Universities and research labs have long been Europe’s deep tech treasure trove. Now, academic spinouts have consolidated into a solid startup funnel worth $398 billion — and VC money is following.
According to Dealroom’s European Spinout Report 2025, 76 of these deep tech and life sciences companies have either reached $1 billion valuations, $100 million in revenue, or both. These include unicorns like Iceye, IQM, Isar Aerospace, Synthesia, and Tekever, which are now inspiring more funds to back university spinouts.
Just this month, two new funds emerged that will bring more funding to talent emerging out of European tech universities, while adding breadth to a pipeline currently topped by Cambridge, Oxford, and ETH Zurich.
PSV Hafnium, out of Denmark, recently closed its inaugural fund at an oversubscribed €60 million (approximately $71 million), with a focus on Nordic deep tech. With offices in Berlin and London, but also in Aachen, U2V (University2Ventures) is targeting the same amount for its first fund, of which it recently completed the first closing.
These two newcomers join the growing ranks of European venture firms that have university spinouts as a core part of their investment thesis. Pioneered by the likes of Cambridge Innovation Capital and Oxford Science Enterprises, which have now fully matured, this category has also diversified.
While it still mostly consists of funds backed by one or several universities and institutes, it now includes independent firms that simply see spinouts as potential fund returners — and rightly so. Oxford Ionics, acquired by U.S.-based IonQ, was one of the six spinouts out of Switzerland, the U.K., and Germany that delivered exits of more than $1 billion to their investors in 2025.
These exits come alongside increased amounts of funding. According to Dealroom, European university spinouts in deep tech and life sciences are on track to raise a near all-time-high $9.1 billion in 2025. This contrasts with overall VC funding in Europe, which is down nearly 50% from its 2021 peak.
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Large rounds closed in 2025 also reflect appetite for spinouts in sectors as varied as nuclear energy — Proxima Fusion — and dual-use drones — Quantum Systems, now valued above $3 billion. In many cases, these startups leverage research from specialized labs, which also explains why there is a long tail of European locations capable of producing spinouts.
Building relationships with hubs outside of Oxbridge and leading countries can also be a way for newcomers to differentiate themselves and find deals. “The Nordic’s research institutions hold extraordinary, untapped potential,” PSV Hafnium’s partners stated in a press release.
PSV Hafnium itself is a spinout from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), but is also making early-stage investments in other Nordic countries. One of its nine checks to date went to SisuSemi, a Finnish startup leveraging a decade of research at the University of Turku to bring new surface cleaning tech to the semiconductor industry.
It is good news for teams like SisuSemi that there is more funding available to them. It also comes in addition to grants, commercialization support, and improved deal terms that contribute to an encouraging environment for Europe’s spinouts. However, one pain point remains: growth capital.
As the report’s authors note, this gap “is not a unique trend to spinouts, but something impacting the entire startup ecosystem in Europe.” Still, it is quite striking that nearly 50% of late-stage funding for European deep tech and life sciences spinouts comes from outside Europe, mainly from the U.S.
While this share has decreased over the years, Europe won’t be fully reaping the benefits of its investments in talent and research unless this changes more substantially — but that’s a broader issue to be solved.
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