France, June 4 -- The funding round, announced on Wednesday, was led by state-backed investment bank Bpifrance, chipmaker STMicroelectronics and Sealsq.

Quobly said the money would help it develop quantum processors based on modified transistors - the tiny switches that underpin conventional computers.

The Grenoble-based company is betting that using existing semiconductor manufacturing techniques could make quantum computers cheaper and easier to produce than rival technologies.

"We benefit from the economy of scale of this industry," said Maud Vinet, Quobly's chief executive and co-founder. "The cost of producing our chip leads us to design quantum computers that will be 100 times cheaper than competing technologies."

French firm pa...