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DEALMAKERS By Ged Henderson
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
MAKING A QUANTUM LEAP
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Ilyas Khan’s route to billionaire status has taken him from a two-up-two-down house in east Lancashire to New York, via Hong Kong, Cambridge and Accrington Stanley.
The 63-year-old native of Accrington has made headlines this summer, with media outlets reporting how he is now one of Britain’s richest tech entrepreneurs after the quantum computing company he founded went public.
The listing in June initially valued Quantinuum at more than $15.6bn after it sold 28 million shares at $60 each. And according to reports Ilyas, who owns around 15 per cent of the business and remains as its chief product officer, was worth around $2bn as a result.
The former friend of the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, Ilyas celebrated the successful public offering of the business, now trading on the Manhattan based NASDAQ exchange, with a walk in Central Park.
It’s all a far cry from Ilyas’ early years. The son of a bus driver from Kashmir, he has described his family’s circumstances when he was a child – living in a house with a number of others - as “challenging”, adding in an interview with Lancashire Business View in 2012: “Which I think is the politically correct way of putting it.”
The young Ilyas did well academically, graduating from the University of London in 1984, before joining asset management firm Schroders and embarking on a career in investment banking.
In 1989 he moved to Hong Kong and eventually set up private equity and venture capital firm Stanhill Capital Partners in 1998.
With its headquarters in London and offices in Cambridge and Hong Kong, Stanhill invests in the technology, consumer brands, oil, gas, metals and mining sectors. The firm invests in seed capital, expansion capital, buyouts, turnarounds, and pre-IPO.
His other business interests over the years have included companies operating in the gold fields of Columbia. And his CV also includes an interesting spell as chairman of Accrington Stanley, stepping in when his home town club was almost wound up over a £308,000 tax bill in 2009, and departing from the role in 2013.
Speaking while still in the chairman’s role, he told Lancashire Business View: “I’m really proud to be a Lancastrian and Accringtonian and one of my ambitions is to help rebuild pride in the town through success at Stanley.”
The next stage of his journey saw him set off in an entirely different direction from the world of sport. He forged a path as a highly-successful tech entrepreneur, becoming a fellow of the University of Cambridge’s St Edmund’s College and its Judge Business School along the way.
Away from business he has also held roles including chairing health and welfare charity Leonard Cheshire, one of the world’s largest, and was the inaugural chairman and a trustee of the Stephen Hawking Foundation.
Quantinuum was created in 2021 when American multinational conglomerate Honeywell’s quantum unit, based in Colorado, merged with Ilyas’ startup, Cambridge Quantum Computing, the business he founded in 2014.
Honeywell had previously backed his business,
which wrote software for quantum computers, and invested $300m as part of the merger.
It became the first quantum computing company to access the public market through a traditional IPO – a deal described as a “significant milestone” for the industry.
The business remains focus on its mission – “to accelerate quantum computing and use its power to positively transform the world.”
In a statement issued on the day of the listing, it said: “We believe the full impact of what our technology can achieve will extend far beyond today’s identified use cases, reshaping industries and redefining what is computationally possible.”
The emerging field of computer science and engineering uses principles from quantum mechanics to process information at top speeds.
Posting on LinkedIn, Ilyas said of the successful Quantinuum listing: “When I founded, almost exactly 12 years ago, Cambridge Quantum, it was an adventure in conviction and trust.
“That conviction and trust has grown and blossomed due to the hard work and commitment and support of my colleagues, my shareholders and my family.
“Now, as we start a new part of this brilliant and always rewarding journey, I wake up more excited and more rejuvenated than ever.
“I will have a nice morning off in New York, walk in Central Park, soak in the unique buzz of this great city, and then back to work supporting my brilliant CEO Rajeeb Hazra and my inspiring
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