D-Wave Quantum: Institutional Money Piles In Even as the Income Statement Lags the Order Book

D-Wave's bookings soar 1,120% to $35.5M, but Q2 revenue misses estimates. BlackRock and BofA increase stakes despite insider selling.

The gap between what D-Wave Quantum is selling and what it is actually billing has rarely been wider — yet the investor base around the quantum computing specialist keeps thickening. Shares last changed hands at €18.11, roughly 4.8% below the 200-day moving average, a technical signal that suggests the market is still weighing whether the company's explosive bookings growth will eventually translate into revenue.

That tension was on full display in the second-quarter report. D-Wave posted revenue of $3.1 million and a per-share loss of $0.13, both missing consensus estimates that had called for $4.03 million in sales and a loss of $0.08 per share. The counterweight came from the bookings line: first-half orders reached $35.5 million, a staggering 1,120% jump year over year.

BlackRock and Bank of America Deepen Their Stakes

The earnings miss did little to deter large institutional holders. BlackRock disclosed in late July that it now controls 8.30% of the company, a position of roughly 30.5 million shares. Bank of America, meanwhile, expanded its stake by 10.5% during the first quarter to about 3.9 million shares, valued at approximately $56.1 million.

The buying was broad-based. Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position by 64.7% in the first quarter, while Amundi added 32.5%. Anderson Hoagland & Co. opened a fresh position of around 64,000 shares in the second quarter. The accumulation stands in sharp contrast to the insider activity: CEO Alan E. Baratz sold roughly 688,000 shares in June at an average price of $26.13 under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, trimming his direct stake by just over 17%.

More recently, insider selling has continued across the executive suite. Over the past 90 days, company leaders have disposed of shares worth a net $1.74 million. Baratz's mid-July transaction was tied to tax obligations from vesting restricted stock units — a mechanical event rather than a discretionary bet against the company — and CFO John Markovich and insider Sophie Ames also saw sales triggered by RSU vesting. Still, the aggregate outflow is hard to ignore at a moment when management is courting fresh institutional capital on the conference circuit.

A Canadian Grant and a Physics Milestone

Amid the financial noise, D-Wave has been quietly stacking up validation from outside the public markets. The National Research Council of Canada has committed up to 300,000 Canadian dollars to fund development of graph-embedding algorithms for the Zephyr chip topology. Those algorithms are destined for the open-source Ocean software kit, the developer ecosystem D-Wave is trying to cultivate around its Advantage2 annealing systems. It is infrastructure spending — not immediate revenue — but it extends a pattern of public-sector partnerships that have become a hallmark of the company's recent trajectory.

The scientific front delivered as well. A paper published in Nature detailed a fast, high-precision two-qubit entanglement gate with 99.9% accuracy, built on a superconducting dual-rail qubit architecture. The stated goal is to reduce the hardware burden required for fault-tolerant quantum systems. Early August also brought a partnership with Nasdaq Verafin aimed at using quantum-hybrid technology to flag fraud and money-laundering patterns in financial services.

Conference Season and a Move to Florida

Management will have two high-profile opportunities to press its case in the coming weeks: the Needham semiconductor conference on August 20 and the Deutsche Bank technology conference on August 27 in Dana Point, California. These appearances come as the company confirms plans to relocate its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Boca Raton, Florida, by the end of 2026.

The stock has shown resilience despite the mixed signals. It has recovered 7.4% since the earnings release and gained 14.8% following the expanded AT&T collaboration announced roughly two weeks ago. Over the past 30 days, the shares are up 14%, though they remain 20% below their level at the start of the year and roughly half their 52-week high of $40.41 set in mid-October. Annualized volatility stands at 104%, and the relative strength index of 53.4 points to a market catching its breath rather than positioning for a decisive move in either direction.

For investors, the central question remains whether the bookings surge — the 1,120% first-half jump — will begin showing up as recognized revenue in coming quarters. The institutional buyers who have been steadily accumulating shares appear to be betting that it will. The income statement, for now, is still waiting for the order book to catch up.