IonQ agrees to buy zero trust firm Elisity in stock deal worth up to $1.3bn

IonQ agrees to buy zero trust firm Elisity in stock deal worth up to $1.3bn

12 October 2026: IonQ, the US quantum computing company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Elisity, which sells identity-based network segmentation software, in an all-stock transaction valued at up to 1.3 billion US dollars. Up to 150 million dollars of that is an earnout that depends on how the Elisity business performs, and the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

Both companies have announced it: IonQ in a release from College Park, Maryland, and Elisity on its own home page.

How the price works

IonQ will pay in its own shares. The number issued will be set at closing from IonQ's volume-weighted average share price over the 20 trading days before the third business day ahead of completion, with that price capped at 49.61 dollars and floored at 33.07 dollars. The floor protects Elisity's holders if IonQ's shares fall before closing; the cap protects IonQ's existing holders if they rise. Taking the earnout out, the fixed part of the consideration is worth up to about 1.15 billion dollars, by our arithmetic from IonQ's figures.

What Elisity sells

Elisity, founded in 2019, enforces least-privilege access between users, devices, workloads and AI agents across an enterprise network without new hardware. Its IdentityGraph product pulls identity, asset and risk data from its own discovery and from partner tools, and a software policy layer uses existing switches and firewalls to enforce which identities may talk to which. Teams can simulate a policy before turning it on, which is the main obstacle in most segmentation projects.

IonQ says Elisity has doubled its revenue and customer base every year, has more than 100 customer deployments, a growing number of Fortune 500 customers and no churn among deployed customers. Those figures are IonQ's and are not broken down.

James Winebrenner, Elisity's chief executive, stays in charge of the business. "Our customers need to prioritize post-quantum cryptography initiatives while securing existing assets to keep essential operations running," he said. Niccolo de Masi, IonQ's chairman and chief executive, said: "Q-Day is coming much faster than predicted."

What Elisity customers should expect

IonQ's plan is to extend IdentityGraph with an inventory of the cryptography in use on a network and the risk attached to it, and to sell its post-quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution products through Elisity's enterprise and government channels. For current Elisity customers that points to a broader product rather than a replacement. Neither company has said anything yet about pricing, support terms or a change of contracting entity, and buyers renewing before the close may want those questions answered in writing.

The deal follows IonQ's purchase of the chipmaker SkyWater Technology, which de Masi cites as the model for this one.

Network security in our catalogue

Our network security software category lists six products, and our cybersecurity company category lists 325 firms. Neither IonQ nor Elisity is listed yet.

Company profile on TrustList: Elisity

Sources

• IonQ: IonQ to Acquire Elisity to Accelerate Zero Trust for the Quantum Era, 12 October 2026
• Elisity: home page announcement of the IonQ acquisition (read 2026-10-13), 13 October 2026
• FinTech Global: IonQ's $1.3bn Elisity deal targets the quantum threat era, 13 October 2026