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The funding, led by Green Sands Equity, propels the newly launched Good Chemistry out of its three-year incubation within 1QBit

Vancouver, BC, April 7, 2022--(T-Net)--The computational chemistry team founded within advanced computing software pioneer, 1QBit, announced this week that it is branching out from 1QBit and forming a new independent venture, named Good Chemistry.

Backed by Green Sands Equity (who led the funding round), Accenture, and WorldQuant Ventures, Good Chemistry says it is set to fundamentally change the way new materials are discovered and designed across a vast number of industries — including chemical, pharmaceutical, oil and gas, automotive, and academic research — by harnessing the power of computational and quantum chemistry and placing it in the hands of developers.

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) made a strategic investment in Good Chemistry as part of this seed financing round (through its Accenture Ventures arm).

Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Good Chemistry started off in 2018 as the incubated computational chemistry simulation division of 1QBit — the pioneering company in leveraging advanced computing for solving intractable computational problems — before branching out as its own company in 2021.

Through its active research, development, and industry collaborations over the last three years, Good Chemistry is already working with heavyweights including Dow, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DIC Corporation, and Microsoft — due in large part to its proprietary advances in computational chemistry and simulations, which have enabled the shift from the physical lab to the digital world, dramatically decreasing time to market, cost of development, and the amount of infrastructure previously required.

Three factors setting Good Chemistry apart are its use of multiple paradigms of technology; its inclusion of the developer community at large in their product development, in particular, those emerging at the intersection of quantum chemistry, software, and machine learning; and its interdisciplinary team of software engineers, computational and quantum chemists, machine learning scientists, and quantum computing scientists.

The Good Chemistry Company platform, QEMIST Cloud, combines cloud, AI, and quantum computing in an integrated platform designed for developers. The platform's engine enables faster, more accurate, and scalable ways to perform computational chemistry simulations.

Heading Good Chemistry's team is CEO and Founder, Arman Zaribafiyan, 1QBit's first hire and founder of its quantum simulation division, who holds a Ph.D. in quantum information from the University of British Columbia.

Good Chemistry's Scientific Advisory Board comprises some of the industry's top talent:

• Paul Zimmerman, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan and developer of the iFCI method, which is one of the core solvers in Good Chemistry's cloud-based computational chemistry platform, QEMIST Cloud.
  
  
• Frank Noe, Professor at Freie Universitat in Berlin, Germany, known for his pioneering work in applying machine learning across physical sciences, including chemistry and biophysics. He has made numerous contributions to the field, including his recent work on leveraging machine learning to perform high-accuracy quantum chemistry calculations.
  
  
• Isaac Kim, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. Isaac studies the structure of entanglement in quantum many-body systems that allows efficient simulation of such systems on classical and near-term quantum computers.

Arman Zaribafiyan, CEO of Good Chemistry Company (Photo Credit: 1QBit)

Arman Zaribafiyan, CEO of Good Chemistry Company said, "With our platform, we are re-imagining the way computational chemistry simulations are done. Simulating chemistry on computers will help drive faster, more accurate and more accessible materials innovation in the decades to come. With Accenture's support and collaboration, we will be able to explore the vastness of chemical space and enable rational materials design at scale."

"We have integrated some of the most critical technological advances of the last decade — such as cloud, AI, and the emerging quantum computers — into our platform, QEMIST Cloud," continued Mr. Zaribafiyan. "Our cloud-based developer platform is already capable of simulating unprecedentedly large simulations on the cloud with very high accuracy methods."

The team's deep multi-year collaboration with Dow has resulted in a number of scientific breakthroughs in high-accuracy simulations of material properties on quantum computers, which have landed both companies at the forefront of the materials design industry.

"Dow has enjoyed a great partnership with 1QBit's Quantum Simulation Division, now Good Chemistry, for several years," says David Parrillo, Vice President of Core R&D at Dow. "The partnership has enabled us to make significant progress in our journey towards the utilization of quantum computing technology for materials discovery and has led to the publication of several journal articles that explore the boundaries of quantum computing applications in materials discovery research."

Industrial users such as Dow and DIC Corporation are already using the beta version of Good Chemistry's quantum computing software development kit, and cloud-native developer platform, QEMIST Cloud.

"We are excited to officially announce the collaboration with Good Chemistry on the occasion of its launch," explains Toshiro Ariga, Executive Officer and General Manager of DIC's R&D Management Unit. "For chemical manufacturers, it is surely required to establish sustainable and clean material development methodology from a sustainable development goals perspective, as the application of quantum techniques with high-accuracy and high-throughput computations is one of its main solutions. We believe this collaboration will accelerate our novel material development."

The company has recently opened up access to new Beta users beginning in March, 2022. "Our initial studies have shown very promising results; we're excited to see what external researchers and developers can do with our platform now that we're making it available for beta release," says Good Chemistry's Director of Research and Development, Dr. Takeshi Yamazaki. QEMIST Cloud will be available to the broader public later in 2022. Researchers, developers and organizations who want to be considered Beta users can now sign up at www.goodchemistry.com.

"We're doubling down on the growth potential of quantum computing and uncovering new ways to navigate its potential while empowering our clients to confidently absorb and access this breakthrough technology," said Tom Lounibos, managing director, Accenture Ventures. "Simulating chemistry in this new way leverages easily and readily accessible computers on the cloud to perform simulations that were previously intractable even on expensive, high-performance computing environments. This brings a competitive advantage to clients and can change pharmaceutical drug discovery and more."

According to the Accenture Technology Vision 2022, 69% of global executives say quantum computing will have a breakthrough or transformational positive impact on their organizations in the future. Quantum is the pinnacle of next generation problem solving and Accenture and Biogen collaborated with 1QBit already to accelerate drug discovery, developing a proof of concept that validated a quantum-computing molecule comparison approach and building an enterprise-ready, quantum-enabled application with transparent processes that generates molecular comparison results with deeper insights about shared traits.

Carl Dukatz, global quantum computing lead, Accenture

Carl Dukatz, Accenture's global quantum computing lead said, "By building on and extending our relationship with 1QBit to the newly formed Good Chemistry Company, we are demonstrating our ongoing commitment to accelerating quantum computing innovation. We are witnessing the emergence of a new class of scalable cloud-based technology that is stretching the boundaries of what computers can solve. We recognize the potential of arming our clients with the next generation of chemistry, material science, and structural design."

Good Chemistry Company is the latest organization to join Accenture Ventures' Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program that connects emerging technology software startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps. Project Spotlight offers extensive access to Accenture's domain expertise and its enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.

Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

About Good Chemistry

Good Chemistry's mission is to enable high-throughput high-accuracy computational chemistry calculations to accelerate new material designs. Their proprietary QEMIST Cloud, a cloud-based computational chemistry platform, provides the building blocks for computational chemistry developers to build chemical simulation applications and workflows, using emerging algorithms in quantum chemistry, machine learning, and quantum computing.

Through simple, easy-to-use APIs, QEMIST Cloud provides access to computational chemistry tools with unprecedented scale enabled by the power of cloud. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Good Chemistry's interdisciplinary team comprises computational and quantum chemists, software developers, ML engineers and quantum computing scientists.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services — all powered by the world's largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 699,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at accenture.com and Accenture Ventures.

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