How do deep tech startups get funding?

Usually in layers. Grants and fellowships pay for early lab work without taking equity. Spinout funds and seed VCs back the first prototype. Larger VCs, corporate investors and public co-investors pay for scale-up. A first plant often adds project or venture debt. In our deep tech seed case, the $3M round paid for a first pilot and work towards a commercial plant.

Which grants can deep tech startups apply for?

In the US, SBIR and STTR awards pay for early research and prototypes, and a 2026 law renewed both to 2031. Agencies can also give breakthrough awards of up to $30M, matched dollar for dollar. In Europe, the EIC Accelerator offers grants of up to €2.5M, often with equity on top. Activate's fellowship gives US scientist-founders $300K+ over two years, for zero equity. Our non-dilutive funding guide compares the options.

How do university spinouts raise money?

First, the founders agree a licence and an equity split with the university. A 2023 UK review found top universities do most deals at 5–15% equity. Investors told the review that large university stakes make spinouts harder to fund. After the licence, spinout investors such as Oxford Science Enterprises and Parkwalk can back the company from seed. Grants often run alongside.

What do deep tech investors look for?

Proof that the risk is shrinking. Investors want to see what's proven today, at what scale, and what this round will prove next. Then they check the economics: unit cost at scale, the first plant's capex and the revenue it earns. Patents, licences and a team that has built hardware before come next. Our hardware financial model example lays out costs by stage.

How much does help with a deep tech raise cost?

Our fees are flat and agreed before work starts. An investor deck costs from $6,000. A financial model costs from $3,000, and a valuation from $5,000. There is no success fee on advisory work. For selected clients, we make warm introductions from our 200+ VC relationships. Introductions are never guaranteed, and we are not brokers. See pricing.

Home / Deep Tech

Industry: Deep tech

Deep tech venture capital

Deep tech raises in stages: grants for the lab, spinout and seed funds for a prototype, then bigger VCs and lenders. We build the case each of those funders checks.

Grants, spinout funds and deep tech VCs for materials, photonics and synthetic biology tools
Decks and models that tie each round to a technical milestone
Waveup prepares investor materials for deep tech companies: $3B+ raised for 600+ startups since 2014

Talk to us about your raise See related cases

In short

What is deep tech venture capital?

Deep tech venture capital is equity for startups built on new science or engineering. Think advanced materials, photonics and tools for engineering biology. It usually follows grants and lab money, and each round pays for the next technical proof. Dealroom counted $20.5B raised by European deep tech startups in 2025.

Who it's for: Materials, photonics, engineering biology and other science-based companies, pre-seed to Series D+
What we build: Investor deck, financial model, valuation, investor list, data room
Prices: Deck from $6,000, model from $3,000. Flat fees
Track record: $3B+ raised for 600+ startups since 2014

Market data checked on 8 November 2026. Sources are under each section.

How is deep tech funded differently from software?

It takes longer and costs more before the first sale, so no single type of investor covers the whole road. Founders stack grants, spinout funds, venture capital and, for a first plant, debt.

The opportunity

Deep tech is now an established asset class, and public money backs it at every stage.

Deep tech's share of all venture capital doubled to about 20% in a decade, BCG found in 2023
US agencies can now give breakthrough awards of up to $30M, matched dollar for dollar
UK universities' average stake in their spinouts fell from about 25% to about 18% in the decade to 2023

The problem

Money is pooling in the largest rounds. In the four quarters to September 2026, 73% of European deep tech VC went to rounds of $100M or more.

Sources: BCG, An Investor's Guide to Deep Tech, 21 Nov 2023 (asset class, share of VC); Congressional Research Service, 13 Jul 2026 (breakthrough awards); Independent review of university spin-out companies, 21 Nov 2023 (university stakes over ten years); Dealroom, Deep tech in Europe, updated 12 Oct 2026 (round sizes).

Market size

How much money flows into deep tech, and what drives it?

European deep tech startups raised $37.6B in the first nine months of 2026, Dealroom counts. That beats every full year in its data. Four forces push money in:

AI labs: Dealroom counts AI model makers as deep tech, and Mistral AI raised $3.3B in September 2026
Public co-investors: each euro the EIC Fund invests has drawn €3.5 from other investors
University labs: investment in UK spinouts reached £5.3B in 2021, five times the 2014 level
Exits: Dealroom has tracked 964 exits of European deep tech startups since 2019

VC for European deep tech startups: $8.7B in 2019, $20.5B in 2025 and $37.6B from January to September 2026.

