Quantum Venture Investing from the Lab to the Market with Marie Lepske

Marie Lepske brings a combination that's genuinely rare in venture: a background in applied mathematics and physics, early experience covering quantum at Runa Capital before most generalist funds knew the field existed, and now a GP seat at Constructor Capital, which closed a $110M Fund I in February 2026 with more than half its capital directed toward next-generation computing including quantum. She backed Qnami at Runa — a quantum sensing company acquired by Quantum Design in June 2026, one of the few clean sensing exits the field has produced — and Constructor's portfolio includes QuEra, which raised over $230M in a round led by Google Quantum AI and SoftBank. The conversation matters now because the quantum investment landscape is genuinely changing. SPAC activity, mega-rounds from hyperscalers, and rising valuations are pulling in non-specialist capital at the same time that the science is getting harder to evaluate from the outside. Lepske is one of the people who has to navigate that tension every day, and she's willing to name the failure modes. Founders building quantum or deep-tech companies, investors trying to understand where specialist and generalist capital intersect, and technically curious listeners who want to understand how the business side of quantum actually works will all find this episode useful. What We Get Into Why technical training matters at the earliest stages — and what it actually buys you when a founding team's only asset is a laboratory and an optical table, before there's even a legal entity How the specialist-versus-generalist divide is evolving — Lepske's 2022 argument that early-stage quantum would stay specialist territory, and how she reads the arrival of Google, SoftBank, and NVIDIA in QuEra's cap table The due diligence framework for pre-product science startups — team provenance, patent landscape, IP legal review, and how Constructor uses its scientific advisory board to validate founders they can't fully assess internally What a "no" looks like — the specific signals that make Constructor wait rather than invest, including teams with strong science but no credible path to market and IP positions that are already crowded The Qnami exit and what it reveals about quantum sensing — why sensing applications are currently concentrated in R&D markets, which verticals Lepske thinks will break out first, and why sensing competes with computing for buyer attention The SPAC problem — why the wave of quantum public listings concerns her, and why evaluating roadmap credibility requires the kind of deep familiarity that takes years to build How Constructor supports portfolio companies beyond capital — executive hiring, software development guidance, co-investor introductions, and the limits of that hands-on model AI and quantum as parallel tracks — why she doesn't see AI as cannibalizing quantum talent or capital, and where she thinks the two fields will eventually converge Resources & Links Guest & Fund Marie Lepske — LinkedIn — Primary professional profile; includes keynote highlights and 2026 speaking engagements Constructor Capital — Official Website — Fund homepage with portfolio listings, team bios, and investment thesis across DeepTech, Software Tech, and Knowledge Tech Constructor Capital Fund I Close (Tech.eu, Feb 2026) — Coverage of the $110M close, check sizes ($1–10M, select up to $15M), and the university sourcing network Portfolio Companies Referenced QuEra — $230M+ Financing Round Announcement — The round led by Google Quantum AI and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with NVIDIA's NVentures participating Qnami Acquisition by Quantum Design (The Quantum Insider, June 2026) — The sensing exit discussed in the episode; context on what a quantum sensing acquisition looks like Background Reading Quantum Computing Report — "Venture Capital Trends in Quantum Technologies" (Runa Capital, 2022) — Lepske's co-authored market analysis, the source of her "specialist VC" thesis discussed in the episode Constructor Capital — "Quantum Investing Playbook" (Nov 2025) — Her Paris keynote on making successful quantum investments; source of the valuation figures cited in the conversation Entangled Future — Quantum Computing Funding & Investment Landscape 2026 — Context on the $4.9B private VC figure for 2025 and the broader public commitment landscape Recent Constructor News Constructor Start Demo Day Finalists (The Quantum Insider, Sept 2026) — Quantum startups among the 16 finalists announced one week before this recording Key Quotes & Insights On what early-stage diligence actually looks like: > "They have only laboratory, and they have optical table which they want to show to you and you should understand if they have some interesting and useful patents or they can file them during the next one to two years." On where specialist and generalist capital divide: > "These bigger players, they're coming later. They're coming when we already investigated that this particular technology and this particular team actually could win." On the SPAC problem: > "It's very difficult for [non-specialist investors] to evaluate if they're doing proper investment or not, or if this valuation is good or not… You should be able to find out these roadmaps and to understand if this is a real roadmap or just written for the SPAC." Insight — sensing vs. computing for buyer attention: Lepske observes that quantum sensing is structurally underappreciated relative to computing, not because the products aren't real, but because governments and corporates perceive computing as the larger prize — which she suggests is not obviously correct. Insight — quantum talent scarcity as a leading indicator: She notes that quantum computing companies are now competing for talent the way AI companies did four or five years ago, with roughly 400–450 relevant laboratories globally — a number that puts the field's scale in sharp relief. Related Episodes Ep. 22 — Trapped Ions and Quantum VCs with Chiara Decaroli — Another physicist-turned-investor conversation; useful companion for understanding how scientific training shapes investment judgment in quantum hardware Ep. 96 —