D-Wave Quantum rises as Evercore ISI initiates with “outperform” rating, calling it a “leading play” in industry
D-Wave Quantum is up big on Wednesday after Evercore ISI initiated coverage on the annealing quantum specialist with an “outperform” rating and price target of $44, implying upside of nearly 96% from where the stock closed on Tuesday.
Analyst Mark Lipacis called it a “leading play as the computing industry sees its next Tectonic Shift to a Quantum Computing Era,” highlighting three key things the firm offers to investors:
First quantum company with commercial revenues;
It’s a full-stack play, with services, software, and hardware;
And the ample cash hoard to develop its technology and potentially pursue M&A opportunities.
After its Q3 earnings report, CEO Dr. Alan Baratz told us that bolstering the firm’s gate model system (as opposed to its annealing system, which is its strength) was a priority.
“With the roughly $830 million in the bank, we have the resources to be able to invest more in that program, both internal investment and through acquisition,” he said. “We have one customer who has said, when you have a gate model system, I want it. So it expands our TAM [total addressable market], and it allows us to further grow our revenue.”
While commercial opportunities for publicly traded quantum computing companies have been relatively limited to date, particularly outside of D-Wave, Evercore’s Lipacis argues it’s not too early to invest in the industry.
“Each successive Tectonic Shift in Computing surprised investors with new workloads, and created stock performance of 100x-to-1,000x for full-stack ecosystem leaders,” he wrote. “To be clear, with over 40 quantum companies competing and no clear-cut leaders, we expect a shakeout, but to capture full-alpha, history shows you need to get in 10-years before the Tectonic Shift actually happens.”
He thinks that D-Wave will capture 12% of a quantum computing market that BCG estimates will be between $15 billion to $30 billion by 2035.
