Universities and research laboratories have long been Europe’s deep technological 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 science companies have either reached valuations of $1 billion, $100 million in revenue, or both. These include unicorns like Iceye, IQM, Isar Aerospace, Synthesia and Tekever, which are now inspiring more funds to support university spinning.
Just this month, two new funds emerged that will bring more funding to talent emerging from 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 opening fund at an oversubscribed €60 million (approx. $71 million), focusing on Nordic deep tech. With offices in Berlin and London, but also in Aachen, U2V (University2Ventures) aims for the same amount for its first fund, of which it recently completed the first close.
These two newcomers join the growing ranks of European venture firms that have university spinouts as a central part of their investment thesis. This category has been pioneered by e.g. Cambridge Innovation Capital and Oxford Science Enterprises, now fully matured, have also diversified.
Although still mostly made up of foundations backed by one or more universities and institutes, it now includes independent firms that simply see spinouts as potential fund returners—and rightly so. Oxford Ionics, acquired by US-based IonQ, was one of six spinouts from Switzerland, the UK and Germany that delivered exits worth more than $1 billion to their investors by 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 of $9.1 billion by 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 diverse as nuclear power – Proxima Fusion – and dual-use drones – Quantum Systems, now valued at over $3 billion. In many cases, these startups take advantage of research from specialized laboratories, 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 research institutions contain an extraordinary, untapped potential,” say PSV Hafnium’s partners in a press release.
PSV Hafnium is itself a spinout from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), but also makes early investments in other Nordic countries. One of its nine controls to date went to SisuSemi, a Finnish startup that leveraged a decade of research at the University of Turku to bring new surface cleaning technology to the semiconductor industry.
It is good news for teams like SisuSemi that there are more funds available to them. It also comes in addition to subsidies, commercialization support and improved contract 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 of spinouts, but something that affects the entire startup ecosystem in Europe.” Still, it is quite striking that nearly 50% of late-stage funding for European deep tech and life science spinouts comes from outside Europe, mainly from the US
Although this share has fallen over the years, Europe will not reap the full benefits of its investment in talent and research unless this changes more significantly – but this is a wider problem that needs to be addressed.