Rigetti Computing (RGTI) — Company Research

Last Updated: 11 Oct 2026

Rigetti Computing Inc. (NASDAQ: RGTI) builds superconducting gate-based quantum computers from modular chiplets, which it fabricates in its own Fab-1 facility in Fremont, California. The company was founded in 2013, has its headquarters in Berkeley, California, and listed via a SPAC merger in March 2022. It sells three things: research contracts, on-premises quantum processors (Novera QPUs and full systems) and cloud access to its machines. In the second quarter of 2026 revenue rose 185% to $5.1m, with sales of systems and components now making up most of the top line. On 8 Sep 2026 Rigetti signed a definitive agreement for up to $100m of CHIPS funding from the US Department of Commerce, which takes an equity stake in exchange. The company still has no debt and held $541.3m of cash and investments at 30 Jun 2026. However, its 108-qubit system is still short of its fidelity target, and the shares closed at $14.03 on 9 Oct 2026, close to their 52-week low.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker	RGTI (Nasdaq Capital Market); public warrants trade as RGTIW ($11.50 strike)
Headquarters	775 Heinz Avenue, Berkeley, California (Delaware corporation)
CEO / Leadership	Dr. Subodh Kulkarni, President & CEO since Dec 2022, re-elected to the board on 9 Jun 2026. Jeffrey Bertelsen, CFO. David Rivas, COO, and Andrew Bestwick, CTO, both in post since 18 Aug 2026
Employees	164 globally, of whom 162 full-time (1 Mar 2026, FY2025 Form 10-K)
Sector	Information Technology: quantum computing hardware
FY2025 Revenue	$7.09m (−34.3% YoY)
FY2025 Net loss (GAAP)	$(216.2)m, including a $150.6m non-cash loss from warrant fair-value changes
H1 2026 Revenue	$9.54m (Q1 $4.40m + Q2 $5.14m)
Cash & investments (30 Jun 2026)	$541.3m; no debt
Market cap	~$4.68bn (9 Oct 2026 close $14.03, ~333.8m shares); the 7.74m shares due to the Department of Commerce would add ~$0.11bn
Fiscal year end	31 Dec (FY2021 was an 11-month transition period after the year end moved from 31 Jan)

Rigetti calls its approach “quantum as a chip”: it treats scaling as a semiconductor fabrication and packaging problem. Larger processors are built by tiling 9-qubit chiplets. In August 2026 the company created a dedicated Systems Delivery organisation, run by new COO David Rivas, because it is now shipping whole on-premises systems to sovereign and research customers rather than mainly selling research hours.

2. Bull & Bear

Bull Case

• Government capital and validation: The 8 Sep 2026 CHIPS agreement provides up to $100m in three tranches ($43.9m, $29.9m and $26.2m) for readout electronics, cryostat and chip-fabrication R&D. The US government becomes a shareholder, receiving 7,739,938 shares at an implied $12.92.
• Revenue has turned up: Q2 2026 revenue was $5.14m, up 185% YoY, and H1 2026 revenue of $9.54m already exceeds the whole of FY2025 ($7.09m). Most of the H1 growth came from QPU and component sales.
• Debt-free balance sheet: Cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale securities were $541.3m at 30 Jun 2026, with no borrowings. That compares with a trailing free cash outflow of about $88m.
• Measurable fidelity gains: Median two-qubit fidelity reached 99.8% on the 9-qubit chiplet at 40ns and 99.6% on the 36-qubit system. A prototype adiabatic CZ gate has reached up to 99.9% at 28ns.
• Sovereign and research customers: Customers include India’s C-DAC ($8.4m 108-qubit order, with revenue expected in Q4 2026), the UK National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), a Japanese research organisation, the University of Saskatchewan and the HPE/Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center testbed.

Bear Case

• Valuation far ahead of revenue: A ~$4.7bn market cap on trailing revenue of $13.4m is about 350x sales, and the company makes operating losses of roughly $97m a year.
• Roadmap slippage: The 108-qubit Cepheus-1-108Q was delayed from end-2025 to April 2026 and runs at about 99.1% median two-qubit fidelity, short of the 99.5% target. The ~1,000-qubit goal moved from around end-2027 to roughly three years from Aug 2026.
• Missed DARPA QBI Stage B: DARPA picked 11 teams for Stage B of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative in Nov 2025. Rigetti was not among them, and DARPA’s list still excludes it.
• Persistent insider selling: There were no open-market insider purchases in 2026. Officers and a director sold shares throughout the year, including the CEO’s 120,000-share 10b5-1 sale on 9 Sep 2026.
• Dilution keeps coming: The ATM raised $346.7m in 2025, the government is now taking shares, and the RGTIW public warrants ($11.50 strike) remain outstanding until around Mar 2027. The share count keeps growing.

