KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

The British Business Bank has committed GBP £100 million to Oxford Quantum Circuits as part of a GBP £260 million Series C funding round.

The round is among the largest completed by a quantum computing company in Europe, highlighting investor interest in a sector that has attracted growing government and private backing.

Bullhound Capital led the financing, with participation from Invus, Mastercard, COFIDES, Rokos Capital Management, IHAG, Fulcrum Asset Management, Pentland Ventures, Magdalen College Oxford, Adaptive Capital Partners, Firgun and 18 West. The British Business Bank also invested GBP £7 million in Oxford Quantum Circuits’ Series A round in 2022.

Oxford Quantum Circuits, known as OQC, was founded in the UK as a spinout from Oxford University. It develops and operates superconducting quantum computers for use in data centre environments.

OQC said it has built an international platform across Europe, North America and Asia, with systems deployed in the UK, the US, Japan and Spain. It plans to use the new funding to expand infrastructure in key markets, broaden its operational presence and continue developing its next generation of quantum systems for commercial deployment.

Quantum computing has drawn sustained attention from policymakers and investors because of its potential to tackle problems beyond the practical reach of conventional systems. Companies in financial services, defence and security are among those exploring how the technology could be applied to complex modelling, optimisation and security tasks.

Scale challenge

The investment also reflects a wider policy push to keep advanced technology companies in Britain as they move from research to commercial growth. The British Business Bank, the government’s economic development bank, has announced funding for deep technology businesses to help retain more of the economic value created by UK science.

Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer at the British Business Bank, set out that view in comments accompanying the deal.

“For deeptech in the UK, the challenge is not invention, it’s scale. In order to build global companies rooted in the UK, our financial firepower must match our scientific excellence. The Bank sees this as nothing short of a national economic imperative, so we are acting at pace to deliver significantly higher levels of funding for UK scale-ups,” said Kalisperas.

George Mills, Senior Investment Director, Direct Equity, at the British Business Bank, linked the investment to the sector’s technical and commercial hurdles.

“Quantum computing has the potential to solve some of the hardest computing challenges that remain unsolved by AI, but it is held back by its ability to scale up. OQC’s systems fill that gap with their world-leading speed and scalability. We are delighted to be backing the team at OQC again as they scale up their commercial offering with the development of OQC TITAN,” said Mills.

Government backing

The deal comes amid a broader effort by the UK government to support quantum businesses as they seek larger pools of growth capital. Ministers have presented quantum technologies as an area where Britain can build companies with international reach from a domestic research base.

Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the round signalled investor confidence in the sector.

“OQC’s £260 million funding round is a major vote of confidence in the UK’s quantum sector and shows that the UK continues to be the place where the industries of the future are being created. We have the right economic plan and, within it, I set out three ‘big choices’ for the UK economy, one of which is developing AI and innovation. We will always back companies to give them a head start in the global race, which is why we have recently committed up to £2bn to ensure UK quantum companies can successfully reach commercial scale,” said Reeves.

For OQC, the new capital is intended to support both international expansion and product development. The company said customers are seeking secure, scalable access to quantum computing infrastructure as interest in practical use cases grows.

Gerald Mullally, Chief Executive Officer of OQC, described the financing as a turning point for the business.

“This funding marks a defining moment for OQC. It gives us the capital to scale internationally, advance our technology roadmap and meet increasing demand from customers seeking secure, scalable access to quantum computing infrastructure. Quantum computing is becoming critical infrastructure, and OQC is building the platform to deliver it at commercial scale,” said Mullally.

Britwell Salome Farm Shop, at Red Lion Farm in the South Oxfordshire countryside near Watlington, has been named ‘local food and drink champions’ for the south east in the Countryside Alliance Awards 2026.

Julia Mearns, co-owner of the popular farm shop, said they are ‘delighted’ by the recognition.

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“We are very thankful and amazed that our small farm shop is doing so well,” she said. “We appreciate that so many people took the time to vote for us as it is based on nominations for the shortlist and then public voting.

The team at Britwell Salome Farm Shop, left to right are master butcher Martin Piddington, Jake Howard, co-owner Julia Mearns, shop manager Amanda Saunders, and Wayne Anderson (Image: Julia Mearns)

“Our customers and the village are delighted for us and frequently tell us which is lovely.

“The next stage is  the national final against regional winners from the rest of the country, and we will find out how we did at a reception in The House of Lords in July.”

Though they were named runner up in the Muddy Stiletto’s award for best farm shop in Bucks, Berks and Oxfordshire last year, it’s the farm shop’s first award nomination – let alone win – for the Countryside Alliance.

