pQCee co-founder and CEO Dr Teik Guan Tan
Singapore-based quantum-safe cybersecurity startup pQCee has raised US$3.9 million in a seed funding round, as governments and large enterprises begin moving post-quantum cryptography from research papers and standards discussions into procurement plans.
The round was co-led by SGInnovate and Lotus One Investment, with participation from In Group Holdings, Wavemaker Ventures, SUTD Venture Holdings, and Apsara Investments.
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This round follows a US$2.8 million institutional raise in 2022, which was co-led by Wavemaker Ventures and SEEDS, the investment arm linked to SG Growth Capital, with participation from SGInnovate, Mirana Capital, Paragon Capital Management, and Apsara Investments.
pQCee said the new capital will be used to expand its Singapore team, deepen its presence in Asia, and support market entry into the US, Europe and the Middle East.
The company sells post-quantum cryptography and key-management tools to organisations that need to protect sensitive data against the risk that encrypted information stolen today could be decrypted later once quantum computers become more capable. In other words, pQCee helps organisations protect their data from a future generation of quantum computers that could break today’s encryption.
In plain English: a hacker or state actor could steal encrypted data today, store it, and decrypt it years later when quantum computers become powerful enough. This threat, often called “harvest now, decrypt later”, has become a growing concern for banks, governments, telecom operators, and critical infrastructure providers. The risk is not that quantum computers can already break widely used public-key encryption at scale, but that adversaries can stockpile encrypted data now and wait for more powerful systems to emerge.
Standards are turning into deadlines
The timing is crucial here. In August 2024, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology finalised its first three post-quantum cryptography standards, including FIPS 203, which is based on the ML-KEM key-establishment algorithm. Those standards gave enterprises and vendors a clearer technical baseline after years of uncertainty.
MarketsandMarkets has estimated that the global post-quantum cryptography market will grow from US$302.5 million in 2024 to US$1.88 billion by 2029, a compound annual growth rate of 44.2 per cent. That forecast reflects both genuine concern and the reality that many large organisations have barely begun the work of discovering where vulnerable cryptography sits inside their systems.
The transition is likely to be slow. Cryptography is embedded in applications, networks, hardware security modules, identity systems, payment infrastructure and messaging platforms. For banks and public-sector agencies in Southeast Asia, the challenge is not only choosing new algorithms but replacing or upgrading legacy systems without breaking operational workflows.
pQCee’s products are aimed at that messy middle ground. Its flagship offering, SafeQuard, provides end-to-end encryption intended to reduce exposure to harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks. QKDLite is middleware for key management and is designed to work with standards including PKCS#11, ETSI QKD 014 and FIPS 203. The company also offers inoQulate for post-quantum public key infrastructure certificates and QuICScript, a browser-based tool that lets users experiment with a 20-qubit quantum simulator.
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Dr Teik Guan Tan, CEO of pQCee, said the company is focusing on practical deployment rather than abstract quantum risk.
“As global regulations tighten and the threat landscape evolves, organisations need practical, interoperable solutions they can adopt today,” he said.
A Singapore base for a cross-border problem
Although pQCee is looking beyond Southeast Asia, its Singapore base is significant. The city-state has positioned itself as a regional hub for quantum research, deeptech commercialisation, and cybersecurity regulation. Its role as a financial centre also makes it a natural early market for post-quantum security vendors.
Singapore has been building national quantum capabilities through programmes such as the National Quantum-Safe Network, while its banks, insurers and public agencies face rising expectations around resilience and third-party technology risk. Across Southeast Asia, regulators have taken a more active stance on cybersecurity, particularly in sectors such as finance, telecoms, energy and public services.
The region’s digital exposure is also increasing. Google, Temasek and Bain & Company estimated Southeast Asia’s digital economy gross merchandise value at US$263 billion in 2024. As more financial services, healthcare records, government services and enterprise workflows move online, long-lived sensitive data becomes more attractive to sophisticated attackers.
That gives quantum-safe security a regional logic, even if near-term enterprise spending remains selective. Many Southeast Asian organisations are still dealing with basic security gaps, ransomware, cloud misconfiguration and identity attacks. Post-quantum migration will compete for budget against those immediate threats. The vendors that succeed will need to show not only that quantum risk is real, but that migration can happen without excessive cost or disruption.
Competition is already global
pQCee enters a market that is technically specialised but increasingly crowded. Global players include UK-based PQShield, US companies SandboxAQ and QuSecure, and quantum communications firms such as Quantum Xchange. Large technology and security vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, Google, Thales, and Cloudflare, are also active in post-quantum standards, testing and deployment.
In Singapore, quantum communications company SpeQtral has focused on quantum key distribution and satellite-based secure communications. pQCee’s approach appears more centred on post-quantum cryptography, crypto-agility and enterprise integration, rather than selling quantum hardware as the core product.
The company has partnerships with Thales and Feitian for integration with hardware security modules and secure devices. It has also worked with Netrust and SendQuick to extend quantum-safe protection into digital identity, messaging and enterprise workflows, and with PQShield to align with post-quantum cryptographic standards. Other partners include Microsoft and TechCreate.
These partnerships matter because the post-quantum transition will not be won by point solutions alone. Enterprises will need tools that work with existing identity infrastructure, hardware security, cloud environments and compliance processes. Crypto-agility — the ability to swap or update cryptographic algorithms without rebuilding entire systems — is likely to become a key procurement criterion.
Paul Santos, co-founder and managing partner at Wavemaker Partners, said the migration burden will shape early demand.
“pQCee’s holistic suite of solutions simplifies post-quantum cryptography migration for enterprises, reducing complexity in integration, procurement, and cost,” he said.
Also Read: McKinsey: Strategic investment fuels Asia Pacific quantum computing expansion
The harder question is how quickly customers will move. Awareness has improved, but many boards still treat quantum risk as a future problem. Vendors such as pQCee must persuade buyers that migration planning should begin before cryptographically relevant quantum computers arrive, not after.
For Singapore, the bet is also strategic. Deeptech startups often struggle to move from research credibility to global commercial scale. pQCee’s new funding gives it more runway to attempt that transition. Whether it can convert standards momentum into recurring enterprise revenue will determine if it becomes another niche cybersecurity vendor or a meaningful player in the post-quantum infrastructure stack.
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