Mesa Quantum — vendor dossier

Mesa Quantum

Quantum sensingQuantum memory
M

Early-stage chip-scale quantum-sensor startup commercialising vapour-cell atomic clocks and Rydberg-atom RF sensors out of Svenja Knappe's group at CU Boulder, originally NIST/JILA atomic-clock-on-a-chip work. Founded in 2023 by Sristy Agrawal (CEO) and Knappe; incubated via NSF I-Corps Hub West. Primary market is alternative position-navigation-and-timing (Alt-PNT) for GPS-denied operations, with a USD 1.9M SpaceWERX SBIR contract supporting miniaturised atomic clocks as a GPS alternative. The vapour-cell platform shares physical lineage with warm-atom quantum memories used in quantum-networking.

HQ
Boulder, Colorado, USA
Founded
2023
Status
private
Last verified
Fri May 15 2026 08:00:00 GMT+0800 (Singapore Standard Time)

Timeline

2023202420252026202720282029today
2023
Company founded by Sristy Agrawal (CEO) and Svenja Knappe (faculty, CU Boulder Mechanical Engineering; ex-NIST/JILA atomic-clock-on-a-chip lead); incubated via NSF I-Corps Hub West
2024-09
$3.7M seed round announced; SpaceWERX SBIR contract ($1.9M) to demonstrate miniaturised atomic clocks as GPS alternative
2025-04
First recipient of the Colorado OEDIT Advanced Industries Early-Stage Capital and Retention Grant ($500K) to build a Boulder R&D facility
2026
Deliver miniaturised chip-scale atomic clock prototypes to SpaceWERX programme of record for GPS-denied PNT
shipped milestone public roadmap

Current flagship

Chip-scale vapour-cell atomic clock (prototype) — pre-commercial

Milestones

  1. 2025-04
    First recipient of the Colorado OEDIT Advanced Industries Early-Stage Capital and Retention Grant ($500K) to build a Boulder R&D facility
    Quantum sensing press source ↗
  2. 2024-09
    $3.7M seed round announced; SpaceWERX SBIR contract ($1.9M) to demonstrate miniaturised atomic clocks as GPS alternative
    Quantum sensing press source ↗
  3. 2023
    Company founded by Sristy Agrawal (CEO) and Svenja Knappe (faculty, CU Boulder Mechanical Engineering; ex-NIST/JILA atomic-clock-on-a-chip lead); incubated via NSF I-Corps Hub West
    Quantum sensing blog source ↗

Roadmap

  • 2026 Deliver miniaturised chip-scale atomic clock prototypes to SpaceWERX programme of record for GPS-denied PNT source ↗

Capability details

Quantum memory

Platform
vapour-cell
Storage time
—
Retrieval efficiency
—
Fidelity
—
Wavelength
—
Mode capacity
—
8 unverified fields
  • modalities.sensing.sensitivity
  • modalities.memory.storage_time_ms
  • modalities.memory.retrieval_efficiency
  • modalities.memory.fidelity
  • modalities.memory.wavelength_nm
  • modalities.memory.mode_capacity
  • categories — Networking/memory relevance is by physical-platform lineage only — Mesa Quantum's public product roadmap is atomic clocks and Rydberg RF sensors for Alt-PNT, not quantum memory or networking. Memory classification is editorial.
  • shareholders — Only accelerator and pitch-contest backers are public; seed-round cap table not disclosed

People

  • Sristy Agrawal — Co-founder & CEO (since 2023) ↗
  • Svenja Knappe — Co-founder (since 2023) ↗
  • Wale Lawal — CTO (since 2023) ↗

References