Good morning {{first_name}},
Meeting so many successful entrepreneurs, Deep Tech Momentum’s Martin Schilling realised one thing they all have in common: they never say “or”. They refuse the traditional trade-offs. It's never: be profitable “or” grow fast — it’s both, achieved by finding solutions that solve multiple goals simultaneously.
This week in Deep Tech Now:
Find out how the “and” mindset unlocks the true potential of the AI age.
In that same spirit, we’ve listed Europe’s top five photonics startups that help us achieve both: much more computing power and far more efficient use of energy.
Also in this issue: GlassDollar took a close look at 250,000 corporate–startup relationships. The results are clear: corporations working with startups is a fantastic idea — with potential multi-million-euro outcomes. Read the five key lessons from the Startup Advantage report.
Plus: Win a book! We’re giving away 3 copies of Martin’s The Builder's Guide to the Tech Galaxy – 99 Practices to Scale Startups into Unicorn Companies. Go get them!
THE LEAP | BY MARTIN SCHILLING
Great leaders think in “and” not “or”
Dear all,
Profit or growth? Speed or stability? Quality or scale?
There is one principle almost all great CXOs, founders, and operators I know follow: think in “and,” not “or”.
It is not about being profitable or growing fast, nor about building scalable architecture or shipping software quickly, nor about hiring great talent or hiring fast. It is about reconciling these seemingly conflicting goals and finding higher-level solutions that transcend trade-offs.
A startup I met for lunch last week embodies this thinking: Stardust. They ask: “How can we slow global warming and avoid ruining the economy?” Yanai Yedvab, former Deputy Chief Scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, believes the answer is a new formula to seed the atmosphere with fully degradable particles — volcanic-ash-like cooling without acid rain. Geoengineering carries substantial risks, but this is a powerful example of thinking in “and.”
The current AI supercycle empowers exactly this mindset.
In the past, personalisation meant hiring an army of staff. Today, AI allows you to build a massive business and keep headcount lean. You can offer concierge-level service and operate at near-zero cost. You can generate millions of hyper-personalised messages and scale instantly.
Fuelling this thought, Tae Hea Nahm, founder of Storm Ventures, shared the clearest AI stack with us I’ve seen so far (see at the top).
He views the AI application layer and the tooling layer as core investment arenas of this era. At DTM, we apply the same “and” thinking: welcoming teams building AI-productivity applications and tooling, and the builders of the semiconductor and compute layer.
Wishing you a great week with as many “ands” as possible,
Martin
DEEP TECH OPEN | COMPUTING
Europe’s Top 5 Photonic Startups | Series A (€ 20-60M raised)
Q.ANT | Stuttgart, Germany
Technology: Photonic processors that compute using light (Thin-Film Lithium Niobate) for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads
Why it matters: As data centres face rising energy use and scaling limits of traditional silicon chips, Q.ANT offers a disruptive architecture that can plug into existing server infrastructure and deliver major efficiency and speed gains
Funding: €62 million Series A (July 2025), co-led by Cherry Ventures, UVC Partners, imec.xpand
Customers: LRZ Garching – World's first data center to utilize Q.ANT's photonic AI processor. Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) – Multi-year development partnership
iPronics | Valencia, Spain
Technology: Software-defined photonic engines (“Optical Networking Engine, ONE”) enabling high-bandwidth, low-latency optical interconnects in AI data-centres
Why it matters: With the ballooning demands of AI training and inference, traditional electronic network fabrics struggle; iPronics’ optical fabric enables much larger GPU domains and reconfigurable topology at light-speed
Funding: €20 million Series A (January 2025), led by Triatomic Capital; Fine Structure Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners, Criteria Venture Tech also participated)
Customers: Vodafone announced a joint project to develop silicon photonic chips for next-generation mobile networks and Open RAN
CamGraPhIC | Milan (Italy) / UK
Technology: Graphene-based photonic transceivers for ultra-high-bandwidth, low-latency optical interconnects (AI, telecom, high-performance computing) using graphene photonics
