EWVC July: 🦾 Hardware, robotics, and science-backed technologies

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Quote of the day: "If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat!"— Sheryl Sandberg, Businesswoman.

Europe’s tech scene is shifting. For the first time, Deep Tech - science- and engineering-driven innovation - has overtaken AI as the top focus for investors. Recent data confirms this shift.

We explore the current dynamics of Deep Tech and hardware, highlighting why investors are prioritizing these complex, tangible innovations, and how AI is evolving from a standalone (vertical) focus to an enabling (horizontal) force throughout the deep tech ecosystem.

Deep Tech is the genesis of venture capital and has historically been fundamental to regional sovereignty by catalyzing technology megatrends. Although its development typically requires higher initial capital, this investment is primarily directed at building robust Intellectual Property (IP) moats that act as significant barriers to entry for competition. This approach allows for accelerated revenue growth once the technology matures.

Deep Tech portfolios have shown to outperform conventional tech portfolios, offering a hedge against momentum investing. Contrary to common perception, Deep Tech companies do not fail more frequently than others; their failure rates are comparable, albeit with a distinct risk profile focused on scientific uncertainty rather than market competition. Europe, with 6 of the top 20 universities and 9 of the top 25 research institutes globally, is strategically positioned to lead in this area.

For the first time, Deep Tech & Robotics (6.7%) has surpassed AI & Machine Learning (6.3%) as the sector attracting the most interest from venture capital investors in Q2 2025 surveys. This is a significant inflection point, indicating a broader focus beyond purely software solutions towards complex, hardware-based innovations that solve real-world problems.

While AI funding remains massive globally (an estimated $40 billion in Q2 2025 alone, representing nearly 45% of all global funding), its role is evolving. AI is increasingly perceived as a ubiquitous enabling technology - a "new backbone" - rather than the sole investment focus. The emphasis has shifted towards applied AI, where it solves specific industry problems and acts as an integral enabler within Deep Tech companies. For instance, advanced AI tools, including Transformer models, are now applied in robotics, biotechnology, and new material design (Source: Dealroom DeepTech Report) .

The line between AI and Deep Tech is fading. Investors now favor hybrid models that merge hardware or science with advanced software, offering strong moats and solving real-world problems.

DeepTech funds, due to greater resilience in market cycles, have shown better return profiles.

Here are some of the influential female founders and investors driving innovation in robotics today.

🇩🇪 Hélène Huby, co-founder of The Exploration Company, a space tech startup developing reusable spacecraft and space logistics solutions to advance sustainable exploration beyond Earth.

🇪🇸 Carla Gomez Cano, Co-founder of Theker Robotics. Company specialized in robotics, deep learning, and computer vision. It has the capability to design, manufacture, and comprehensively market all types of autonomous machines or robots for process automation within the industrial sector.

🇨🇭 Camilla Mazzoleni, Co founder of Xelerit, startup working on industrial automation using a suite of three AI agents: one to connect your hardware together, one to convert your ideas into industrial-grade code and another to test, simulate and debug your code before you push it live.

🇳🇴 Karen Dolva, Co-founder and former CEO of No Isolation, the award-winning telepresence robot helping children with long-term illness stay connected to school. Raised over €5M and backed by Idekapital. Named one of Europe’s Top Innovators by Forbes and BBC 100 Women.

💡 Europe's venture landscape, in particular, is betting on Deep Tech as a path to technological sovereignty and economic resilience. Investors are seeking companies that combine scientific breakthroughs with strong commercial potential, demonstrating that patience and a focus on fundamental, difficult problems can yield significant returns.

Are you an LP or a GP looking to make an impact through gender-smart investing? This is your opportunity to join the movement shaping the future of equity and inclusion in Europe.

What: EIF’s flagship event on gender-smart investingWhen: 15 October 2025Where: Chambre de Musique – Philharmonie, Luxembourg City

Carolina Brochado, the former Atomico partner and most recently a partner at SoftBank Vision Fund’s London office, has joined EQT to help launch a new fund dedicated to growth-stage investments (read more on Techcrunch). That means she is overseeing almost $4B in venture capital to deploy across every stage. That makes her now one of the most powerful women in European VC (source: Bryce Keane linkeidn post)

Julia Hartz co-founded Eventbrite in 2006 to empower small event creators and grew it into a global ticketing platform serving 180+ countries. She led the company through its IPO in 2018 and emphasizes impact over financial metrics. As one of few female tech founders, she built a diverse leadership team and board. In 2024, she was appointed Executive Chair while continuing as CEO.

