If you think attracting investment is tough for a regular startup, imagine for a moment what it’s like for a deep tech founder.
You’ve developed a groundbreaking technology, often the result of years of R&D and lab work. Now you’re thrust into the world of corporate investment and venture capital, tasked with securing funding so that your long-built solution can finally see the light of day.
Your product is so complex that perhaps only a handful of people besides you truly understand how it works. Yet your challenge is to explain it clearly and persuade someone – who hears startup pitches every hour – that your solution is exactly where they should invest their millions.
Beyond securing investment, deep tech founders must put in immense daily effort to carve out their market niche, commercialize their solutions, and grow their companies – often while working against economic and political odds.
It sounds disheartening, doesn’t it? And yet, some leaders do make it through. Grit, resilience, and an unshakable belief in their solution are essential.
Through my work with the EIC Scaling Club’s Communications team, I’ve had the opportunity – and the honor – to speak with many such inspiring founders, leaders, and innovators. Their products span very different industries, and each of them has its own unique path to success. But they share something in common: all of them once stood at square one, starting from scratch with nothing more than an idea.
To inspire other European deep tech entrepreneurs, I asked ten executives from a range of successful deep tech companies to share their most important scaling lessons. Some are just starting to commercialize, others are steadily scaling, and a few may even be on their way to unicorn status. But they all have advice worth hearing – so read on and be inspired!
Keep a strict focus on your strengths and market segment
Marton Pap, Sales Director at ElevenEs (Serbia)
“I think it’s very important to stay focused. Most startups have limited resources, limited number of people, limited funds, so it’s crucial to identify where our key advantages lie, the market segment we can serve, or the technology we can best develop, and to really focus on that. Of course, we have to keep the flexibility for pivot, but it’s important not to focus on too many things.”
Remember that it’s about the service, not the technology
Mariano García Orgiles, Investor Relations Lead, PLD Space (Spain)
“Deep techs need a lot of funds to develop. But you cannot forget that you are a service company. Often, scale up companies are just raising funds to finish the technology, with no specific strategy. But the technology doesn’t really matter if your service is not on point. Once you’ve finished building — and the funding dries up — you’ll simply be outperformed by your competitors.”
Make the most of equity-free financing to build your company
Ninna Granucci, Co-founder and President, Green Spot Technologies (France)
“Try to take as much advantage as you can of non-dilutive money. As a deep tech company, you will need money to grow, especially if you are industrial like we are. So really take advantage of EIC [funding]. I mean, all that non-dilutive money that’s available will help quite a lot in being able to attract the right people to the company.”
As you’re scaling, keep your team aligned
Mylene Bosio, VP Sales and Marketing, Aldoria (France)
“It’s very important to have a strong and aligned leadership team [..] and make sure that everybody’s on board, and everybody understands what the company is willing to do in terms of meaning and vision. [..] We have people of different ages and we need to make sure that everybody understands the goal of the company and the outcome of it, and knows exactly what we need to do.”
Think global from day one
Jordi Martorell, CEO & Co-founder, Aortyx (Spain)
“The market is global. Don’t only focus on the States or only on Europe – there are opportunities everywhere. As Europeans, we have a very significant number of hurdles that are not elsewhere, but we’re also given support systems that are not elsewhere. [..] So think globally and use these resources smartly everywhere in the globe, and don’t get obsessed by one market in particular. There are opportunities around the globe, and you need to try to tailor and stitch them and bring the puzzle pieces together to make it work and use the best of each system to your advantage.”
Add a dual-use dimension to your innovation
Ivar Kruusenberg, CEO & Founder of PowerUP Energy Technologies (Estonia)
“European deep tech startups should start looking beyond their narrow domain and should start looking at how we can solve our common European challenges – defence, space, health. I strongly recommend that deep tech companies look more into dual use applications.”
Always keep your mission in mind
Karl Bergman, CEO, Elypta (Sweden)
“Developing an entirely new biomarker [..] is quite capital-intensive, and requires a lot of different competences to master. And that’s really challenging for a startup, resource-constrained almost all the time. That’s always been a challenge: how to be able to deliver within those frames.
What’s helped us is to have our unique approach and the mission to achieve the biggest impact we can as a group on enabling earlier detection of cancer. It really pulls people together. [..] We decided early on, when we were only four employees, to start the largest study of all time in diagnostics in kidney cancer. And that became the gravity, which attracted money and talent, and we’ve been able to execute on that since then.”
Keep having backup plans
Roope Takala, Chairman & President, Aurora Propulsion Technologies (Finland)
“As a deep space company, you should always have a plan B, and when that fails, plan C, D, etc. Keep on having backup plans because the stamina you need to become successful is immense. There will be black spots coming along, in our case, one was Covid, the other one was the war in Ukraine. In both cases, the fundraising closed for almost a year. So, having backup plans on how to survive these oddball events is very important.”
Build a strong team and a clear strategy from day one
Patrik Strömberg, CEO, AnaCardio (Sweden)
“[..] Don’t shy away from building a strong team. In the early days [..] when I was actually the sole employee of AnaCardio, I built a team of very experienced consultants so that we could manage to take our concept to patients. Building on that, you should also do all the strategic stuff and the governance in a very professional way right from the start. If you do that, then you can have a nice story to fit into your financing and fundraising strategy and have a clear business plan with inflection points [..] and build for the future. So instead of having a scattered strategy initially, I think you should have a very clear path already from the start.”
Be patient: deep tech takes time, but builds lasting advantage
Andris Krasovskis, CFO, NACO Technologies (Latvia)
“Deep tech founders need to be patient – you can’t count on as quick results as you might get in software business. You have to invest in actual CapEx, and in building the machines and all the hardware. It also takes time to go through the various stages with the clients. But once you get there, the [unique nature of deep tech] technology itself is very protective and provides a strong foundation for a sustainable and profitable business, because in order to catch with it, you need all this time and resources.”
Final words
As you can see, deep tech founders offer very diverse advice on how to succeed in this challenging market and industry. Yet many share the same message: stay resilient, be patient, and push through the obstacles that come your way. Let this be your guiding light in the rough seas of deep tech financing and scaling.
