Aqarios goes public: Germany’s first publicly listed quantum computing company
Munich, 14 July 2026 – Aqarios GmbH has gone public through a SPAC transaction with Fonterelli SPAC 4 AG. Aqarios GmbH is known as one of the leading European providers of application-oriented quantum software for optimizing complex industrial problems. With today’s entry of the contribution in kind into the commercial register, Aqarios GmbH is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Fonterelli SPAC 4 AG, which will operate from now on as Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG. With this transaction, the company is, to our knowledge, the first publicly listed pure-play in quantum computing on a German stock exchange. The shares are traded on the Düsseldorf Stock Exchange.
A spin-off from cutting-edge research at LMU Munich
Aqarios GmbH (“Aqarios”) was founded in 2021 as a spin-off from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). At the core of its business is the development of software for optimizing complex problems – from supply chains and energy grids to production plans and investment portfolios. To this end, Aqarios GmbH has developed advanced solutions and, in particular, software based on quantum computing. Already today, Aqarios can point to successful projects with well-known DAX corporations and leading industrial companies such as BASF, E.ON and MTU Aero Engines.
Since its founding, Aqarios has built a proprietary technology platform, won renowned industry and technology partners, and established itself in publicly funded cutting-edge research projects. The company operates across industries in the energy, finance, logistics, aviation and manufacturing sectors.
Luna: making quantum computing usable
At the core of the business is the proprietary Luna platform. Luna makes the performance of quantum computers practically usable for companies – without requiring them to build up their own quantum expertise. The platform provides the necessary software and the appropriate algorithms, so that optimization tasks such as supply-chain, energy-grid or logistics optimization can be solved with the help of quantum computing. Users can thus focus entirely on the questions within their own field of expertise.
The decisive factor here is the hardware-agnostic approach: Aqarios’ customers are not tied to any single hardware manufacturer and can access a wide range of different quantum computers through Luna. In addition, Luna combines classical and quantum-based computing, so that the best available technology is used for each problem. Real-world problems can already be solved this way today, and customers do not have to commit to a single technology prematurely.
The innovative strength of Aqarios and the Luna platform has received multiple awards, including the Quantum Effects Award 2025 in the Quantum Computing Software and Algorithms category at the trade fair of the same name in Stuttgart.
Strong partners and funding from the Federal Republic of Germany
The industrial relevance of the technology is reflected in the company’s partnerships. In the QuCUN (Quantum Computing User Network) collaborative project, Aqarios is working together with partners SAP, BASF and LMU Munich to build an open, sustainable quantum computing ecosystem for Germany. The project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), has a total funding volume of EUR 14.2 million. Beyond this, Aqarios GmbH is active in a large number of further initiatives, connecting cutting-edge research with real applications – from publicly funded research consortia to concrete projects together with industrial companies.
In parallel, Aqarios is integrating the Luna platform into concrete applications for various industries. Together with the fintech company Divizend GmbH, the company is developing a product for the financial sector centered on portfolio optimization, which will come to market shortly – a direct vertical application of the Luna platform for institutional and private investors.
Management Board and Supervisory Board
The Management Board of Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG consists of Michael Lachner. The computer scientist and quantum computing expert, trained at LMU and TUM, is a co-founder of Aqarios and continues to serve as its managing director. The Supervisory Board consists of the finance and private equity expert Dr. Sebastian Kern (Chairman) and the two quantum computing specialists Dr. Sebastian Feld (Deputy Chairman) and Dr. Thomas Gabor. Dr. Sebastian Feld is a professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He specializes in the architecture of quantum computers and their applications. Thomas Gabor is a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter in England. His research advances the development of software that links scientific algorithms such as quantum computing with artificial intelligence.
Germany as a location: a strong environment for quantum computing
With this stock market listing, Aqarios sends a signal for Germany as a location for quantum computing. Germany has one of the densest research and funding landscapes for quantum technologies in the world, supported by top universities, non-university research institutions and an industrially strong user base. As a spin-off from LMU Munich, an internationally leading center of quantum research, Aqarios exemplifies how market-ready quantum software emerges from German fundamental research.
“Quantum computing will help determine industrial competitiveness in the coming years – and we want this value creation to take place in Germany and Europe,” says Michael Lachner, Management Board member of Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG and managing director of Aqarios GmbH. “As the first publicly listed quantum software company in Germany, we make this future technology accessible to investors just as much as to our industrial customers. With Luna, we have proven that quantum computing is already relevant for companies today – hardware-agnostic, application-oriented and scalable.”
About Aqarios
Aqarios GmbH is a spin-off from LMU Munich founded in 2021 and a leading provider of application-oriented quantum software. The company develops solutions for optimizing complex problems and, with its Luna platform, makes quantum computing practically usable for companies in the energy, finance, logistics, aviation and manufacturing sectors – hardware-agnostic, combinable across classical and quantum-based computing, and without requiring quantum expertise on the customer side. Since 2026, Aqarios has been represented on the capital markets through the publicly listed Aqarios Quantum Technologies AG (Düsseldorf Stock Exchange), which emerged from a SPAC transaction with Fonterelli SPAC 4 AG.
Further information, including a detailed company presentation, is available in the Investor Relations section at www.aqarios.de.
