76 European deep tech spinouts hit unicorn or centaur status as VC swings back to universities

European universities quietly turned into a $398 billion deep tech factory in 2025.

According to Dealroom’s European Spinout Report 2025, 76 deep tech and life sciences spinouts from European universities and research labs now either:

• hold valuations of $1 billion or more, or
• generate $100 million or more in annual revenue —

or both.

That portfolio, worth $398 billion on paper, is pulling venture capital back toward academia even as the broader European VC market slumps.

Unicorns from the lab bench

The report’s list includes familiar names that started as research projects:

• Iceye (satellite imaging)
• IQM (quantum computing)
• Isar Aerospace (launch vehicles)
• Synthesia (AI video)
• Tekever (aerospace and defense)

These spinouts have reached either unicorn or so‑called centaur status (more than $100 million in revenue), and they are now the reference point for a new wave of specialist funds.

New funds betting on the spinout pipeline

For years, the category was dominated by vehicles closely tied to elite universities, such as Cambridge Innovation Capital and Oxford Science Enterprises. Those early players have now matured — and they have competition.

Two new funds launched this month alone:

• PSV Hafnium, based out of Denmark, closed an oversubscribed €60 million inaugural fund to back Nordic deep tech.
• U2V (University2Ventures) is targeting €60 million for its first fund and has already completed its first closing. It operates from Berlin, London and Aachen.

PSV Hafnium is itself a spinout from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and has already written nine checks across the Nordics. One of them went to SisuSemi, a Finnish startup built on a decade of research at the University of Turku, developing new surface-cleaning technology for the semiconductor industry.

As the firm’s partners put it in a press release, “The Nordic’s research institutions hold extraordinary, untapped potential.”

Beyond Oxbridge and ETH

The traditional spinout pipeline in Europe has been topped by Cambridge, Oxford and ETH Zurich. But Dealroom’s data shows a long tail of labs and universities across the continent quietly feeding the deep tech funnel.

Specialized labs in second‑tier cities and smaller countries are increasingly able to convert research into companies, especially when investors like PSV Hafnium and U2V are willing to build relationships outside the usual Oxbridge‑plus‑Swiss corridor.

For teams like SisuSemi, that matters. They now have access not just to grants and tech‑transfer support, but also to:

• more commercialization help,
• better deal terms, and
• dedicated early‑stage venture capital.

That combination is turning Europe’s spinout ecosystem into a more predictable startup factory rather than a collection of one‑off outliers.

Funding up, while the market is down

Crucially, the money is following.

Dealroom expects European deep tech and life sciences spinouts to raise around $9.1 billion in 2025, close to an all‑time high. That stands in sharp contrast to the broader European VC market, where overall funding is down nearly 50% from its 2021 peak.

Investors are writing big checks across a wide range of sectors, including:

• Proxima Fusion in nuclear energy, and
• Quantum Systems, a dual‑use drone company now valued above $3 billion.

On the exit side, six spinouts from Switzerland, the U.K. and Germany delivered exits above $1 billion in 2025. One headline deal: Oxford Ionics, a quantum computing spinout, was acquired by U.S.-based IonQ.

The growth capital gap

For all the momentum at seed and Series A, one familiar problem keeps showing up: growth capital.

The report’s authors flag this as a system‑wide issue in Europe, but it is particularly visible in deep tech and life sciences spinouts that need large late‑stage rounds to scale hardware, manufacturing and regulatory‑heavy products.

Nearly 50% of late‑stage funding for European deep tech and life sciences spinouts still comes from outside Europe, mainly from the United States. That reliance on foreign investors has decreased over the years, but it remains striking given how much public and private money Europe has poured into research and talent.

Until more of that late‑stage capital is domestic, Europe will continue to export a large share of the upside created in its own labs.

For founders spinning out of universities from Turku to Toulouse, the message from 2025 is mixed but clear: early‑stage support and specialist funds have never been better — but when it’s time to raise a monster growth round, you’ll probably still end up on a plane to meet non‑European investors.