Today, 25.03.2026
Good morning, Human. The numbers dropped yesterday, and they tell a story worth sitting with: European deeptech companies backed by venture capital are now collectively valued at $690 billion. That figure, from the 2026 European Deeptech Report published by Dealroom, Lakestar, and Walden Catalyst, represents more than a milestone. It represents a structural shift in where capital believes the future lives.
The Big Picture
Deeptech investment in Europe reached $20.3 billion in 2025, capturing a record 32 per cent of all venture capital – more than double its share a decade ago. While overall tech investment remains below the 2021 peak, deeptech funding has seen only a modest decline, suggesting sustained investor confidence in hardware-heavy, research-intensive companies that take longer to build but are harder to replicate.
The report lands at a moment when geopolitical pressures are reshaping capital flows. Investment is surging into strategic areas: AI infrastructure, semiconductors, space, and defence. Europe hosts 30 per cent of the world's leading deeptech universities and produces twice as many science and engineering graduates as the United States. The talent has always been there. What's changing is the conviction of capital to keep that talent building in Europe.
Yoram Wijngaarde, founder and CEO of Dealroom, framed the tension clearly in the report: deeptech now captures nearly a third of all European venture capital, which would have been hard to imagine a decade ago. Yet investment still lags other markets, and there remains a clear shortage of domestic capital willing to back deeptech ventures to scale. Europe has the talent and the breakthroughs, but it cannot afford to lose momentum when it matters most.
The UK attracted the largest share of funding geographically, though the report emphasises that the ecosystem's strength lies in its distributed nature – from Munich's robotics clusters to Paris's AI labs to the Nordic semiconductor plays.
The Infrastructure Play
Two funding rounds from the past 48 hours illustrate where the deeptech thesis is landing in practice.
Norway's Lace Lithography closed a €34.5 million Series A led by Atomico, with participation from Microsoft's M12, Linse Capital, and Nysnø. The Bergen-based company is developing what it calls BEUV (Beyond-EUV) lithography – using helium atom beams instead of light to etch chip patterns at scales current technology cannot reach.
The numbers are striking. ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography tools use a beam of light approximately 13.5 nanometers wide. Lace's helium atom beam is about 0.1 nanometers – roughly 135 times narrower. As Reuters reported, this could enable chip designs ten times smaller than what is currently possible, potentially extending Moore's Law by a decade.
Lace has developed prototype systems and aims to have a test tool in a pilot fabrication plant by 2029. The company has now raised over €51.7 million total. The investment thesis here is sovereignty as much as technology: high-performance semiconductor production without reliance on advanced non-European nodes.
Meanwhile, Aachen-based INCIRT closed a €4.8 million round led by Lifeline Ventures with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds. The company is developing data converters capable of delivering up to 100 times faster data conversion than conventional approaches – not by chasing smaller manufacturing nodes, but through architectural innovation using intelligent parallelisation. The technology has already been implemented as a working silicon chip produced using 22-nanometer technology in Europe.
The Robotics Signal
Oxford spinout Stateful Robotics raised $4.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Amadeus Capital Partners and Oxford Science Enterprises, with participation from Stan Boland, founder of autonomous vehicle company Five (later acquired by Bosch).
The company is tackling what it calls the "stateless" problem in robotics. Despite rapid advances in AI, most robots treat each moment in isolation – they don't retain memory of past failures, recurring obstacles, or changing workflows. A blocked aisle, poor lighting, or a delayed delivery can halt operations because the robot has no context for what happened yesterday.
Stateful's platform maintains a continuous, shared memory of tasks, environments, and prior behaviour. This allows robots to recall what has happened before, anticipate what might go wrong, and adjust their actions accordingly. The company is led by CEO Kirsty Lloyd-Jukes, who previously led Latent Logic before its acquisition by Alphabet's Waymo in 2019.
The platform is already being tested with pilot customers in logistics and infrastructure. If successful, it could help shift the industry from isolated, task-specific machines to systems capable of learning continuously – a prerequisite for large-scale, dependable deployment.
The Sustainability Layer
Carbon management platform Zevero secured $7 million in new funding, bringing its total capital raised to $14 million. The round includes participation from Spiral Capital, Gazelle Capital, and Deep 30.
The timing matters. Sustainability reporting is undergoing a structural shift. Frameworks like the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards and Japan's SSBJ Standards are moving climate disclosure to the same level of rigour and governance long required of financial reporting. Carbon data is becoming a core input in operational and investment decisions, not just a compliance checkbox.
