Deal news: A breakthrough quantum camera for space

We have led Diffraqtion's pre-seed round

Author

Ton van 't Noordende
January 13, 2026

We’re thrilled to start 2026 by welcoming Diffraqtion to the QDNL Participations family, with the announcement of their $4.2 million pre-seed round.

Diffraqtion is developing a quantum camera that enables satellites and telescopes to see farther and process visual information dramatically faster than conventional systems. Its proprietary technology, built on research with NASA and DARPA, is capable of up to 20× higher resolution and 1,000× faster processing than best-in-class cameras.

This enables ultra-high-resolution imaging systems at a fraction of the cost of today’s satellites and ground-based telescopes.

We have led the round, with participation from milemark•capital, ADIN, Aether VC, and a non-dilutive DARPA SBIR Direct-to-Phase 2 contract.

After we led the round, Diffraqtion won the prestigious Slush 100 competition, which came with an additional $1.1 million investment from General Catalyst and Cherry Ventures, further emphasizing what a promising company this is.

Boston-based Diffraqtion was also recently named TechConnect’s 2025 Best Space Innovation, received a DARPA SBIR Direct-to-Phase-2 contract to advance space situational awareness capabilities, and is part of the U.S. Space Force’s Apollo Accelerator.

Johannes Galatsanos, CEO and Co-Founder of Diffraqtion, said:

“Space powers our communications, navigation, and defense, and through Earth Imaging, it supports everything from agriculture to disaster response.

“Yet despite the boom in low-cost launches, we still lack clear, continuous visibility of what’s happening above and below the atmosphere. Our quantum camera changes that: it tracks smaller, faster objects to keep assets in orbit safe, while delivering ultra-high-resolution imaging for critical applications on Earth.”

Our venture partner Chad Rigetti said:

“Quantum sensing can bring new capabilities to monitoring and protecting orbital infrastructure. Diffraqtion’s team combines deep photonics and quantum expertise with practical defense insight - exactly what’s needed to bring quantum imaging into operational reality.”

Congratulations to Johannes Galatsanos, Christine Yi-Ting Wang, Saikat Guha and team for what they’ve achieved so far. We’re looking forward to supporting their progress in 2026.

– Ton