Four months ago I was sitting across from a physicist who could tell you exactly how many ions his company could hold in a single trapped chain, and couldn't tell you why a reporter at Forbes should care. That gap — between what a company has actually built and what the market understands about it — is the entire job when you're doing technology PR for quantum computing. I've spent the past two years closing that gap for Quantum Art, and it's changed how I think about communications for deep-tech companies generally.
Why Doesn't the Science Speak for Itself?
Quantum Art came to us with genuinely differentiated technology — a trapped-ion architecture using optical segmentation to partition a single ion chain into more than 20 independently operating cores, with a real roadmap toward a million physical qubits in a 50x50mm footprint. And it had zero public presence. No narrative, no media footprint, no executive visibility, competing for capital against IBM, IonQ and Quantinuum, who'd spent years building brand equity Quantum Art didn't have.
That's the trap most quantum companies fall into: they assume the technology will speak for itself once it's ready. It won't. By the time it's ready, someone else has already defined the category. We wrote up the full engagement as a case study if you want the mechanics; this piece is about what it taught me.
How Do You Build Credibility Before You Need It?
Instead of a single launch moment, we mapped an 18-month cadence of announcements — architecture reveals, roadmap milestones, peer-reviewed results, commercial partnerships — each one sequenced to build on the last. Every placement, whether it landed in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal or a specialist quantum trade outlet, was designed to reach investors and enterprise buyers, not to win a vanity headline.
We also spent real time on messaging architecture: reviewing the scientific papers, the technical milestones, the internal strategy conversations, and translating dense physics into a narrative an investor could actually act on. Then we media-trained the executive team to hold that narrative under pressure, because a founder who can't defend a claim in a follow-up question loses more credibility than the one who never made the claim in the first place.
None of this is unique to quantum computing. The same discipline applies to any deep-tech or B2B technology company whose product is months or years from market: biotech waiting on trial data, climate-tech waiting on a pilot plant, defense-tech that can't discuss half of what it's building. The company that builds the narrative infrastructure early controls how the eventual announcement gets read. The company that waits is explaining itself from a standing start, usually while a competitor's story is already the default frame reporters reach for.
Is the Payoff Immediate, or Does It Compound?
It compounds — and that's the part founders underestimate. By the time Quantum Art went to market for its Series A, investors had already seen the company in Forbes and the Journal, repeatedly, over months. The story wasn't new to them. The credibility was already built. The round closed at $100 million, then extended to $140 million four months later because demand exceeded supply — the extension itself became a story, not a footnote.
That's the difference between a launch and a campaign, and it's the single biggest lesson I'd hand to any quantum, deep-tech or pre-revenue science company thinking about choosing a PR partner: the credibility infrastructure has to exist before the capital raise, not during it. Reporters covering this space are increasingly sophisticated about qubit counts, fidelity and error correction — you don't get to oversell your way past that scrutiny, and you shouldn't try. The firms that do this well are the ones willing to say "we're not there yet" as often as they say "here's the milestone."
What Should a Founder Actually Look For in a Communications Partner?
Three things, in order. First, technical fluency that goes beyond a glossary — an agency that can sit in on a roadmap review and ask a useful follow-up question, not just nod along. Second, patience for a multi-year cadence instead of a single splashy launch; if a firm's plan starts and ends with a press release, it's not built for this category. Third, a track record of introducing executives as sources, not just announcing news — being the person a reporter calls when they need context on trapped-ion architecture is worth more over time than any single placement.
Where Does This Go Next?
Quantum computing is entering a stage where companies need to communicate not just what their technology does, but why their approach matters and where it fits in the race toward practical quantum advantage. That's part of why I'm looking forward to sitting on the public relations panel at IQT Q+AI 3.0 PQC in New York this October — the fact that a flagship quantum industry conference now has a dedicated PR panel tells you communications has become part of the infrastructure this sector needs, not an afterthought bolted on once the science is done. If you're building in this space and wondering when to start telling your story, my answer is the same one I'd have given Quantum Art on day one: earlier than feels comfortable.
Kyle Porter is Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Virgo Public Relations, an integrated communications firm specializing in rapid-growth and emerging industries. He brings more than a decade of agency leadership across financial communications, corporate reputation, and emerging-market strategy, having advised on more than 20 IPOs and reverse takeovers with valuations exceeding $1 billion. His client portfolio has included Canada's largest non-franchise cannabis retail chain (NASDAQ-listed), biotech companies developing novel compounds in therapeutic areas such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and B2C and B2B fintech leaders building on blockchain infrastructure.
