On Friday, August 28, 2026, a new ticker appeared on Nasdaq: PSQL. Pasqal, the French neutral-atom quantum computing company, completed its SPAC merger with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II and made its public market debut. Shares closed at $19.11 against the shell company's prior-day close of $9.79. A quick calculation: 19.11 ÷ 9.79 ≈ 1.952 — a first-day gain of +95.2%, nearly a double. The stock then gave back about 10% after hours.
The Road to Listing
- 2026-01-08: Shell company Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II completes its IPO
- 2026-08-05: SEC declares the F-4 registration effective
- 2026-08-25: SPAC shareholders approve the merger
- 2026-08-27: Merger completed; roughly $360 million in cash on the balance sheet
- 2026-08-28: Pasqal debuts on Nasdaq as PSQL, closing at $19.11
- Aug 24: US Treasury establishes a post-quantum cryptography preparedness working group under Executive Order 14112
- Aug 25: NSF announces $290+ million for eight quantum research institutes
- Aug 26: IBM completes its acquisition of HRL Laboratories (bought from Boeing and GM, bringing along silicon spin qubits and quantum sensing)
- Aug 28: Pasqal rings the bell
- IonQ: ~$15.6
- D-Wave: ~$6.5
- Rigetti: ~$5.2
- Pasqal: ~$2.0 (transaction valuation; the others are Aug 28 closing market caps — not exactly like-for-like)
- QUBT: ~$1.9
- Pasqal merger completion announcement
- The Quantum Insider first-day recap
- Reuters, Aug 28
- US Treasury announcement
- NSF eight institutes
- IBM–HRL
Who Is Pasqal?
Pasqal spun out of Institut d'Optique in Paris in 2019. Its co-founder list includes Alain Aspect — the 2022 Nobel laureate in Physics, one of the scientists behind the Bell inequality experiments. The company's technology uses optical tweezer arrays to trap neutral atoms: it has demonstrated simultaneous confinement of over 1,110 atoms and a 1,024-atom defect-free array. Current hardware does analog quantum computing; fault tolerance is on the roadmap.
On the machine side, 7 QPUs are deployed and 3 more in production, with 4 installed at national supercomputing centers in France, Germany, Italy, and Canada. Customers include Saudi Aramco (reservoir simulation), Crédit Agricole CIB, and LG Electronics. 2025 revenue: €16.5 million. The company is loss-making.
Doing the Math
The official valuation is about $2 billion (excluding SPAC cash); media widely reported $1.9 billion — just a rounding difference. The first-day close implies a fully diluted market cap of roughly $3.8 billion. Note: this figure is the author's own estimate from share price times share count, not an official number. Interestingly, the same day produced three different headlines: Reuters reported a mid-session "+73% falling back to 40%", Bloomberg at another moment reported "+52%", while the actual close was +95.2%. Same event, three numbers — it all depends on when you check the clock.
A Very Busy Week for Quantum Capital
Each of these is significant on its own; crammed into five days, it almost looks coordinated.
Pure-Play Quantum Stocks Compared
Approximate scale comparison (billions USD):
Pasqal's trading valuation ranks fourth among pure-play quantum companies, roughly one-eighth of IonQ's.
Why It's Worth Watching
The private market has told the quantum story for two years, with valuations negotiated behind closed doors. Going public means facing earnings reports every quarter. Using 2025 revenue: 2,000 ÷ 16.5 ≈ 121 — a price-to-sales ratio of around 120x. Expensive? IonQ is even more so. But IonQ has been market-tested for four years; Pasqal is the first neutral-atom company to face that test. Pricing power for this technology route has moved from VCs' term sheets to retail investors' order books. CEO Bokhari said "today is not a finish line, it's an acceleration point" — the kind of thing everyone says on listing day. A dual listing on Euronext Paris is planned for 2026 or 2027.
A Cold Shower Is Due
Quantum computing remains far from "usefully commercial." Every player is still struggling in the NISQ era, Pasqal included. The specifics of the SPAC structure — redemptions, lockups, dilution terms — haven't been fully reviewed in the prospectus yet. Those details are what will determine whether two dollars become three, or become one.
Whether quantum is right or wrong, there will be a price quote voting every quarter from now on. A story can survive five years in the private market; it rarely survives a single earnings season in the public one.