Sources: Dealroom, Deep tech in Europe, updated 12 Oct 2026 (2026 to September, Mistral AI, exits); EIC Impact Report 2026, 4 Jun 2026; Independent review of university spin-out companies, 21 Nov 2023 (UK spinout investment). Chart: Dealroom, values as published in US$ billions, opened 8 Nov 2026.

Deep tech in 2026, in six numbers

131

European deep tech companies have reached a $1B valuation or exit, Dealroom counts

$1.2T

combined value of Europe's VC-backed deep tech companies founded since 1990

7.3%

of the world's deep tech VC in 2026 so far went to European startups, down from 21.8% in 2016

€15.5B

raised by companies backed by the European Innovation Council, its 2026 impact report says

$81B+

invested by US SBIR and STTR awards since 1982, in more than 34,000 small businesses

26%

average yearly return (IRR) of deep tech funds over five years, against 21% for other VC funds (BCG, 2023)

Sources: Dealroom, Deep tech in Europe, updated 12 Oct 2026 (unicorns, combined value, Europe's share); EIC Impact Report 2026, 4 Jun 2026; US Small Business Administration, 13 Apr 2026; BCG, 21 Nov 2023 (fund returns).

Venture capital

Where does deep tech venture money go in 2026?

Most of it lands in a few very large rounds, many of them for AI labs. Public investors are among the busiest backers: Bpifrance and the EIC Fund joined the most European deep tech rounds.

European deep tech VC by round size, four quarters to Q3 2026: 8% under $15M, 19% at $15M–$100M, 73% at $100M+.

$16.1B

raised by European deep tech startups in Q3 2026, a single quarter

274

European deep tech rounds joined by HTGF of Germany, the third most active investor after Bpifrance and the EIC Fund

€202M

set aside for equity in 38 EIC Accelerator companies in June 2026, beside €90M in grants

Sources: Dealroom, Deep tech in Europe, updated 12 Oct 2026 (chart: share of capital by round size; Q3 2026 total; most active investors by rounds joined); European Innovation Council, 15 Jun 2026.

Who invests in deep tech startups?

Hard-science and multi-stage VCs, university spinout investors, an EU grant programme and a US fellowship that takes no equity. For more names, see our list of deep tech and hard science venture capital firms. Chips and quantum have their own pages: semiconductors and quantum computing.

Cottonwood Technology Fund

Hard-science VC; Santa Fe and Denver (US), Amsterdam and Enschede (Netherlands)

Keiron Technologies, plasmotion, SmartNanotubes Technologies

1M–3M on average early; 5M–25M in B and C rounds

HTGF (High-Tech Gründerfonds)

Pre-seed to growth VC, Bonn (Germany)

Materials Nexus, Traceless Materials, Instagrid

First cheque of €800,000+; up to €30M in growth rounds

Oxford Science Enterprises

Investor and venture builder for University of Oxford spinouts, Oxford

Living Optics, Alloyed, Wild Bioscience

Pre-seed to growth

Parkwalk

University spinout investor, London; part of IP Group

Aqdot, Azul Optics, 8Power

Seed to scale

EIC Accelerator

European Innovation Council grants, often with equity, EU

Amatera Biosciences, COGNIBOTICS (June 2026 round)

Grant up to €2.5M, plus €1M to €10M of equity

Activate

Two-year fellowship for scientist-founders, US (Berkeley, Boston, Houston, New York)

Euler Materials, NeoOptics, Primary Bioscience (2026 fellows)

$300K+ over two years, zero equity

Sources: each firm's website, opened 8 Nov 2026: Cottonwood Technology Fund, HTGF (base from its contact page), Oxford Science Enterprises (type and stage from its home page), Parkwalk (type, owner and stage from its home page), EIC Accelerator (companies from its June 2026 results), Activate (companies from its 2026 cohort). Companies named are examples, not full portfolios. Search investors by sector in our investor database.

Investor database

Deep tech and hardware investors in our database

The funds with the most hardware investments. Pick a stage, or open a fund for its cheque sizes.

