At the Growth Forum in Paris, the session “The Corporate Leader Perspective” landed on a shared diagnosis: Europe’s deep tech pipeline is strong, but adoption still lags. The challenge is not inventing breakthroughs. It is turning them into solutions that business units can integrate, procure and scale inside complex organisations with real constraints, timelines and risk profiles.
Moderated by James Mawson, CEO of Global Corporate Venturing, the panel brought together leaders who sit where strategy meets execution: Magnus R. Björsne (AstraZeneca’s BioVenture Innovation Unit and CEO of BioVentureHub), Florent Illat (Safran Corporate Ventures), Anders Jansson (CorPower Ocean, an EIC Scaling Club member company), Milja Kalliosaari (IQM) and Bernhard Mohr (Evonik Venture Capital).
Their sector contexts differed, but their conclusion was consistent: deep tech adoption depends less on innovation units and more on engagement from operational business teams.
Why partnerships stall at proof-of-concept
Across sectors, the panel returned to a familiar bottleneck: the jump from a promising pilot to a scaled, repeatable deployment. It is not only a question of technical performance. The deeper blockers often sit in the business operating model:
- unclear ownership once a pilot ends (who “carries” the solution into operations?)
- integration complexity into existing systems, supply chains and processes
- risk management and regulatory requirements that intensify at scale
- misaligned timelines between corporate planning cycles and startup runway
This is where the panel deliberately shifted the spotlight away from corporate venture capital as the centre of gravity. Investment can open doors — but scaling demands commercial sponsorship and operational buy-in.
Corporate venture capital: returns, yes — but strategy first
Corporate venture capital is increasingly recognised in Europe as a mechanism to advance innovation and support scale-ups. On the panel, it was framed as part of a broader toolkit: strategic investment as a way to build access, insight and alignment.
Corporates invest not only for financial returns, but also to stay close to emerging technologies, strengthen market intelligence and position themselves in fast-moving ecosystems. In practice, this can turn venture activity into a bridge between what is technically possible and what business lines can realistically adopt.
As Florent Illat put it:
“We see deep tech start-ups as potential disruptors of business and partners as well, so supporting companies and helping them develop their technology is also a business opportunity for us.”
The implication for founders is straightforward: investment conversations are rarely just about capital. They are also about strategic fit – and whether the corporate sees a credible path to integration and scale.
Europe’s capital gap – and the corporate assets that matter
Europe’s venture ecosystem has grown significantly, but it still needs more scale and depth – especially for later-stage rounds where deep tech companies must industrialise, expand internationally and build durable commercial pipelines.
The European Innovation Council was highlighted as a central actor in supporting deep tech innovation and scaling promising companies across Europe. At the same time, the panel emphasised that corporate participation becomes increasingly important as companies mature: later-stage strategic rounds, industrial partnerships, and investments that come with market and operational access.
Just as important, corporates bring non-financial assets that can compress time to market and help companies cross the “valley of death” between research and commercialisation:
- industrial expertise and domain knowledge
- access to data and digital infrastructure
- established distribution channels and market access
- operational and manufacturing capabilities
For deep tech founders, these assets can be more decisive than any single cheque – if the partnership is structured to unlock them.
Deep tech is a long game
Another shared point: deep tech timelines are long. Development cycles can run for years, and scaling often requires sustained investment and patience.
Corporate investors and partners can be well positioned for this long horizon, particularly when there is clear strategic alignment and an intent to co-develop and integrate technology into existing value chains. The panel underscored the need for alignment across corporate stakeholders, venture investors and public funding instruments – because deep tech scale is rarely achieved in isolation.
Sector lenses: energy, aviation, AI and quantum
The discussion also anchored deep tech adoption in real sector priorities:
- Energy and sustainability: renewable energy technologies, including ocean and wave energy solutions, and the integration of clean energy systems into digital infrastructure such as data centres — aligned with climate neutrality objectives under the European Green Deal.
- Aviation and clean mobility: hybrid and electric propulsion, sustainable aviation fuels, and broader decarbonisation pathways aligned with the EU’s climate neutrality objectives by 2050.
- AI, quantum technologies and security-sensitive innovation: an increasingly regulated and geopolitically shaped landscape, particularly for dual-use technologies and strategic infrastructure.
On this last point, the panel highlighted the role of the public sector not as an observer, but as a market shaper. Milja Kalliosaari captured it directly:
“For quantum computing and, more concretely, generative AI models, governments are key customers, regulators, and guides when it comes to growing the industry within the EU. This reflects the increasingly strategic role of deep tech in the context of European technological sovereignty, where geopolitical considerations, regulatory frameworks, and public procurement priorities are shaping the development and scaling of critical technologies such as quantum computing and AI.”
Collaboration models that scale
If scaling depends on business-unit engagement, what does a scalable collaboration model look like?
The panel mapped a set of mechanisms corporates and startups commonly use:
- equity investments
- commercial partnerships
- joint development agreements
- pilot and demonstration projects
The nuance is in sequencing and governance. Pilots should be designed with scale in mind: clear success criteria, early integration planning, and a realistic view of what operational teams will need (from security reviews to deployment support). Meanwhile, corporates often adopt diversified portfolios – mixing strategic investments with exploratory bets and partnerships that generate insight.
What founders can do differently
Three practical lessons stood out for founders looking to build long-term corporate relationships:
- Build for the business unit, not the innovation unit. Innovation teams can facilitate introductions, but operational leaders must own the outcome.
- De-risk the path to integration. Treat compliance, procurement, data access and operational change management as first-order work — not “later”.
- Position partnerships as long-term value creation. Deep tech scaling is a commitment. The strongest relationships are built on alignment, co-development and a credible route to adoption at industrial scale.
The session closed with a clear signal: Europe’s deep tech potential is real, but it will only translate into impact when corporates and startups learn to scale together – beyond pilots, and into operations.
About the EIC Scaling Club
The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120 European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120 European deep tech companies have been carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.
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