The latest news in investment offerings, financial products and other services relative to wealth advisors and their clients.

Phasecraft
Albion Capital has joined the latest funding round by Phasecraft along with existing investors including the UCL Technology Fund, which is managed by Albion in collaboration with UCL Business.

Phasecraft has now raised £13 million ($16.5) to reach practical quantum advantage, it said in a statement.

Phasecraft, a startup led by leading academics from UCL and the University of Bristol, will use this funding to continue developing its algorithms to the point of practical quantum advantage – a point at which quantum computers will outperform contemporary computers for useful real-world applications, accelerating the development of this technology from decades away to mere years.

Quantum computing promises to revolutionise the way humanity tackles its most complex problems. However, the noisy and unstable quantum computers of today are incapable of running the algorithms that currently exist to solve these problems.

Based on the best quantum algorithms known prior to Phasecraft’s founding, a useful calculation such as simulating and discovering a new battery material would require billions of operations on a quantum computer – today’s best-performing hardware can perform at most thousands. Significant recent investment in such hardware has seen it soar in capacity, but the algorithms needed to harness these advances have remained largely theoretical.

Phasecraft says it is bridging this gap. Its algorithms have significant superior computational efficiency compared with others in existence, it claims, whilst its partnerships with the three most advanced superconducting quantum hardware providers in the world (Google, IBM and Rigetti) help put these algorithms to work in the real world.

Phasecraft’s early focus is on applying these algorithmic improvements to the discovery of new materials important for the clean energy transition. Phasecraft has already developed a software pipeline which delivers an improvement of 1,000,000x or more in modelling real materials compared with the best previous quantum algorithms.

“For all the advances that have been made in quantum hardware, and for all quantum computing’s promise, such progress could end up being for nothing if we can’t build the applications needed to make the technology truly useful...We think practical quantum advantage is achievable in years, not decades,” Ashley Montanaro, co-founder and CEO of Phasecraft, said.

Tatton
Tatton Investment Management, the asset management firm of Tatton Asset Management, announced on Friday that it has launched money market portfolios in its managed portfolio services (MPS). 

This on-platform offering allows retail investors and savers access to the highly competitive money market segment in the controlled approach of a well-researched platform portfolio, the firm said in a statement.

Responding to feedback from its independent financial advisors (IFA) supporters, the launch of these portfolios addresses concerns over the slowness of deposit taking banks and platforms in passing on the higher interest returns as set by the Bank of England base rate, the firm continued. The Money Market portfolio category allows IFAs to demonstrate the value they can add to the entirety of their clients’ financial wellbeing by providing better value access to secure cash rates. 

The solution is available on all of its platforms, subject to demand. “Across the country, clients of IFAs have expressed their concerns surrounding the discrepancy between the increasingly attractive interest rate as set by the Bank of England with what retail savers can achieve from their bank and platform deposits for their cash reserves and other short-term liquidity requirements,” Lothar Mentel, TIML’s CEO and CIO said. 

“Attuned to these concerns, we are delighted to introduce our new money market portfolios within our MPS framework...this expansion of our existing offering serves as an instrumental resource for IFAs to diligently advise on both long- and short-term financial planning needs.  Crucially, it enables them to offer their clients a viable and highly regarded alternative to cash on deposit," he added.