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The annual award series has been running for 19 years to highlight the achievements of rural businesses, which names a winner and a highly commended runner-up across the categories of butcher, local food and drink, pub, rural enterprise and village shop/post office.

Ms Mearns said her family, including herself, her husband and their son, set up at Red Lion Farm in 1993 and took over the chilled unit in the barn when it became vacant in 2008, to begin selling the farm’s meat, including pork, beef and lamb, directly to customers, from field to fork.

Britwell Salome Farm Shop, 2011 (Image: Des Blenkinsopp / Wikimedia Commons)

She added: “We are a true farm shop in every sense of the word – especially noticeable when the pig staff come in for their purchases.

“Customers’ facial expressions say a lot, and we always say without them, we wouldn’t have our wonderful pork products!”

Britwell Salome Farm shop also stocks a large selection of other locally produced food, from seasonal fruit and veg from a farm in Stanton St John to local honey from the village, jams and preserves which raise money for Oxford homeless charity Porch, to bread baked fresh in Thame.

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Winning their first award after 30 years, Ms Mearns put the increased appreciation of farm shops down to people beginning to care more about where their food comes from.

The co-owner said: “Farm shops are becoming more popular, people are more aware of where they are buying their food.

“I’m just honoured that people voted for us in those numbers.”

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

Enfuce has published research showing that European consumers are increasingly concerned about political interference in payment systems, with strong support for greater European control over payments.

The survey of 3,000 consumers and 500 senior executives at payment providers across France, Germany, Italy, the Nordics and the UK points to growing unease about reliance on US-owned networks such as Visa and Mastercard. It also suggests the debate over payment sovereignty has moved beyond policymakers and into the mainstream.

The findings show that 62% of consumers believe geopolitical tensions could disrupt payments in their market. In comparison, 59% are concerned that the US government could instruct American-owned payment networks to restrict or stop payments. Concern was even higher among payment providers, with about 78% worried that political tensions could lead to restrictions.

Dependence on a small number of global operators also featured heavily in the responses. Six in ten consumers said it was a problem that so many payments are controlled by a small number of companies, and 67% said they would struggle to pay or be unable to pay without Visa or Mastercard.

Consumer priorities

Despite support for greater European control, the research indicates that political concerns alone are unlikely to reshape behaviour at the checkout. Just one in five consumers said they would choose a new payment system primarily because it was locally owned.

Instead, respondents said practical factors remained the main reasons to switch payment methods. Security was cited by 43% of consumers, acceptance by 40%, and privacy by 29%.

That creates a challenge for European alternatives seeking broader adoption. While 73% of consumers and 97% of payment providers said it was important for the UK and EU to have greater control over payment systems, customers still appeared more focused on reliability and trust than on ownership structures.

The findings also suggest awareness of the issue is already established. More than half of consumers said they had thought about the systems behind their everyday payments, and 56% said they were familiar with efforts to create alternatives to Visa and Mastercard.

Backing for Wero

Among payment providers, support for alternatives appears strong. Enfuce said 85% of providers have implemented or plan to implement Wero, the European payment method that has emerged as one of the main alternatives under discussion.

Three-quarters of payment providers said they believed local alternatives would be viable within a decade, while 66% said such an option could offer better value than existing global networks. At the same time, 67% said Europe could achieve payment sovereignty without replacing established international card schemes altogether.

That reflects a more mixed industry view of how sovereignty would work in practice. The data suggests many executives see room for a more locally controlled system alongside the current dominant networks, rather than through a complete break from them.

The research comes as Europe examines how far it should reduce dependence on foreign technology and financial infrastructure. In payments, the issue has gained prominence because card transactions and other consumer payments rely heavily on international networks headquartered outside Europe.

For fintech groups and payment infrastructure providers, that shift has created a broader strategic debate about resilience, market concentration and economic autonomy. The survey suggests those concerns now resonate with consumers as well as industry executives.

Around 58% of consumers said they were worried that reliable local alternatives would not be available if major payment networks were disrupted. That points to a growing perception that payment infrastructure is part of economic security rather than just a background utility.

“For decades, payments were designed around convenience and global scale. Now they are becoming a question of resilience, control and economic security. Consumers are starting to recognise that the systems moving money around the world are not politically neutral infrastructure. This is a rare opportunity to rethink what we want from payments – not just faster, but more transparent, resilient and more aligned with the values of consumers, businesses and society itself,” said Denise Johansson, Co-founder and CEO of Enfuce.