3. Business Segments

Rigetti reports a single operating segment. It discloses revenue by category, shown below for FY2025 from the Form 10-K revenue note.

Segment / category	% of revenue (FY2025)	What it is
Collaborative research and professional services	94.2% ($6.68m)	Milestone-billed R&D contracts with government and corporate customers such as AFRL, DARPA, the DOE, Innovate UK/NQCC and C-DAC
Access to quantum computing systems	5.8% ($0.41m)	Cloud access to Rigetti hardware through Rigetti Quantum Cloud Services (QCS), Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure Quantum and qBraid
Collaborative research materials and sales of quantum computers	0.0% (FY2024: $2.39m, 22.2%)	Sales of on-premises Novera 9-qubit QPUs, full systems and components

The mix changed sharply in 2026. According to coverage of the Q2 2026 Form 10-Q, sales of quantum computers and components were about $7.1m of H1 2026 revenue, against zero in H1 2025, while research and professional services fell to about $2.3m. The 10-K warns that a small number of customers account for a large share of revenue, so one system acceptance can move a whole year’s revenue.

4. Business Model & Moat

How it makes money. Rigetti has three revenue streams:

• Multi-year research contracts, recognised as milestones are met.
• One-off sales of QPUs and complete systems, recognised on delivery and acceptance and worth several million dollars each.
• Usage-based cloud access.

Gross margin was 29.1% in FY2025 and improved to 42.6% in Q2 2026 as hardware sales grew. Operating expenses are about $30m a quarter, so the company remains heavily loss-making at the operating level.

The moat. Rigetti is one of very few quantum companies that runs its own superconducting chip fab. That lets it iterate chiplet designs quickly. Its modular tiling approach has taken it from 9 to 36 to 108 qubits. The Quanta Computer partnership signed in Feb 2025 covers non-QPU components such as control systems and dilution refrigerators: each party committed at least $250m over five years, and Quanta bought about $35m of stock. The CHIPS agreement adds US government funding and ties the company more closely to domestic supply-chain policy.

Where the moat is thin. Scale and fidelity are where the competition is decided, and Rigetti trails in both. IBM, Google and well-funded trapped-ion and neutral-atom rivals have published bigger systems or better error-correction results. The CHIPS deal also brings obligations: government march-in rights over IP developed with the funding, and restrictions on dealings with foreign entities.

5. Financial Health

All annual figures below come from Rigetti’s earnings releases and Form 10-K filings, cross-checked against SEC XBRL company facts. Revenue has been small and lumpy. GAAP results swing widely because warrant and earn-out liabilities are revalued at fair value each quarter, so operating loss is a better guide to the underlying business.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021‡	$8.2m	n/m (11-month period)	$(1.64)	$(1.64)†	Nil	$24.2m
FY2022	$13.1m	+59.9%‡	$(0.70)	$(0.70)†	Nil	$20.6m
FY2023	$12.0m	−8.3%	$(0.57)	$(0.57)†	Nil	$9.9m
FY2024	$10.8m	−10.1%	$(1.09)	$(0.29)	Nil	$0m (notes repaid)
FY2025	$7.09m	−34.3%	$(0.70)	$(0.16)	Nil	$0m

† Rigetti did not report a non-GAAP EPS figure for FY2021 to FY2023, so the GAAP figure is repeated in those rows. ‡ FY2021 covers 11 months (1 Feb to 31 Dec 2021) after Rigetti changed its fiscal year end, so FY2022 growth is measured against a shorter period.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026	$5.14m	$(0.05)	$(0.16)
Q1 2026	$4.40m	$(0.04)	$(0.06) diluted; $0.10 basic because of a $53.7m warrant gain
Q4 2025	$1.87m	$(0.03)	$(0.06)
Q3 2025	$1.95m	$(0.03)	$(0.62), including a $182.0m warrant loss
Q2 2025	$1.80m	$(0.04)	$(0.13)
Q1 2025	$1.47m	Data not available	$0.13, driven by a warrant and earn-out gain
FY2025 total	$7.09m	$(0.16)	$(0.70)

Cash flow, FY2025 (Form 10-K):

• Operating cash flow: −$58.5m
• Capital expenditure: $18.7m
• Depreciation: $8.2m

Trailing twelve months to 30 Jun 2026 (FY2025 less H1 2025 plus H1 2026):

• Operating cash flow: −$60.7m
• Capital expenditure: $26.9m
• Free cash flow: about −$87.6m
• Operating loss: $97.2m
• Depreciation: $9.9m

Balance sheet at 30 Jun 2026:

• Cash and equivalents of $27.8m, plus $365.9m of current and $147.6m of non-current available-for-sale securities.
• No borrowings.
• Liabilities of $110.8m, of which $78.4m is a non-cash warrant liability.

