Investor FAQ
About Delta Gold Technologies
1What is Delta Gold Technologies?
Delta Gold Technologies plc (“Delta Gold”) is a London-listed technology company focused on developing intellectual property (IP) for the quantum computing sector, with current work centred on nano-scale gold and other advanced materials. Rather than trying to build a quantum computer, the Company funds and licenses university research aimed at one of the field’s hardest problems: creating a qubit — the basic unit of quantum information — that is both stable and manufacturable at scale. The Company was incorporated in early 2025 and admitted to trading on the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market in December 2025.
Source: Delta Gold RNS, 'About Delta Gold Technologies' section ↗; Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗.
2Is Delta Gold a publicly listed company, and how can I invest?
Yes. Delta Gold trades on the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market in London under the ticker DGQ, following an IPO in December 2025. It has since extended its quotation to the OTCQB Venture Market in the United States (DGQTF) and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (O2J), broadening access for international investors while keeping its primary listing in London. The Company’s business is the IP itself — funding university research and holding the exclusive rights to license what it produces — a licensing model that distinguishes it from the quantum companies building machines. The Company has also been approved under the UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), which can offer tax reliefs to qualifying investors, subject to individual circumstances.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗; RNS, “First Day of Dealings” ↗ and RNS, “OTCQB Application Underway” ↗.
3What is Delta Gold’s business model, and how does the revenue work?
Delta Gold earns revenue by licensing university-developed intellectual property to industry and retaining 98.5–100% of the resulting fees or royalties. The model runs in five steps — fund university research, take exclusive global ownership of the resulting IP, protect it with patents, license it to industry, and collect recurring fee or royalty income — and two agreements underpin it today.
Under the University of Toronto Technology Licence Agreement, the Company holds a 100% exclusive global licence over the developed IP and retains 98.5% of net sales, with a 1.5% royalty to the university and no threshold. Under the Penn State agreement, the Company again holds a 100% exclusive global licence and retains 100% of the first US$20 million of cumulative net sales, with a 1% royalty to the university applying only above that level.
Because the university royalties are small — and, in Penn State’s case, begin only above a $20 million threshold — the large majority of any future licensing revenue would flow to the Company. The Company describes this as a “fund → own → protect → license → royalties” pathway with minimal royalty leakage.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗
4Which universities does Delta Gold work with, and why those?
Delta Gold works with the University of Toronto in Canada and Pennsylvania State University in the United States — two institutions with world-class strength in exactly the disciplines this work requires: nanotechnology, materials science, chemistry and quantum physics. Penn State is a leading US research university with particular strength in materials science, and the University of Toronto is one of the world’s top universities and home to its Centre for Nanotechnology. The Company describes the strategy as building a cross-border “Centre of Excellence” in quantum computing research, and intends to add further university partners over time.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗; and RNS “Penn State University News Release re Sponsorship Agreement” ↗.
5Who leads the scientific research behind Delta Gold?
Two principal investigators lead the work. Professor Kenneth Knappenberger is Head of the Department of Chemistry and a professor of chemistry and physics at Penn State; he leads a research group focused on the optical, electronic and spin properties of structurally precise nanomaterials, with particular emphasis on gold nanoclusters, and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers. Professor Harry Ruda holds the Stan Meek Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of Toronto, earned his PhD at MIT, held an IBM postdoctoral fellowship, served as Director of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Nanotechnology, and has more than 250 publications and 14 patents.
Their approaches are complementary because they tackle the same gold material from the two directions a working quantum device needs. Professor Knappenberger works optically — reading and transferring a qubit’s state as emitted light — while Professor Ruda works electronically, through transducer structures that address the qubit by electrical means. A practical quantum technology needs both a way to manipulate quantum information and a way to read it out and network it. Pursuing two approaches to the same material gives Delta Gold more than one route to a result and a richer understanding of the science behind it.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗
6What intellectual property does Delta Gold currently hold?
Delta Gold’s IP portfolio currently comprises of the rights to one provisional patent application arising from a University of Toronto discovery — “Novel transducer structures for quantum devices” — and three full patent applications filed by Penn State covering the use of gold and other materials for their quantum-mechanical properties in sensing, computing and information processing. The Company works with international IP firm Haynes Boone to prosecute and protect its patents. Its stated priorities are to expand this patent portfolio, advance the science toward working prototypes along each programme’s published five-step milestone map, and sign the first industry licensees.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗; RNS, “Provisional Patent filed following University of Toronto Research Team Discovery” ↗ and RNS, “Penn State Files Three Patent Applications Related to Delta Sponsored Research” ↗.
The science: gold, qubits and quantum computing
7What is a qubit, in plain terms?
