Towards a quantum proof future
An interview with Chris Erven, CEO of KETS Quantum Security
How would you pitch your company to our readers?
KETS is pioneering quantum encryption on a chip — both random number generation and key distribution technologies. This is incredibly important because there is a new technology on the horizon called quantum computing. Quantum computing is computing done with quantum systems — i.e. qubits — that has the potential to do many types of computation — like factoring, which underlies some of our current encryption algorithms; or simulation, which could allow us to find the next cancer drug — faster. While a great advancement in many areas, it will create a massive problem for our current encryption algorithms since quantum computers are tailormade to solve the math that underlies them. Many are hard at work on new and better software. At KETS, we also think part of the solution will be new quantum-safe hardware like ours.
Why did you become an entrepreneur?
Good question. A couple of reasons.
1) It sort of got baked into me during my undergraduate degree in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Waterloo (along with a few others like Stanford), pioneered the entrepreneurial-professor model. It’s very common for students, postdocs, and profs to be involved with start-ups in Waterloo. Research in Motion, which created the Blackberry out of Mike Lazaridis’ 4th year engineering project, was right next door. And I worked for a number of start-ups during my engineering co-op terms. So it was just kind of… normal.
2) I think I consider myself an Engineering Physicist, I like building things. For my MSc and PhD, I built an entangled free-space quantum key distribution system that actually worked, in real-time, across the rooftops of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute (I think there’s still some videos in YouTube land somewhere). It had real world applications that could actually move technology forwards, as did many other quantum technologies that I was immersed in and saw being developed beside me at the IQC. All of this potential, huge potential! But the only way its capitalised on rather than relegated to university display cases and scientific journals is if it is commercialised. Moreover, the only way the grants keep flowing and research can continue is if, in addition to continuing to move human knowledge forward, it also starts to show tangible outputs. I liked the idea of being part of that.
3) And maybe most importantly, with this age of social media and everyone wasting a lot of air being an arm-chair critic, perhaps the best thing about being an entrepreneur is you’re down in the trenches actually doing something! You’re not talking about trying to change the world… you’re actually trying to build something and change a small corner of the world. I think that’s a much more positive way to participate… pick up a screw driver, a laptop, or a whiteboard pen and build something. We seem to have forgotten that a little bit.
What direction do you see Deep Tech moving in?
It’s been really, really interesting to watch deep technology start-ups now starting to win significant private investment — and this includes quantum technologies.
But when you stop and think about it, it’s also quite natural. A lot of the challenges and problems we face are getting too large for academia to tackle. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of blue sky research to do. And we should continue to fund blue sky research (this funding trend that everything has to have a short-term application is worrying, I’d rather a portfolio approach).
But we’ve sort of exhausted much of the low hanging fruit in some areas. Things like building a quantum computer or maybe AI, are just so massive a task that they really do require a commercial entity to accomplish. One with a much bigger bank account; able to plan an R&D programme out to 5, 10, and in some cases 20 years; and professional project management practices, scientists, and engineers who know how to build products. Sort of the equivalent of the space programme 50 years ago.
The other direction that’s neat is deep-tech is becoming cool 😊 . Which I hope means a lot more school kids looking at perhaps what they thought of as their boring math class or science class and saying “yeah, it’s worth the slog because I want to design the next SpaceX rocket, or quantum sensor, or green energy source.”
Finally, I think the other interesting trend in deep tech and the people that fund it, is knowing that they have a secondary goal of just building the community and a bit of a deep-tech mixing pot. It’s that longer term vision.
Look, I’m sure that quantum technologies will go through a bit of a winter (like other technologies) because people are trying to do hard things and build very technically challenging devices. But there’s certainly a few VCs I’ve now met and many entrepreneurs (I had a great chat with Andrew Fursman from 1QBit about this) that understand this now and know that it might not be the first idea, or the second, or even the third, but eventually someone will hit on something that changes the world. And taking a long-term view, the way they support that is by supporting those riskier ventures now and backing good people. They’ll try and fail or succeed, reshuffle the people, bring more in, try again, and eventually we’ll watch someone converse with an android or walk on Mars.
And very finally, it’s good to see people investing in hardware again… challenging hardware… that could change the world. Don’t forget, all of these massive apps needed the smartphone first.
What’s your best memory at KETS?
There’s too many to choose from, but I’ll pick a recent one. I hadn’t been in the lab in a while and even though I get updates in meetings on how we’re doing, it’s not like seeing it in the flesh. So about a week or two ago I had a visitor, it was a quite day and I took them up to the lab at the end of the conversation to show them our stuff….and I didn’t recognise it!
