(Source: Wikipedia, retrieved on 31st Aug 2020)
The term deep tech was coined by Swati Chaturvedi, co-founder and CEO of investment firm Propel(x). The word doesn’t refer to innovation itself, but to a category of startup companies that develop new products based “on scientific discovery or meaningful engineering innovation”.[6][7]
According to the year 2019 research by the Boston Consulting Group and Hello Tomorrow, a French nonprofit that supports deep technology, the most prominent deep tech fields included advanced materials, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, blockchain, robotics, photonics, electronics, and quantum computing. Global private investment in those fields increased by more than 20% a year from 2015 and reached almost $18 billion in 2018.[2] Possible fields for deep tech application include agriculture, life sciences, chemistry, aerospace and green energy.[6]
In the business context deep tech has three key attributes: potential for impact, long time to reach market-ready maturity and substantial requirement for capital.[2]
- Deep tech innovations are often radical and may create new markets or disrupt existing ones. Deep tech companies often address big societal and environmental challenges and have potential to impact everyday life. Silicon chips are an example of innovation that enabled calculation at previously unimaginable speed and scale.
- The time required to move from basic science to appliable technology in deep tech exceeds the development time of startups based on widely available technology (“shallow tech” such as mobile apps, websites, and e-commerce services[6][3]). For instance, the development of technology behind artificial intelligence took decades, and now AI companies are rapidly developing in many fields. According to Hello Tomorrow (2019), it took an average of 4 years to reach market in biotech and 2.4 years in blockchain.
- The demand for huge early-stage funding for R&D and prototype development and lengthy life cycle of deep tech startups forces them to abandon the established funding progression from friends and family to angel and seed money, series A and subsequent rounds leading to trade sale or IPO.
Sectors Covered
Although deep tech is a horizontal and can impact all kinds of sectors, some of the sectors where the impact of deeptech is more prominent are the following (list not comprehensive):
- Digital Natives
- Transportation
- Water
- Manufacturing
- Energy
- Construction
- ICT
- Retail
- Finance
- Healthcare
- Education
- Government
Types of Technologies Covered
Deep tech covers, but is not limited to:
- 3D Animation
- 3D Printing/Scanning
- Advanced Materials
- Advanced Textile
- Agri Tech
- AR/VR/MR
- Artificial Intelligence
- Assistive Tech
- Audio Tech
- Bioinformatics
- Blockchain
- Brain Computer Interface
- Chemicals
- Cognitive Computing
- Computer Vision
- Consumer Robotics
- Cybersecurity
- Diabetes
- Diagnostics
- Digital Twin
- Drug Delivery
- Drug Discovery
- Edge Computing
- Edtech
- Energy Tech
- Enterprise Infrastructure
- Environment Tech
- EV
- Eye Tracking
- Fertility
- Fintech
- Food Tech
- Genomics
- Gesture recognition
- Haptic Tech
- Healthcare
- Image Recognition
- Industrial Robotics
- Infectious Diseases
- IoT Infrastructure
- IoT Services
- Liquid Biopsy
- Manufacturing Tech
- Maritime Tech
- Medical Devices
- Microbiomes
- Mobility & Autonomous Tech
- Nanocoatings
- Nanotechnology
- Natural Language Processing
- Oncology
- Photonics
- Quantum Computing
- Real Estate & Construction tech
- Retail Tech
- Robotic Process Automation
- Security & Surveillance Tech
- Semiconductors
- Smart Cities
- Smart Factories
- Smart Homes
- Space Tech
- Speech and Voice recognition
- Sports Tech
- Telecom
- Unmanned Air Vehicles
- Warehouse Automation
- Wearable Tech