A classical bit of information is like a settled coin — it is either a 1 or a 0, and each bit holds one value at a time. A qubit is the quantum equivalent, but it behaves more like a spinning coin: through a property called superposition it can represent 0 and 1 at once. When qubits are “entangled,” they spin together, multiplying the number of combinations the system can hold simultaneously. The practical result is that, instead of checking possibilities one at a time, a quantum computer can explore an enormous number of them at once — but only if each qubit is stable and reliable enough to compute with.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗.
8Can gold really be used to build qubits?
Published research shows gold exhibits the key properties a qubit needs — whether it can be engineered into working quantum devices is the question Delta Gold’s two research programmes, one optical and one electrical, are designed to answer. The work at Penn State centres on atomically precise gold nanoclusters: tiny clusters of a few dozen gold atoms that behave like a single “super-atom,” whose electron spin can store quantum information and announce it as emitted light. This builds directly on Professor Knappenberger’s research group there, which has reported an exceptionally high degree of spin-polarised light emission from these clusters — a company-announced figure of around 40%, described by the team as the highest of its kind they are aware of.
Two features make gold unusual: that emission is tunable across different frequency windows, and the clusters can be produced at gram scale. As Penn State summarises it, gold nanoclusters show “the same key properties as the current state-of-the-art methods for quantum information systems, but with the added benefit of scalability and tunability.”
In parallel, and with equal weight in the Company’s research plans, Professor Harry Ruda’s programme at the University of Toronto works with nano-scale gold in a different form — engineered into layered, solid-state structures whose quantum information is addressed and manipulated electrically, rather than read out with light. This electronic route aims at superconducting circuits made from an engineered gold layer — a company-stated research aim, not a demonstrated result — and it is already the source of the portfolio’s first confirmed invention, the provisionally patent application “Novel transducer structures for quantum devices.”
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) [/assets/docs/Delta-Gold-Corporate-Presentation-Aug-2026.pdf]; RNS “Penn State University News Release re Sponsorship Agreement” ↗; Prof. Knappenberger’s published research (2025) ↗.
9What are the two hardest problems in quantum computing — and how does gold address them?
The two hardest problems are stability — a qubit must hold its quantum state reliably — and scalability — useful work needs very large numbers of qubits working together. Delta Gold’s thesis is that gold may deliver both at once, combining the intrinsic stability associated with atoms with the manufacturability of a bulk material, because the useful properties are engineered into every cluster or layer rather than left to chance.
The field has so far been caught between the two demands. As Professor Knappenberger describes the trade-off:
“The thing that’s most stable is, like, gas-phase ions … very stable, because they’re dilute … and they’re not interacting. But you can’t make them scalable … And the things that are scalable are condensed-phase materials — but … when things become concentrated in the condensed phase, you get non-ideal behaviour, and that’s what introduces all of this noise. So they’re no longer stable.”
Both of Delta Gold’s research routes attack that trade-off in the material itself: the optical route engineers coherence by chemistry, tuning the molecular shell around each gold cluster, while the electrical route engineers coherence by topology, protecting quantum states through the global structure of engineered gold layers.
Source: Remarks by Prof. Kenneth Knappenberger, Delta Gold fireside chat, 17 July 2026 ↗.
10How is Delta Gold’s gold approach different from established methods like trapped ions or diamond?
Most existing platforms rely on a material as nature provides it. Trapped ions are extremely stable but hard to scale; diamond “nitrogen-vacancy” qubits depend on a rare defect that, as Professor Knappenberger notes, occurs in only about “one in 1,000” cases, creating serious supply-chain problems. Gold clusters are different because they can be engineered:
“Rather than relying on a defect that may happen, you built into the structure something that has a function that you want, then every one of the units is going to have the desired performance … you can … make things in bulk, at bulk levels.”
The ambition is a “tailorable platform, that can fit into many different spaces” — qubits effectively made to order for the application by adjusting the cluster’s structure.
The University of Toronto programme applies the same engineering philosophy in its own form — nano-scale gold arranged in engineered layers, aiming to protect quantum states through topology: the global properties of the system, rather than fragile local ones left to chance.
Source: Remarks by Prof. Kenneth Knappenberger, Delta Gold fireside chat, 17 July 2026 ↗.
11Why does chemistry matter in a field dominated by physics?
Delta Gold’s distinctive angle is that chemistry — designing and tuning a material atom by atom — may be exactly what the field has been missing. As Professor Knappenberger puts it:
“Chemistry hasn’t been used yet, really, in this field. It’s been dominated by physics and materials science. But really, the way that you tailor things is inherently [chemistry]. So an example I like to make is: if someone gave you some food, but you could never season it — hopefully you like it, because that’s what you get. But it’s through, like, cooking, in a sense, that you can really sort of refine the properties. And I think that’s what chemistry can do here.”