Zevero uses AI to automate emissions data collection across Scope 1, 2, and 3, building reusable datasets that inform ESG disclosures, product design, and sourcing decisions. The company recently acquired sustainability advisory firm Inhabit, adding hands-on delivery capacity to its software offering. Annual recurring revenue has grown 400 per cent year-on-year, with the customer base doubling.
The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is creating pressure on non-European suppliers to quantify and report embodied carbon – giving Zevero's Asia-Pacific expansion a structural commercial rationale.
The Numbers That Matter
$690 billion – Total valuation of VC-backed European deeptech companies, per the 2026 Dealroom/Lakestar/Walden Catalyst report
32% – Share of European venture capital flowing to deeptech in 2025, a record high and more than double the share a decade ago
$20.3 billion – Total deeptech investment in Europe in 2025
0.1 nanometers – Width of Lace Lithography's helium atom beam, compared to 13.5nm for ASML's EUV light
100x – Speed improvement INCIRT claims for its data converters versus conventional approaches
400% – Year-on-year ARR growth at carbon management platform Zevero
30% – Share of world's leading deeptech universities located in Europe
The Week Ahead
The deeptech report's release will likely generate follow-on analysis and commentary through the week. Watch for responses from national innovation agencies and sovereign wealth funds – the report explicitly calls out the shortage of domestic capital willing to back deeptech ventures to scale.
The Lace Lithography raise will draw attention to Europe's semiconductor sovereignty ambitions. With ASML's dominance in lithography and growing geopolitical pressure on chip supply chains, alternative approaches to advanced manufacturing are attracting serious capital and serious scrutiny.
The Thought That Lingers
There's a tension running through today's news that's worth naming. Europe's deeptech ecosystem is growing faster than the broader tech market. Capital is flowing to hardware, to research-intensive companies, to the kinds of ventures that take a decade to build. The talent is there. The universities are there. The regulatory environment, for all its complexity, provides a kind of legal certainty that increasingly attracts companies weary of chaos elsewhere.
And yet the report's authors felt compelled to note that investment still lags other markets, that domestic capital remains reluctant to back deeptech ventures to scale. Europe has the breakthroughs but cannot afford to lose momentum when it matters most.
The question isn't whether Europe can build world-class deeptech companies. The question is whether it can keep them. That's the conversation worth having – and it's exactly the kind of question that will be on the table at Human x AI Europe in Vienna on May 19, where founders, investors, policymakers, and builders will gather to work on what comes next.
Human×AI Daily Brief is compiled from Tech.eu, Dealroom, Reuters, EU-Startups, Sifted, TechFundingNews, and company announcements. This is meant to be useful, not comprehensive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the current valuation of Europe's VC-backed deeptech ecosystem?
A: According to the 2026 European Deeptech Report from Dealroom, Lakestar, and Walden Catalyst, VC-backed deeptech companies in Europe are now collectively valued at $690 billion. Deeptech investment reached $20.3 billion in 2025, representing 32% of all European venture capital.
Q: What is Lace Lithography's technology and how does it differ from current chipmaking methods?
A: Lace Lithography uses helium atom beams instead of light to etch chip patterns. Their beam is approximately 0.1 nanometers wide, compared to 13.5 nanometers for ASML's EUV lithography. This could enable chip designs ten times smaller than currently possible, potentially extending Moore's Law by a decade.
Q: What problem does Stateful Robotics solve?
A: Stateful Robotics addresses the "stateless" problem in robotics – most robots treat each moment in isolation without memory of past events. Their platform maintains continuous, shared memory of tasks, environments, and prior behaviour, allowing robots to learn from experience and adapt to disruptions without constant human supervision.
Q: How is INCIRT's chip architecture different from conventional approaches?
A: INCIRT develops data converters that achieve up to 100 times faster data conversion through architectural innovation using intelligent parallelisation, rather than relying on increasingly smaller and costlier manufacturing nodes. Their technology has been implemented using 22-nanometer European manufacturing.
Q: What is driving demand for carbon accounting platforms like Zevero?
A: Regulatory frameworks like the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, Japan's SSBJ Standards, and the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) are moving climate disclosure to the same rigour as financial reporting. Companies now need continuous, defensible carbon data for compliance, supply chain requirements, and operational decisions.
Q: What percentage of the world's leading deeptech universities are in Europe?
A: Europe hosts 30% of the world's leading deeptech universities and produces twice as many science and engineering graduates as the United States, according to the 2026 European Deeptech Report. This talent base is a key competitive advantage for the region's deeptech ecosystem.