6. Valuation

Raw metrics, October 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$4.68bn (9 Oct 2026 close $14.03, ~333.8m shares); ~$4.79bn including the 7.74m Department of Commerce shares
Enterprise value	~$4.14bn (market cap ~$4.68bn + total debt $0 − cash and investments $541.3m, from the 30 Jun 2026 balance sheet)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	n/m: trailing net loss of $238.7m (Q3 2025 to Q2 2026). Not meaningful on adjusted earnings either, which are also a loss.
P/E (forward)	n/m: the company has given no earnings guidance and remains loss-making
P/S (TTM)	~351x (market cap ~$4.68bn / TTM revenue $13.35m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	n/m: TTM EBITDA is about −$87.2m (operating loss $97.2m + depreciation $9.9m)
P/FCF	n/m: TTM FCF is about −$87.6m (operating cash flow −$60.7m − capex $26.9m)
52-week high	$58.15 (14 Oct 2025)
52-week low	$12.53
Short interest (% of float)	18.99% (62.36m shares, settlement date 15 Sep 2026, MarketBeat)
Days to cover	3.8

The $58.15 high drops out of the 52-week window after 14 Oct 2026. Because GAAP earnings and cash flow are negative, price-to-sales and enterprise value against cash are the only multiples that can be calculated here.

7. What Are They Building

Cepheus-1-108Q. This system is built from twelve 9-qubit chiplets. It became generally available on 7 Apr 2026 through QCS, Amazon Braket, Azure Quantum and qBraid. In Aug 2026 the company reported about 99.1% median two-qubit fidelity, about 99.9% single-qubit fidelity and roughly 60ns gates. Lifting fidelity towards the 99.5% target is the main near-term engineering milestone.

Fidelity roadmap. The current scaling target is about 1,000 qubits at ~99.9% two-qubit fidelity with gates under 50ns, over roughly three years from Aug 2026. The Nov 2025 roadmap had aimed for 150+ qubits around end-2026 and 1,000+ around end-2027. The Q2 2026 release did not repeat the 150+ qubit target.

CHIPS-funded R&D. The Commerce agreement funds three projects:

• Miniaturised readout electronics
• A new cryostat architecture
• High-connectivity chip fabrication

These target the wiring and cooling limits that hold back superconducting systems at scale.

On-premises systems. Current system work includes:

• A 108-qubit system for C-DAC in Bengaluru, due for deployment in H2 2026.
• Upgrading the UK NQCC system to 36 qubits with Riverlane error correction.
• Novera QPUs for Japan, Saskatchewan and the NSF-funded TangleLab at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
• A plan to invest up to $100m in a UK system of more than 1,000 qubits over three to four years.

8. Peer Comparison

Peer	Market cap (October 2026)	Key 2025 metric
IonQ (IONQ)	~$15.2bn (9 Oct 2026, MarketBeat)	FY2025 revenue $130.0m (+202%); net loss $510.4m; FY2026 guidance $225–245m (IonQ Q4 2025 release)
D-Wave Quantum (QBTS)	~$5.39bn (9 Oct 2026, MarketBeat)	FY2025 revenue $24.6m (+179%); gross margin 82.6%; cash $884.5m (D-Wave Q4 2025 release)
Rigetti Computing (RGTI)	~$4.68bn (9 Oct 2026, MarketBeat)	FY2025 revenue $7.09m (−34.3%); $541.3m cash and investments at 30 Jun 2026, no debt
Quantum Computing Inc. (QUBT)	~$1.68bn (9 Oct 2026, MarketBeat)	FY2025 revenue about $0.68m (Zacks summary of Q4 2025 results)
IBM (IBM)	~$213.8bn (9 Oct 2026, MarketBeat)	FY2025 total revenue $67.5bn (IBM Q4 2025 release); does not report quantum separately and is in DARPA QBI Stage B

Among listed quantum pure-plays, Rigetti has the smallest revenue apart from QUBT, but its cash pile is about 12% of its market cap. Commerce’s September 2026 CHIPS round reportedly gave $100m awards to Rigetti, D-Wave and Quantinuum and left out IonQ.

