Netherlands Innovation Network in Boston; Segun Idowu, Chief of Economic Opportunity, and Inclusion for the City of Boston; and Niels Bultink, CEO of Qblox.Photo courtesy of Qblox

Dutch computing startup Qblox has picked a Financial District office tower as its launchpad into North America.

The privately held company, which makes and sells hardware and software to quantum computing developers, hosted a grand-opening ceremony on Wednesday at its 99 High St. office, dubbed its North American headquarters. The 150-person company is leasing 3,000 square feet from building owner Synergy to start, and has hired 10 people in the Boston area and five others elsewhere in North America, most of them scientists. The five-year-old company has around 120 customers, including around 30 in the US, including some in Greater Boston.

The North American team is led by general manager Gregg Carman, and chief financial officer Bauke van Rhijn plans to move here from the Netherlands as well. (Quantum computing, still in its infancy, uses atomic particles instead of electronic transistors to perform much faster calculations.)

Chief executive Niels Bultink, a physicist by training, said the company considered other US cities but picked Boston because of its proximity to top-notch research institutes and the wealth of computing talent here. Direct flights between Amsterdam and Boston’s Logan Airport helped, too.

“It’s really great to be more in the business district,” Bultink said. “We actually see that other companies that are now looking at the area, also finding this a really attractive place.”