In Memoriam: Alexei Marchenkov

Alexei Marchenkov

We in the Activate community are deeply saddened by the passing of Alexei Marchenkov on January 31, 2023. He was 53.

Activate has supported over a hundred fellows since its inception, and each fellow has a story. Each took the bold move to launch a hard-tech startup—sometimes against incredible odds. But it’s hard to think of anyone whose decision was bolder than Alexei Marchenkov’s. 

A tenured position is the brass ring that scores of academics strive for, but after he’d achieved it, Alexei told us in this 2018 profile, he was restless. His heart was in R&D, and he wanted to make something that would solve hard problems. There wasn’t room for him to be a good professor and to be an inventor, so he set off to chase his dream, leaving his role as a tenured professor at Georgia Tech—and considerable job security—to invent a first-generation quantum computing system. Quantum computing fulfilled an intellectual need, but—for as much as he loved doing R&D—he also wanted to create an immediate impact. He subsequently created a startup, Bleximo, which develops superconducting application-specific quantum computers designed to enable companies to address urgent problems that are too complex for conventional computers.

Alexei and his daughter Anastasia Marchenkova were very close—he was not just a father but a mentor and guiding light. They even worked together. In a tribute to him, Anastasia explained that since the pandemic, she and her brother had been living with their father.

“When the pandemic began, he told me to ‘come stay for two weeks while we are on lockdown.’ That turned into three years because we had the best time being all together with the family, and I'm so grateful for all those times. Walking my dog Quarky every morning and evening together and talking. Sunday night was ribeye steak dinners and watching Star Wars or Marvel movies. Just recently over the holidays we watched Andor, and were excited that there was finally a good Star Wars series released! We had plans to see the new Ant-Man quantum mania movie. That one we loved so much, because of the father/daughter Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne duo. That was us. He was my world.”

She continues: “There's a picture of me climbing a cryostat at four years old, when we lived in Leiden, in the Netherlands. That's where my dad did his Ph.D. I remember his thesis defense, his advisor, Giorgio Frossati, and his wife so clearly. That's the environment I grew up in, which changed my future. No one, least of all my dad, ever told me I couldn't do science or tech–I was surrounded by PhDs, women in physics, computer science, and mathematics. At age 12 I finished reading all the books in my house, and my dad brought me home a Biology textbook from Georgia Tech, where he was a professor. I didn't realize until I was 12 or 13 that you didn't have to get a PhD because all our family friends had them! We moved to the US when I was seven. I'd go with my dad to work–he was a post-doc at UC Berkeley–and play with the electronics. We'd go to Caffe Strada in town, which was a walking distance from the physics lab. When we registered the domain name for Bleximo, we went to Caffe Strada. My dad called it his (0,0,0,0) - which was a The Big Bang Theory show joke - which he loved. It was his home base.”

“Cyclotron Road, Founder's Institute, and Activate truly gave us our start. It was a community of founders who could relate to the challenges of running a hard-tech startup. My dad and I would attend Activate demo days and picnics and connect with founders. I also know that even in the last weeks before he passed, he continued being a peer leader and mentoring other Activate companies. Someone mentioned that it was clear though he was super busy, he always would take the time to sit down with other founders and teach. At the core, he was a professor and that's what he loved.”

Alexei was born in Russia to two chemists who both worked in national laboratories developing nuclear technology for energy and industrial applications. He said he was always interested in what made things work.

“I had a natural curiosity towards math and I was interested in physics from very early on,” Alexei told us for this 2018 profile. “Partly, perhaps, because of a popular saying: ‘If it moves, it is biology; if it explodes, it is chemistry; if it does not work, it is physics.’ That was enough to get my interest, but also in physics you get to design, build, measure, calculate, find an explanation. And no other science, including chemistry, was mathematical enough for me.”

In expressing his condolences, Raj Bhakta, a fellow in our 2019 Cohort, shared his memory of Alexei and the impact he had—sentiments widely echoed throughout the Activate community: 

“Alexei was a brilliant scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur,” Raj wrote. “He was incredibly helpful to my journey as an entrepreneur. My utmost condolences go out to the family. His great legacy and the positive impact he's had on the world will live on forever.”

Alexei was a quiet leader in the Activate community. At a time when there was a lot of noise in the quantum computing space, he did not boast or shine light on bold claims. He committed himself to the work of tackling a very hard problem, but always showed a tremendous level of patience and a kind heart whenever people inquired about his company and technology. He also directly contributed to the Activate Fellowship by initiating an activity that has since become tradition as part of the fellowship onboarding experience: cohort colloquiums, wherein each new fellow shares their personal story and work passion. He was intent on building community across the fellows and finding ways to support each other. He will be greatly missed.

Alexei’s children have launched a fund to support funeral and memorial expenses, and to offset their educational and housing needs.