In practice this tunability works on more than one level. The frequency of the light a cluster emits can be adjusted by changing its structure; and the qubit’s coherence — how long it holds its quantum state — can be extended by stiffening the molecular “ligand” shell around each cluster so that less of the stored energy leaks away as vibration. Because this is chemistry, the clusters can also be made in quantity — the synthesis is straightforward enough to be carried out by first-semester undergraduate students.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗; remarks by Prof. Kenneth Knappenberger, Delta Gold fireside chat, 17 July 2026 ↗.
12Is gold a genuinely new “modality” for quantum computing?
Delta Gold presents its gold work not as an incremental tweak to existing approaches but as a distinct new modality — a different starting point from the neutral-atom, trapped-ion, superconducting and photonic platforms the industry usually discusses. Behind it sits a specific, hard-won scientific insight into why gold’s physical characteristics make it a candidate to host a qubit at all — understanding that very few people in the world currently hold. As Professor Ruda described the origin of the electrical route at the Company’s July 2026 fireside chat: “there’s actually something really interesting about the electronic structure in this material, and I think we could use it to do quite a different approach to information.” And on the depth of the insight itself, he noted, there is “a really good reason” gold works this way — “and there are three people in the world that know that reason.” That depth of understanding, combined with the patents now being filed around it, is precisely what gives the Company a genuine first-mover position and a barrier to entry.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗; remarks by Prof. Harry Ruda, Delta Gold fireside chat, 17 July 2026 ↗.
Market, investment and outlook
13How big could the quantum computing market become?
Independent analysis suggests the prize is very large. McKinsey’s Quantum Technology Monitor 2026 estimates that quantum computing could deliver $1.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion in economic value to companies worldwide by 2035. Quantum computing companies already generated more than $1 billion in revenue in 2025, which McKinsey suggests could grow to as much as $4.4 billion by 2028. Governments are investing heavily alongside industry: the UK’s National Quantum Strategy (2023) committed £2.5 billion to quantum over ten years from 2024. Delta Gold’s aim is to license its IP to the companies competing for that revenue.
Source: McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor 2026 ↗; HM Government, National Quantum Strategy (March 2023) ↗; Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗.
14Has quantum computing intellectual property proven commercially valuable?
Yes. In 2025, IonQ acquired the UK start-up Oxford Ionics for around US$1.1 billion — a materials and control-technology acquisition, and a live example of intellectual property in this field commanding ten-figure value. The public markets already assign multi-billion valuations to pure-play quantum companies — IonQ itself carried a market capitalisation of approximately US$18 billion in August 2026 — reflecting the premium placed on quantum platforms and IP even at an early stage. McKinsey similarly notes that first movers who secure defensible IP stand to gain a lasting advantage. Delta Gold’s entire strategy is built around establishing that kind of ground-floor IP position early, at the fundamental materials layer.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗, comparable companies (Yahoo Finance, 24 August 2026); McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor 2026 ↗.
15Does Delta Gold’s value depend on a full quantum computer — or are there nearer-term applications?
Delta Gold’s value does not depend on a universal quantum computer arriving. Quantum sensing is the nearest-term commercial pathway: because a gold qubit is an extremely sensitive detector, it points to practical uses such as medical imaging, mineral exploration, navigation and battery diagnostics well before large-scale computing is solved. This is by design: each research route follows a published five-step milestone map with a quantum sensor as its first planned product part-way up the ladder — an optical quantum sensor on the Penn State route, a topological quantum spin sensor on the University of Toronto route — so commercially relevant results do not wait on the full device. Quantum communication — the networking layer every platform will eventually need — is a second, nearer path. And because the Company’s model is to own and license IP, value can accrue at each step along the way: as patents are granted, as working prototypes are demonstrated, and as the first licensees sign — not only at the finish line. As the Company puts it, even being close to a breakthrough can hold considerable value given the intensity of research investment across the sector.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) ↗.
16Why might Delta Gold’s early stage be an opportunity for investors?
Delta Gold offers early, focused exposure to frontier technology — the kind of ground-floor position that is rare in public markets. Its IP-licensing model means it does not have to win the race to build a quantum computer itself; it needs its gold platform to prove valuable and its patents to hold, after which the IP can be licensed to many industry players at once. The upside is asymmetric: pure-play quantum peers already carry multi-billion valuations, and the Company holds EIS approval that can provide tax reliefs to qualifying investors.
The Company is also candid that this is early-stage science. Its gold results are research-stage and not yet independently replicated, it is not yet a working device, and success depends on research milestones being met, patents being granted and defended. The Company’s own view is that getting the fundamentals right is what ultimately creates durable value.
Source: Delta Gold investor presentation (August 2026) [/assets/docs/Delta-Gold-Corporate-Presentation-Aug-2026.pdf]