Top 5 by hardware investments

Investments by industry
Fintech & Financial services13%
Hardware. Robotics & IoT13%
Data & Analytics10%
Rounds
Pre-seedSeedSeries A
Average cheque
$0–$100K$100K–$500K$500K–$1M$1M–$3M
Based in
Singapore, Singapore
Invests in
Southeast Asia, Oceania, USA
560 investments in total, 14 tagged Hardware. Robotics & IoT.Open the full fund profile
Investments by industry
Software & Apps24%
Healthtech & Wellness14%
AI & Deep Tech10%
Hardware. Robotics & IoT9%
Rounds
SeedSeries ASeries BSeries C+
Average cheque
$1M–$3M$3M–$10M$10M–$50M
Based in
New York, United States
Invests in
USA
516 investments in total, 9 tagged Hardware. Robotics & IoT.Open the full fund profile
Investments by industry
Software & Apps24%
Healthtech & Wellness12%
Hardware. Robotics & IoT8%
Rounds
SeedSeries ASeries BSeries C+
Average cheque
$100K–$500K$500K–$1M$1M–$3M
Based in
Evanston, USA
Invests in
USA
150 investments in total, 9 tagged Hardware. Robotics & IoT.Open the full fund profile
Investments by industry
Software & Apps18%
Hardware. Robotics & IoT16%
AI & Deep Tech11%
Rounds
Pre-seedSeedSeries A
Average cheque
Not listed
Based in
Menlo Park, United States
Invests in
USA
27 investments in total, 7 tagged Hardware. Robotics & IoT.Open the full fund profile
Investments by industry
Healthtech & Wellness25%
AI & Deep Tech12%
Biotech10%
Hardware. Robotics & IoT8%
Rounds
Pre-seedSeedSeries A
Average cheque
Not listed
Based in
Austria
Invests in
Israel, Europe, USA
55 investments in total, 4 tagged Hardware. Robotics & IoT.Open the full fund profile

See all hardware investors Read our guide: Top Deep Tech & Hard Science VC Firms

From our investor database.

Where do deep tech raises get stuck?

Our Fundraising 2025 study asked 56 VCs why they pass: revenue growth, unit economics, burn and missed milestones led the list. Deep tech often has no revenue yet, so milestones and burn carry the pitch.

More time between rounds

Deep tech companies take 25% to 40% longer between funding rounds than other tech companies, BCG found. Each round has to buy more time.

What investors ask

What will be proven when this money runs out?

What your deck shows

A milestone map: proven today, proven by this round, proven next
Runway that survives a six-month delay in the lab

Hardware before revenue

More than 80% of deep tech ventures build physical products, BCG says. Pilot lines and first plants cost far more than code.

What investors ask

Who funds the pilot line and the first plant?

What your deck shows

Plant capex and revenue per plant near the front
A capital plan that names grant, equity and debt for each step

Public money can pause

The US SBIR and STTR programmes lapsed for six months, until a law signed on 13 April 2026 renewed them to 2031. It also adds security checks, and caps on proposals from fiscal 2027.

What investors ask

What happens to the plan if a grant arrives late, or not at all?

What your deck shows

A cash plan that still works if a grant slips six months
Grant milestones that match what your next VC will pay for

University stakes and licences

Just over 1 in 4 UK spinout founders said their university first asked for half the company or more. Top UK universities now do most deals at 5–15%, a 2023 review found.

What investors ask

How much does the university own, and what does the licence cost you?

What your deck shows

The cap table after the licence, with the university's stake
Licence terms: field of use, royalties and rights to improvements

Sources: BCG, An Investor's Guide to Deep Tech, 21 Nov 2023 (time between rounds, physical products); Congressional Research Service, 13 Jul 2026 (the lapse and P.L. 119-83, in force since 13 Apr 2026); Independent review of university spin-out companies, 21 Nov 2023 (founder survey, deal terms); our Fundraising 2025 study.

How we help you raise

Flat fees agreed before we start. No success fee on advisory work.

Your science, milestones and plant plan as one story an investor can follow.

Burn to each milestone, plant capex and grant timing, month by month.

A range you can defend before revenue exists.

Spinout funds, hard-science VCs and grant agencies matched to your stage.

Lab data, patents and licences, filed the way investors check them.

For a sale to an industrial or strategic buyer.

Who we are

Waveup is a London-based fundraising and growth advisory, working in 60+ countries and 90+ industries. Since 2014 we have built the decks, models, CIMs and valuations behind $3B+ raised for 600+ startups.

About us

Track record

$3B+

raised for 600+ startups

Decks

1,000+

decks since 2014

M&A

50+

M&A transactions supported, including 20+ exits

Deep tech

54+

deep-tech projects across 10+ verticals