Shankar Menon is Co-Founder and CEO of CavilinQ, a quantum hardware startup building the interconnect layer that unifies isolated quantum processors into a single distributed computing system.

Shankar pursued a PhD in quantum science and engineering at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, where he conducted pioneering research in the lab of Prof. Hannes Bernien on combining trapped atom arrays with photonic devices.

As a Polsky Commercialization Fellow and George Shultz Innovation Fund finalist, Shankar translated deep academic research into a commercial venture, co-authoring published work in Nature Communications and arXiv on quantum network nodes.

Shankar co-founded CavilinQ alongside Brandon Grinkemeyer (CTO) and scientific advisors Mikhail Lukin (Harvard) and Hannes Bernien (UChicago), bringing together world-class expertise in cavity QED, quantum networking, and photonic interfaces.

CavilinQ raised an $8.8M seed round led by QVT Financial LP with participation from Safar Partners, MFV Partners, Serendipity Capital, and Harper Court Ventures, and has demonstrated near-million finesse optical cavities validated across multiple wafers at high yield.