QuantumDiamonds’ EU-backed push to speed chip manufacturing

TechCrunch reports that QuantumDiamonds, a German startup spun out from the Technical University of Munich, is one beneficiary of Europe’s push to strengthen semiconductor manufacturing. With European Commission approval, the company has been granted €76 million in non-dilutive funding from Germany’s federal economy ministry and the state of Bavaria. The funding is tied to a Munich facility for semiconductor testing equipment and is part of a previously announced $178 million investment plan.

QuantumDiamonds says its approach can compress a defect detection process that usually takes weeks into a two-minute inspection that does not stop production lines. The company uses synthetic diamonds and quantum sensing to observe how electricity flows through chips, aiming to detect defects through all layers without destroying the chip. That matters as chips become increasingly multi-layered, especially for compute-heavy applications such as AI data centers.

TechCrunch learned that QuantumDiamonds also raised a €15 million equity round led by World Fund, with backing from Bayern Kapital and existing investors including Creator Fund, Earlybird, First Momentum, IQ Capital, Onsight Ventures, and UnternehmerTUM. CEO Kevin Berghoff said the fundraising process was fairly quick because the company could demonstrate customer pull. The startup declined to disclose its valuation.

QuantumDiamonds is already moving beyond lab use, with 2026 international expansion including a regional hub in Taiwan and commercial deployments in Taiwan and the U.S. Its current lab tools are described as sample-based testing systems, while the next goal is high-throughput testing that could enable 100% quality control inside fabs. The company says most of its 70-person team is based in Munich, where it plans to double its engineering team over the next 12 months.