Why it matters: By leveraging graphene in photonics, CamGraPhIC promises up to ~80% energy reduction compared to standard optical transceivers — critical for next-gen bandwidth-hungry systems
Funding: €25 million Series A (March 2025), co-led by NATO Innovation Fund, CDP Venture Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Join Capita
➔ Their graphene photonics technology traces back to Nobel-Prize-winning research
Swave Photonics | Leuven, Belgium
Technology: True holographic display platform “HXR” for spatial + AI computing, using diffractive photonics chipsets to sculpt light into natural 3D images for AR/VR and heads-up displays
Why it matters: As AR/VR moves toward more immersive, lightweight devices, Swave’s photonics-based display approach stands to replace bulky optics and deliver next-gen spatial computing form-factors
Funding: €27 million Series A (January 2025), with follow-on €6M in June 2025
Sparrow Quantum | Copenhagen, Denmark
Technology: Photonic quantum-chips specialising in deterministic single-photon sources (on-chip “Sparrow Core”) for quantum computing, secure communications & sensing
Why it matters: Single-photon sources are a critical bottleneck in scalable quantum computing and photonic quantum hardware — Sparrow’s chip technology offers high purity, reliability and integration potential, positioning Europe as a leader in quantum photonics
Funding: €21.5 million Series A (April 2025), led by PensionDanmark, with EIFO, Novo Holdings, 2xN, LIFTT & EIC)
Customers: University of Vienna, University of Warsaw
➔ Fun Fact: Their single-photon sources are so precise that researchers sometimes call them “photon vending machines” — you press a button, and exactly one photon pops out
THE PULSE
250,000 Data Points Prove It: Startup Procurement Drives Real Value
The ten leading corporations in startup collaborations. From which three are European-domiciled companies: Volkswagen Group, Siemens, and Deloitte.
Collaborating with startups isn’t just an innovation side-project—it can become a strategic lever with measurable impact: multi-million euro outcomes, scalable operating models, and rapid adoption.
That’s what GlassDollar’s brand new report “The Startup Advantage” states in a crystal clear manner.
Here are the five essential take-aways:
1. Real financial impact, fast
On average, a Proof of Concept (PoC) via Venture Clienting is expected to generate about €2 million in business impact; Cost per PoC is about €50,000, with an implementation (adoption) rate of ~50%.
2. A tiny elite drives the ecosystem
From 250,000+ relationships analysed, the report shows: Just 50 corporations generate 70,000+ startup collaborations — 28% of all global engagements.
3. Tech leads, but old industries are waking up
Amazon, Microsoft, Google dominate, but companies like Volkswagen and Siemens show that structured startup engagement is now cross-industry, not a tech-only game.
4. Startup collaboration = market outperformance
Top 50 collaborators grew 109% in market cap (Dec 2022–Sep 2025). MSCI World grew only 69%.
5. Works across all major sectors
Outperformance appears everywhere: TMT, Automotive, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Real Estate. The signal: startup procurement creates real, measurable value in almost every industry.
ECOSYSTEM GIFT
Book Giveaway: "The Builder's Guide to the Tech Galaxy"
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”, is 42 — delivered by a supercomputer named Deep Thought after seven and a half million years of calculation.
Here on Earth, answers tend to be a bit messier.
So, Deep Tech Momentum’s founder Martin Schilling and author Thomas Klugkist propose a different number: 99.
In their book “The Builder’s Guide to the Tech Galaxy”, they map out 99 modules to take you from startup to scale-up — and even unicorn.
Building on 40 years of combined experience in scaling companies, they conducted interviews with around 100 leading scale-up experts from globally successful tech firms — including Airbnb, Pinterest, N26, Zalando, Salesforce, Wayfair, AWS, GetYourGuide, Klarna, and HubSpot.
What’s inside?
A sharp focus on the wild and chaotic scale-up phase
Alignment: vision, strategy, North Star (minus the existential crisis)
How to build — and keep — a true AAA team
Functional excellence across marketing, sales, product, finance & more
Growth capital: how to raise it and use it wisely
Who’s it for?
For anyone who wants to turn a promising startup into a serious, scalable company.
→ We’re giving away three copies of the book! Just reply to this email with ‘UNICORN’; first come, first served – good luck!
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