Insights|
Lakestar, Walden Catalyst and Dealroom launch the 2026 European Deep Tech Report
The report aims to align Europe's definition of Deep Tech, examine the characteristics and recent trends of the European ecosystem, dive deep into key areas of Deep Tech, and lay out ways Europe can enhance its global competitiveness.
Access the report
Deep Tech is more important than ever before
Scientific and engineering breakthroughs have changed our lives immeasurably over the last century and even within the last 30 years as advances in telecoms, robotics and AI make their way from labs into homes and workplaces. Looking forward, disruptive innovations are needed more than ever to solve global challenges like climate change, resource scarcity or looming demographic and productivity crises.
In this year's report, it becomes clear that Europe has all ingredients across talent, market opportunity and capital to build generation-defining Deep Tech champions. The report also presents updated funding data across all sectors, illustrating that the value of European Deep Tech companies now stands at $690bn, with companies like Helsing and Synthesia driving recent growth. The typical European Deep Tech founder has a technical background, at least a master's degree and is 35 years old.
The report dives deep into all key segments of Deep Tech: Novel AI, Future of Compute, Novel Robotics, Computational Biology & Chemistry, Novel Energy, Space Tech and Defence. It not only shares recent funding trends, but also explores key technologies with explanations by domain experts.
On top of that, the report provides valuable resources for technical founders supporting them on their capital raises, like a data room template or pitch deck checklist.
The four main challenges
To build a thriving European Deep Tech ecosystem, the report identifies four main challenges:
- The growth-stage funding gap: Beyond Series A there is not enough capital in Europe to fund businesses locally. As a result, companies raise smaller rounds, sell, or take capital from overseas that often results in a shift in the "geographic centre of mass" of the business away from Europe.
- Fragmentation: Europe suffers from high-friction, fragmented regulation across countries while lacking the power of concentrated talent clusters.
- Researcher to Founder: More needs to be done to turn European research excellence into high-quality startups.
- Risk appetite: European corporates and governments need to work more closely with startups and embrace risk to drive success.
The report concludes by clarifying common Deep Tech misconceptions.