Far from the physics project that it started out as (that literally was held together with some cellotape at various points), I was pointing at a slick RF break-out board with one of our little Quantum Key Distribution chips packaged on its own little daughter board, similar to a little SD card, and plugged into the main board. Our technology looked like a product! That was cool. And I felt so proud of how far our team has come in turning a university technology into an actual commercial product.
One common view you are sick of hearing?
“You’re a little early for us.” Typical response from an investor when we were looking for funding. Certainly, that got old, fast — but it’s par for the course when you’re hunting for money until you find the right investors (like Quantonation!) that get your vision.
Maybe the other one is the view that tech can save us from all of our problems. It’s maybe a weird thing to say coming from someone developing a deep-tech quantum encryption company, I’ll give you that. But it’s born from my childhood spent up at the cottage in Northern Ontario, Canada. It was during those formative years that I grew a deep affection for nature — it’s probably the closet I come to religion. And seeing rampant, lazy consumerist waste now is deeply upsetting.
Tech certainly has a role to play in solving many of the world’s problems. But we’ve become lazy as a species. And if we can just curb the worst of our bad habits — make a bit more food at home and create less takeway containers, turn off lights in an empty room, carry a reuseable coffee cup, and maybe wait one more year before buying the latest phone — then at the very least, tech will have a smaller problem that it can solve sooner.
Is Europe still in the race for Deep Tech ?
Absolutely! Absolutely… there’s so many cool things happening in deep tech in Europe. I mostly know quantum tech and some of it started in large part because of the big bet the UK placed with their National Quantum Technologies Programme 5 years ago and the 4 Hubs. But now you have the European Flagship project kicking off with all sorts of interesting projects. You have further EU calls to setup things like QKD testbeds and start thinking about the quantum internet. You’ve got QuTech in Delft (note, QTEC at the University of Bristol had the name first! Sorry, couldn’t help myself, our own fault for not trademarking the name 😊), Fraunhofers in Germany (which have been there for years doing good work).
What’s more, it’s a bit of an untapped market since it’s behind on the whole entrepreneurship thing and only becoming mainstream and cool now. Moreover, investment… serious investment in early stage, riskier companies, is now starting to get involved. And finally, it’s the different perspectives that Europe has compared to what they might have in places like the US, that made start-ups cool years ago. Diversity is usually where the next biggest ideas come from.
How will Proprietary Tech change the world?
I almost want to be contrarian and say that Proprietary Tech will change the world… when we learn to share it. What do I mean by that? I think there is this increasing movement in the world to be more collaborative, universities trying to collaborate with industry, start-ups with big companies, neighbourhood communities with artists and the local councils. And some of the biggest breakthroughs have come when people have put a multi-disciplinary team together. Right now, this happens when you have something the size of Google or Amazon put resource behind something, but I do not think that is the only way, nor should it be because then a very few people are deciding the agenda. And I appreciate the catch-22, new start-ups need to protect their ideas so they can benefit from what they create and continue to get the investment they need to grow. But I do think there will be a movement to share and collaborate more, and new systems worked out to do that.
What’s your favorite sci-fi?
Sadly, I’m the usual stereotype — loved Star Trek and Star Wars as a kid (and yes, I loved The Last Jedi), played all of the Mass Effect series… twice, on Xbox. I am re-reading IT at the moment — I think anyone who read it as a kid is drawn back to the story about the power of belief in kids. In terms of the last sci-fi movie I saw, I loved A Quiet Place — the use of sound was just so effective and visceral.
And I am itching to see Apollo 11 — I think space attracts me because we have quickly forgotten how hard it is and how massive an undertaking it was. Essentially a whole nation coming together for a decade, to transport a few people to the moon and back. And we all look up at the sky when we’re out at night walking home, wondering what is up there? (And not sci-fi, but a must-see movie I just saw with my wife is Booksmart. Laughed… our… a$$es off 😊).
One prediction for 2019?
That someone, somewhere experiences a crippling cyber attack. And worst of all, we might never hear about it…
Thanks Chris !
About Quantonation’s investment in KETS
Early stage Deep Physics focused venture fund Quantonation, together with Kx and others, invested over £2 million in KETS in December of 2018, including £1million provided from Innovate UK and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
More Information: website, Twitter
KETS Quantum Security is a University of Bristol start-up company developing a range of future-proof, cost-effective technologies for quantum-secured communications that have the power to improve the secure transmission of information such as banking details and medical records.
