German chemical giant BASF Group is among a group of investors in quantum computing start-up company Zapata Computing, the company's venture capital arm announced on Wednesday.

BASF joined a financing series led by Comcast Ventures and Prelude Ventures, together with new and existing investors including Pitango Ventures, Pillar Venture Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital and The Engine.

Zapata Computing announced to have raised 21 million U.S. dollars in the round of financing.

According to Zapata CEO and co-founder Christopher Savoie, Zapata's quantum software platform was successfully "delivering real world advances in computational power for applications particularly in chemistry, machine learning, and optimization".

"We are happy to support this promising start-up. Zapata is positioned to add value to a wide variety of industries, including chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automotive, aerospace, and finance," said Markus Solibieda, Managing Director at BASF Venture Capital.

With Zapata's quantum computing, BASF is hoping to better investigate complex questions and to further shorten the time it takes to launch new products.

Quantum computing is a next generation approach to computation that utilizes the laws of quantum mechanics to increase the speed of certain calculations. While quantum computing has great potential, it is currently limited by the pace of hardware development.

"Quantum computers will solve problems that classical computers haven't been able to. But as it is still early, the best and brightest minds are needed to drive algorithms and software vital to fuel commercial applications," commented Gil Beyda, Managing Director of Comcast Ventures.

Zapata, which was spun-out of Harvard University in 2017, and announced to use the funds raised to expand its scientific team and further develop its software platform to meet growing customer demand.