There is a category of European venture capital that is genuinely different from everything else: funds that invest in companies where the technology is hard, the development cycle is long, and the moat is rooted in physics or biology rather than network effects or brand. These are deep tech funds, and for most of the past decade they occupied a niche — respected but undercapitalised, appreciated but misunderstood by the LP community that writes the largest cheques.
Klaus Grössinger has been in this space for more than 16 years. As a Partner at Onsite VC — a pan-European early-stage fund built around what the firm calls exponential technologies — he has watched the European deep tech landscape transform from a cottage industry into one of the continent's most compelling investment theses. His view, sharpened by years of backing science-based founders from Innsbruck to the continent's research capitals, is that Europe's moment in deep tech is not a trend. It is structural.
The Exponential Technology Thesis
Onsite VC focuses on four sectors: quantum computing, synthetic biology, advanced computing and semiconductors, and dual-use technologies. These are not arbitrary choices. They are the categories where fundamental breakthroughs in science are compressing timelines from laboratory curiosity to commercial deployment — where exponential improvement curves are beginning to intersect with real-world infrastructure and industrial need.
Quantum computing is perhaps the clearest example. A decade ago, the question was whether fault-tolerant quantum computers would ever be built. Today the question is which industries — pharmaceuticals, logistics, financial modelling, cybersecurity — will be disrupted first, and at what speed. The companies building the middleware, the error-correction software, and the application layers on top of quantum hardware are largely European, and many of them are still at the stage where patient, scientifically literate capital makes the difference between scaling and stalling.
Synthetic biology presents a similar compression. The cost of DNA synthesis has fallen by orders of magnitude over the past decade. What was once a research laboratory tool is now a manufacturing platform — for pharmaceuticals, materials, food ingredients, and biosensors. European synthetic biology companies carry a structural advantage in regulatory credibility and in access to the industrial biotechnology supply chains that are concentrated in Germany, the Nordics, and the Alpine region.
The Founder Grössinger Backs
Grössinger's own background shapes his investment lens. Before joining venture capital full-time, he founded and ran a life sciences and chemistry research spin-off, navigating the path from academic prototype to commercial product. He knows what it costs — in time, capital, and organisational resilience — to move a science-based idea through the valley of death between proof-of-concept and market readiness.
This experience informs a preference for founders with deep domain expertise and a realistic view of development timelines. The founders Onsite VC backs are not building for the next funding round. They are building for the defensibility that only comes when the science is hard enough that competitors cannot simply replicate it with a larger team and a larger budget. In quantum and synbio, that kind of defensibility is achievable. It requires capital that understands the difference between a setback and a dead end — and that has the patience to stay in when others would exit.
Dual-Use and the European Strategic Moment
The dual-use dimension of Onsite VC's portfolio reflects a conviction that is increasingly mainstream in European policy circles but still underweighted in European venture capital: that the distinction between civilian and defence technology is collapsing. The sensors, the autonomous systems, the secure communications platforms, and the advanced materials that define next-generation defence capability are the same technologies that underpin civilian infrastructure, precision medicine, and industrial automation.
For Grössinger, this convergence is not a complication to be managed. It is a feature of the current investment environment that creates opportunity for funds willing to engage with it seriously. Europe's defence budgets are rising. Procurement processes are beginning to open to startups. And the political will to build sovereign capability in dual-use technology — rather than relying on US or Asian suppliers — is creating a demand signal that patient capital can be positioned to meet.
Klaus Grössinger joins Human × AI on May 19, 2026, in Vienna.