by Magnus Ahlstedt, Industrial deployment lead
For more than two decades, I have navigated the industrial trenches of Europe, working at the high-friction interface where emerging deeptech meets the reality of product deployment. I have seen the same pattern repeat across the continent: brilliant science stalling because the machinery for scaling is broken.
When you look at the innovation funnel for deeptech, the reality is sobering. It is a game of brutal attrition. We start with thousands of ideas, but as we move through the Technical Readiness Levels (TRL), the cumulative graduation rate, the percentage of projects that actually survive to the next step, drops off a cliff.
The Decade-Long Gauntlet
In the world of software, funnels move in months. In deeptech, we are looking at a timeline of a decade or more. Because the stakes are higher and the physics of moving atoms is harder and takes longer, the Valley of Death, which coincides with the demonstration phase (TRL 5–7), is not just a metaphor. It is a graveyard.
From a distance, the data tells a clear story. Very few companies graduate from this phase.
For many industrial actors, TRL 7 is the magic number. It is the point where the technology is proven in an operational environment and the risk for the incumbent is significantly reduced. Naturally, legacy companies prefer to engage here. It feels safe. It feels professional.
However, waiting for TRL 7 to engage is a strategic liability. By the time a startup reaches this stage, the window for influence has closed. The architecture is set. The supply chain is locked.
To truly leverage disruption, legacy industry must stop waiting for the finished product and start leading the demonstration phase.
Adults and Children: A Relationship of Responsibility
If we are honest, the relationship between an industrial incumbent and a deeptech startup is often like that of an adult and a child. The startup is full of energy and disruptive potential, but they lack the experience, infrastructure and regulatory understanding required to survive the real world of industrial scaling.
The legacy industry has the requirements, market access and operational grit. Yet too often, startups are treated as if they should be born fully grown. Help is offered only after they have already survived the hardest part of the journey.
This is a mistake.
Leading the Demonstration Phase
Legacy industry has both a responsibility and a massive opportunity to guide startups through the demonstration phase. Doing so requires a shift in how collaboration works.
- Requirement leadership. Startups should not have to guess what industrial-grade actually means. Industrial partners must set the bar early.
- Validation bridges. Providing testing environments and real-world data that simply cannot be replicated in a lab.
- Relationship equity. Building deep collaboration during the difficult teenage years so that when the technology matures, you are not just a customer. You are a partner.
The Strategic Payoff
When an industrial player actively guides a startup, the outcome is a de-risked path to either long-term collaboration or strategic acquisition. You are not buying a mystery box. You are integrating a technology you helped shape.
The funnel will always be narrow at the end. Attrition is inevitable. But needless waste of European brilliance is not. When legacy industry leads the demonstration phase, we do more than de-risk technology. We secure industrial sovereignty.
It is time for the adults to step up. Europe’s future does not depend on how many ideas we generate, but on how many we have the grit to deploy.