IonQ to buy cybersecurity firm Elisity for up to $1.3 billion

IonQ said Monday it will acquire Zero Trust cybersecurity company Elisity in an all-stock deal valued at up to $1.3 billion, including up to $150 million in performance earnouts, with closing expected in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Why it matters: The deal pairs IonQ's post-quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution with an enterprise security business serving more than 100 global deployments, a bet that customers will pay for quantum-era defences before quantum computers can break today's encryption.

Data as of Monday, October 12, 2026. Company announcement opened and read in full; deal terms corroborated by Reuters; afternoon share move per CNBC, read in full via browser. Developing item, 2 to 3 sentences by design.

IonQ, the quantum computing company, announced a definitive agreement on Monday to buy San Jose based Elisity, founded in 2019, in stock priced off a 20 day average at closing, collared between $33.07 and $49.61 per IonQ share. Elisity sells identity based microsegmentation software, has more than 100 global customer deployments, and says it has doubled revenue and customers year over year with no churn among deployed customers.

Elisity chief executive James Winebrenner will keep leading the business after closing, which needs regulatory approval. IonQ chief executive Niccolo de Masi argued the moment when quantum machines can break widely used encryption is arriving faster than predicted, and the market marked the deal down: IonQ shares fell 2.7 percent in premarket trading per Reuters and were down more than 9 percent in Monday afternoon trading per CNBC, with peers Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum also lower.

IonQ to buy cybersecurity firm Elisity for up to $1.3 billion

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