👉 Read more here.

🇩🇪 Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund announces first close of Female Catalyst Fund II at €26M! The European Investment Fund (EIF) has joined as an anchor investor, alongside Aurum Impact, Cherry Ventures, Speedinvest, and others. The fund maintains its investment thesis and invests exclusively in early-stage startups in Europe that have at least one female founder holding at least 20% of the founders share.

👉 Read more here.

🇪🇸 Nzyme — Kibo Ventures’ private equity initiative announced the successful €160M final close. Target: B2B software and services firms with €1M+ EBITDA or ~20 employees, operating in traditional, fragmented sectors.

👉 Read more here.

🇫🇮 Kvanted is dialing up its industrial tech focus with the arrival of two new Venture Partners: Mårten Mickos and Antti Vasara.

🚀 Mårten is the force behind MySQL AB, one of Europe’s earliest unicorns. He spent two decades in Silicon Valley building disruptive and category-defining companies with community-based business models🧪 Antti bridges scientific research and industrial application, having served as President and CEO of VTT, and held leadership roles at Nokia, McKinsey, and various positions of trust in Finland and EU.

👉 Learn more here.

🇳🇱 Invest-NL has invested €7.5 million in SHIFT Invest IV. This fund focuses on accelerating sustainable innovations in energy, mobility, agrifood, and the circular economy. The first closing of the fund has reached €92 million, with plans to reach a total of €150 million.

👉 Read more here!

This new fund is already showing strong momentum with its first investments scaling at more than a 50% YoY revenue pace. The firm expects to reach a final close of at least €1 billion within the next year.

👉 Read more here.

🇳🇴 Nordic venture capital firm Alliance VC, co-founded by Stine Mølgaard Sørensen and Bente Loe raises €40M for AI-focused Fund II to back early-stage European tech companies and purpose-driven founders with global ambitions

👉 Read more here!

Industry: DeepTech | Location: 🇪🇸 Spain | Funding: €21M

Spanish robotics startup Theker has closed a $21M funding round to accelerate the development of its autonomous mobile robots for industrial use. The round was led by Kibo Ventures, with participation from Inditex, Kfund, JME, Itnig, MissionTech, S16VC, and several prominent business angels. This marks a major step in backing next-gen robotics from Spain’s deep tech ecosystem.

👉 Read more here.

Industry: XR / Deep Tech | Location: 🇦🇹 Austria | Funding: €10M Growth round

Austrian startup Hololight, co-founded by Susanne Haspinger, secured €10 million in a round led by Cipio Partners to scale its XR pixel-streaming platform - powering industrial AR/VR applications with cloud-rendered performance.

👉 Read more here.

Industry: AI | Location: 🇬🇧 UK | Funding: $13M Seed round

UK-based Gradient Labs, co-founded by Danai Antoniou, just closed a $13 million round led by Redpoint Ventures. Their AI agent powers next-gen customer service, blending LLM smarts with enterprise-grade reliability.

👉 Read more here.

🇬🇧 London-based Punto Health, a HealthTech startup innovating dementia care, has received €100k plus a year-long mentorship program from Rubio Impact Ventures and NN Group. Founded by Anna Muñoz Farré and Jack Eckersley, Punto Health leverages AI to provide personalized, proactive support for families navigating dementia care. Huge congratulations to the whole team!

👉 Read more here!

Figma has acquired Payload (portfolio company of Exceptional Capital), the open-source TypeScript CMS known for its flexibility and developer-first approach. The Payload team will now help expand Figma’s developer platform, while continuing to support the CMS and its community. This move signals Figma’s deeper push into structured content and extensibility - giving developers more power to build within its ecosystem.

👉 Learn more here.

We were proud to join investors, and ecosystem leaders for the launch of the latest Investing in Women Code report at the 🇬🇧 House of Commons.

📣 During the event, we heard about the British Business Bank £500M commitment to diverse and emerging fund managers - additional £50M (bringing its total to £100M - to the Invest in Women Taskforce funding pool and £400M through the Investor Pathways Capital initiative)

Together with Laura Gonzalez-Estefani, founder & CEO of TheVentureCity, Geri Kirilova, Partner at Laconia and moderator Iwona Cymerman, Founding Partner at FundingBox Deep Tech Fund, and EWVC member, we’ll discuss Investing and Divesting across the Atlantic

​​Details:🗓️ Date: 5 September 2025⏰ Time: 13:00 GMT+2

Register here: https://lu.ma/u0zjcjri

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