Deep tech sector on course for success: rise in new start-ups continues

In the deep tech sector, there is a continuing trend towards more start-ups being founded. The majority of deep tech founders come from Munich.

Despite the current uncertainties in the market, there is an increasing number of newly founded start-ups in the deep tech sector. An analysis by venture capital firm MorphAIs VC shows that a total of 275 deep tech start-ups were counted in 2022, which corresponds to an increase of 33% compared to the previous year. Interestingly, founders of deep tech startups have a higher average degree than other founding teams. It is striking that more than one in ten founders studied at the Technical University of Munich.

According to a new study, 75% of deep tech founders had a master's, diploma or doctorate in 2022, compared to only 58% of non-deep tech founders. The difference is particularly striking in the case of doctorates, where 21% of deep tech founders have one, compared to only 11% of founders from other fields.

Startups with a TU Munich background dominate the deep tech sector

The analysis shows that most German deep tech start-up teams come from Munich. Of a total of 325 founder profiles evaluated in 2022, 35 studied at the Technical University of Munich. RWTH Aachen University, Technische Universität Berlin and Technische Universität Dresden have also produced a number of female deep tech founders. Other universities with more than 5 deep tech start-ups last year were the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Freie Universität Berlin and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

A third of deep tech companies already have at least one experienced co-founder on board. For non-deep-tech start-ups, this proportion is currently 40%.

Deep tech teams have an excellent foundation in research and science and every third founding team already has founding experience

Eva-Valérie Gfrerer, CEO & General Partner MorphAIs VC

Despite the decline in financing volume in 2022, Germany recorded a 10% increase in investments in deep technology compared to 2020 In a 5-year retrospective, there has even been an increase of 118%, making Germany a top market for deep tech investments in Europe. Across Europe, around USD 19.7 billion was invested in deep tech in 2022, while USD 51 billion was invested in the USA.

In 2022, artificial intelligence was the most heavily invested sector in Germany with 2.1 billion dollars. However, clean energy, robotics, blockchain and space technologies also saw high levels of investment, with blockchain and clean energy particularly on trend. The investment volume in these areas has increased by more than 100% since 2020. In 2022, Celonis, Volocopter and Hy2gen received the largest financing rounds. Celonis topped the list with 400 million dollars, followed by Volocopter with a total of 352 million dollars from two rounds.

MorphAIs

MorphAIs VC is a venture capital company that specializes in early-stage investments. It has developed its own AI technology to invest in talented tech founders across Europe. The Morphais VC team consists of experienced founders, behavioral and data scientists as well as mathematicians and invests in Europe in the DeepTech and FinTech sectors. The company is based in Berlin.