Deep Tech Innovations have the Potential to Create Impact at Scale

Deep tech is the light that has the potential to offer solutions to problems

Darkness is the absence of light. The Covid 19 vaccines were a beacon of light that eventually eliminated one of the darkest periods that had engulfed our species.

Deep tech is the light that has the potential to offer solutions to problems that remain unsolved, even impossible to address. That is because most deep tech ideas are rooted in fundamental science and engineering and therefore, look at the possibilities beyond current and/or exhausted technology/solutions. Interestingly, what is exhausted or commodity today was (most) probably deep tech once when it was pioneered.

Deep tech is a broad label for any technology that is far too advanced to be understood, applied, and adopted on a large scale – as of now!

Deep tech innovations run through a gamut of domains, predominantly – Healthcare, Food & Agriculture, Advanced computing, Environment (Energy), and Communication. Historically, any company that is born out of fundamental sciences and engineering has impacted the larger population by finding use and application that works at a large scale in one or more of these areas, over a period of time.

Electricity, transportation, internet, mobile networks, wearable devices, medicines/vaccines, and even rapid test kits – are all outcomes of deep tech innovation that has achieved ubiquity at massive scales. So much so that these technologies have ceased to be a marvel and are almost transparent if not invisible in our daily lives.

And that is the potential energy of Deep tech!

Scientists, entrepreneurs, and engineers are working to solve problems that are distant and hard today but will be glaringly obvious tomorrow. Food sovereignty/security, for instance, is one such challenge. Deep tech startups that are creating alternative protein and dairy aim to not just take the load off of cattle and poultry but also reduce carbon emissions as a byproduct.

The non-replenishment ability of fossil fuels and their contribution to the intensifying climate crisis is scary. The alternate energy revolution is afoot and unstoppable, led by automobile and battery technologies that compete for head-on with internal combustion engines. The electricity grids and housing will soon follow to make allowance for the infrastructure needed to support these innovations and intertwine them in our daily lives. It is already happening.

The advances in healthcare have made the human condition better and life spans longer. Advances in drug research and discovery, faster and more precise diagnostics using advanced hardware and machine learning are enabling possibilities at an unprecedented pace.

The R&D cycle for deep tech ideas is longer than regular startups, thus they take more time and resources. Also, since deep tech is very hard tech, several startups find it extremely difficult to secure funding simply because firstly, the time horizon of potential applicability is too far out, and secondly, the possibility of the idea working is uncertain because the ideas are born from theory in the absence of practical implementation and proof of not just feasibility but viability as well. A demonstration, if you will, of something that was not possible thus far, has been made possible.

In other tech startups, the question is not on the possibility but that of scale because it is far simpler (relatively) to conjure an MVP.

However, increasingly that is changing as more and more deep tech founders are adopting the DBTL (Design Build Test Learn) cycle which is loosely analogous to the agile paradigm in the software world. The DBTL cycle enables compression of time periods to evaluate feasibility and de-risk the uncertainty iteratively.

Governments, corporates, and of course venture capital across the world have recognised the potential of deep tech and are coming together to collaborate and not just foster but catalyze deep tech innovation.

(Vibhore Sharma is Partner at Capital 2B, a US$ 75 mn fund that backs tech and IP-led startups)