Lockheed Martin Ventures Backs Quantum Camera Startup Diffraqtion in Expanded Pre-Seed

Diffraqtion, a Massachusetts startup building quantum imaging cameras for space, announced more than $5 million in additional funding on Monday, more than doubling the pre-seed round it first closed in January. The new investment brings the company's total funding to over $10 million and adds Lockheed Martin Ventures and Sumitomo Corporation's Presidio Ventures to its backers.

The company emerged from stealth earlier this year with a $4.2 million pre-seed round that included QDNL Participations, milemark•capital, Aether VC, and ADIN, alongside a $1.5 million DARPA SBIR Direct-to-Phase II contract. The latest tranche extends that round rather than opening a new one.

Beyond Lockheed Martin Ventures and Presidio Ventures, new investors include SBI US Gateway Fund with Plug and Play, Collaborative Fund, and TekVentures. Diffraqtion is developing cameras that use quantum imaging and AI either to spot faraway objects or to see closer objects clearly with a much smaller lens, aiming to cut both processing time and cost.

"For as long as cameras have existed, seeing farther has meant building bigger optics," said CEO and cofounder Johannes Galatsanos. "Our cameras break that paradigm, delivering better mission capability at a fraction of the aperture, size, and cost."

Since coming out of stealth, the company has demonstrated its technology at a terrestrial observatory, secured a SBIR Phase I award from NASA for tracking space debris, and won NASA's Space to Soil Challenge, a competition in which companies designed small-sat missions using advanced computing to study the Earth. That win came with a $100,000 prize.

Lockheed Martin Ventures backing a quantum sensing startup at the pre-seed stage is an early signal of where one of the largest defense primes sees future sensing technology heading. Quantum cameras could eventually offer resolution or low-light imaging capabilities that are physically impossible with classical optics, with applications in both intelligence gathering and space observation. Catching the technology at pre-seed means Lockheed is committing well before it is proven at scale.

The latest funding will enable Diffraqtion to pursue flight heritage in orbit, with plans to launch a hosted payload on an unnamed spacecraft. To support the company through this phase, Peter Kazlas will join as head of engineering.