9. Insider Activity

CEO Dr. Subodh Kulkarni sold shares under a Rule 10b5-1 plan in September 2026. Form 4 filings show no open-market insider purchases in 2026. Several of the sales below are sell-to-cover trades for tax on vesting awards.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Subodh Kulkarni (President & CEO)	09 Sep 2026	Option exercise and sale	120,000 sold (150,000 options exercised at $0.96)	$15.68	~$1.88m	10b5-1 (adopted 10 Jun 2026)
Jeffrey Bertelsen (CFO)	03 Sep 2026	Option exercise and sale	25,000	$15.00	~$0.38m	10b5-1 (adopted 4 Jun 2026)
Andrew Bestwick (CTO)	18 Aug 2026	RSU award	750,000	n/a	n/a (grant)	16 quarterly instalments from 20 Nov 2026
Andrew Bestwick (CTO)	20 Aug 2026	Sale	5,791	$16.81	~$0.10m	Sell-to-cover for tax
Jeffrey Bertelsen (CFO)	20 Aug 2026	Sale	3,860	$16.89	~$0.07m	Sell-to-cover for tax
Ray Johnson (Director)	22 Jun 2026	Sale	84,944	$20.55	~$1.75m	10b5-1
Ray Johnson (Director)	08 Jun 2026	Sale	122,188	$21.28 (avg)	~$2.60m	10b5-1
David Rivas (then CTO, now COO)	29 May 2026	Option exercise and sale	499,328	$25.40	~$12.68m	Discretionary (10b5-1 box not ticked)

David Rivas’ $12.7m sale in late May was the largest insider sale of the year. After it he reported 325,945 shares still held. Kulkarni reported 140,411 shares held directly after his September sale.

10. Key Risks

• Technology execution: The 108-qubit system arrived late and remains below its 99.5% fidelity target, and the 1,000-qubit timeline has already slipped. Further delays would undermine the roadmap that justifies the valuation.
• Customer concentration and lumpy revenue: A few customers make up most of revenue, and system revenue is recognised on acceptance. A delay at one customer, such as the C-DAC 108-qubit acceptance, can move a large share of annual revenue into a different year.
• Cash burn and dilution: Trailing free cash outflow is about $88m. Past funding came from ATM programmes and private placements, the government is now taking 7.74m shares, and the warrants and equity awards add to the share count.
• Government funding conditions: CHIPS tranches depend on milestones and can be clawed back. The government also gets licence and march-in rights over funded IP, and foreign-entity restrictions apply. Rigetti is not part of DARPA QBI Stage B.
• Competition: IBM, Google and the hyperscalers’ quantum programmes, as well as IonQ, D-Wave, Quantinuum and neutral-atom start-ups, all compete for the same research budgets and early enterprise demand.
• Accounting volatility: Warrant fair-value changes moved GAAP results by $182.0m in Q3 2025, $53.7m in Q1 2026 and $29.6m in Q2 2026. This makes reported EPS hard to read and compare.
• Share price volatility: The stock has traded between $12.53 and $58.15 over 52 weeks, and short interest is about 19% of float. Moves of this size are common for speculative quantum stocks.

11. Recent Developments

• 09 Sep 2026 — CEO sells under 10b5-1 plan. Subodh Kulkarni exercised 150,000 options and sold 120,000 shares at about $15.68, roughly $1.88m, under a plan adopted on 10 Jun 2026.
• 08 Sep 2026 — $100m CHIPS definitive agreement. Rigetti signed the Other Transaction Agreement with the Department of Commerce on 4 Sep 2026. It covers up to $100m in three tranches, with $43.9m available first. A securities issuance agreement gives the government 7,739,938 shares.
• 20 Aug 2026 — Director resignation. An 8-K disclosed that director Ray Johnson would leave the board effective 28 Aug 2026, and said the resignation was not due to any disagreement.
• 19 Aug 2026 — Leadership reorganisation. Rigetti set up a Systems Delivery organisation. David Rivas moved from CTO to the new COO role and Andrew Bestwick became CTO, effective 18 Aug 2026.
• 06 Aug 2026 — Q2 2026 results. Revenue was $5.14m (+185% YoY) and gross margin 42.6%. The operating loss was $28.1m and GAAP EPS $(0.16). Cash and investments stood at $541.3m. Management restated a target of about 1,000 qubits at ~99.9% fidelity over roughly three years.
• 27 Jul 2026 — HPE and Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. The collaboration was expanded: a 9-qubit Novera system will go into the NSF-funded TangleLab hybrid quantum-classical testbed.

12. Key Dates

• Expected Nov 2026 — Q3 2026 results. Not yet confirmed by the company; Q3 2025 was reported on 10 Nov 2025.
• 14 Nov 2026 — Closing date of DARPA’s 2026 QBI programme announcement. DARPA has said more teams may advance later.
• 20 Nov 2026 — First quarterly vesting instalment of CTO Andrew Bestwick’s 750,000-RSU award.
• Expected Dec 2026 — Delivery and acceptance of the C-DAC 108-qubit system in India. The company guided to H2 2026 and expects the revenue in Q4 2026.
• 03 Mar 2027 — Expected expiry of the RGTIW public warrants ($11.50 strike), according to secondary listing data.
• Expected Mar 2027 — FY2026 results and Form 10-K.

The dates for the CHIPS tranche 2 and 3 milestone reviews have not been disclosed. You can follow the share price on ChartsView Live Charts, check macro release dates on the Economic Calendar and discuss the quantum sector on the ChartsView Forum.

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