IonQ printed 71.6% more shares to buy its quantum empire. November reveals the next tranche.

A Korea deal lands on a balance sheet built from stock

IonQ▼−1.87% — IonQ, down 1.87 percent today announced on 21 September↗ a multi-year deal with Korea's SDT: the country's first Superion 256 system and silicon-vacancy quantum memory module, plus a Gumi plant to package that memory and assemble machines ¹². Deliveries are expected in 2027 ¹. SDT chief executive Jiwon Yune calls Gumi "a key operational hub for IonQ's global supply chain" ². The expansion runs on a balance sheet with one dominant input: IonQ's own shares.

The share count is the funding model

Since September 2024, diluted weighted-average shares have climbed from 214.31 million to 367.66 million, up 71.6% ³. That currency bought Oxford Ionics for roughly $1 billion in September 2025 and SkyWater Technology for $1.8 billion, closed 31 July, both paid mostly in stock ³. SkyWater's holders took about $741 million in cash plus roughly 24 million new shares, near 6% of the company ⁴.

The count has since flatlined between roughly 358 million and 369 million; the small dip into June is weighted-average timing, not retirement ³. At Investor Day↗, chief executive Niccolo de Masi was blunt: "we raised $3.4 billion last year" ⁵. Name the sides and the trade is one line: Oxford Ionics and SkyWater holders, and IonQ's cash account, took the value; existing IonQ holders supplied the currency ³⁴.

The cushion grows because the equity does

Cash and short-term investments rose from $2.03 billion to $2.12 billion in the second quarter while IonQ burned $113.97 million of free cash flow, after $159.39 million in the first ³. That closes one way only: financing arrived faster than cash left ³.

Twelve straight quarters of negative free cash flow sit alongside cash and equivalents climbing from about $37 million to $1.24 billion ⁶. The runway is not an asset. It is the dilution, parked in a cash account.

About $1.05 billion of it left at the SkyWater close anyway: $741 million to foundry holders, roughly $315 million to retire debt and cover deal costs, leaving about $2.0 billion pro forma ⁴⁷.

A third of the guidance is a foundry IonQ just bought

The bull case has receipts: $80.1 million of second-quarter revenue, up 287%, and $485 million of performance obligations against $122 million a year earlier ³. The Korea deal feeds the same stack, with first deliveries in 2027 ¹².

The September guidance lift is softer evidence. The new range of $450 million to $460 million↗ ⁸, up from $280 million to $290 million set in early August, is the third raise this year and the first that is consolidation rather than the quantum business beating its own forecast ⁹. Finance chief Inder Singh's bridge nets SkyWater's five stub months to about $170 million after eliminating roughly $70 million IonQ itself pays the foundry: more than a third of the total, on an organic rate still near 132% ³.

The cost side widened faster. Adjusted EBITDA was a $120.3 million loss for the quarter against $36.5 million a year earlier, and gross margin fell to 24.9% from 59.8% as hardware displaced cloud ¹⁰⁷. Management said it could not yet give combined-company EBITDA guidance, days after the close ³.

November counts the missing shares

SkyWater's 24 million shares sit in no reported count yet. They arrive with third-quarter results, due in November, alongside the first combined-company adjusted EBITDA guidance ³⁴. A foundry with thousands of wafers in production adds capital spending to a burn that stock, not earnings, has always covered ³.

The printing press has bought more than three years of runway and a manufacturing stack ³. November prices the next run.