A trio of atomic physicists from the Australian National University have raised $12 million for their start-up, which builds miniaturised quantum sensors for mining, underground resources exploration and navigation.

Nomad Atomics was founded by Kyle Hardman, Paul Wigley and Christian Freier, who worked at ANU on a post-doctoral research project in precision measurement, a niche subfield of atomic physics that uses atoms to make precise measurements of the world.