The Scenarionist - Deep Tech Startups & Venture Capital | Substack

When Niche Beats Scale: How Top-Tier Deep Tech Startups Thrive in Unsexy Markets

Power Laws and the Hidden Edge of Niche Dominance: 3 Real-World Case Studies

Jul 12 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

Deep Tech Monthly in Review – June 2025

Field Notes from The Scenarionist. A Strategic Recap for Builders and Backers

Jul 9 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

and

Nicola Marchese, MD

Pre-Revenue Valuation in Deep Tech: How to Price What Doesn’t Exist Yet — Part 1

How do you build a pre-revenue valuation in deep tech, where ARR doesn’t exist and the “market” still needs to be educated?

Jun 12 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

💸 $187M Microgravity Pharma; $51M Zero-Carbon Steel; €2.6M Rare-Earth Recycling; $11.5M Autonomous Mining; $29M Nano-Silicon Anodes | Deep…

The Week’s State of Deep Tech Capital: who’s Raising, who’s Betting, and why.

5 hrs ago •

Giulia Spano, PhD

⚛️ Wall Street’s Quantum Bing; 🛰️ Firefly’s IPO Test; 🏭 Liquidity as Industrial Insurance; 🚀Sovereign Lift Arbitrage; 🪨 Critical…

Weekly Intelligence on Deep Tech Startups and Venture Capital.

Jul 13 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

DeepTech Briefing

⚛️ Wall Street’s Quantum Bing; 🛰️ Firefly’s IPO Test; 🏭 Liquidity as Industrial Insurance; 🚀Sovereign Lift Arbitrage; 🪨 Critical…

Weekly Intelligence on Deep Tech Startups and Venture Capital.

Jul 13 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

🏭 Physical AI Unlocks Bankable Hardware; 🛢️Oilfields Go Deep Geothermal; ⚛️ Nuclear Powers Cement; 🚁 Drones Hedge Farm Labor;🤖Humanoids…

Weekly Intelligence on Deep Tech Startups and Venture Capital.

Jul 6 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

🪨 Rare-Earths from Waste IPO Signal; ⛏️Quantum Feeds Mining; ⚛️ Nuclear Digital Twins De-Risk EPC; 🧱 Concrete as Carbon Sink; ; 💨 Agile…

Weekly Intelligence on Deep Tech Startups and Venture Capital.

Jun 29 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

🧠 Daniel Ek on Dual-Use AI; ⚛️ Nuclear Gets Stack Status; 🪨 Rare Earths as Military Infrastructure; 🧪AI Powers Molecule Engineering…

Weekly Intelligence on Deep Tech Startups and Venture Capital.

Jun 22 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

DeepTech Catalyst

24:46

From Series A to Series B in Energy: Milestones and Strategies for Deep Tech Startups | Deep Tech Catalyst

Watch now | A chat with Michel de Lempdes, Managing Partner @ Omnes Capital

Jul 11 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

9 Core Principles for Building Successful Deep Tech Ventures | Deep Tech Catalyst

A distillation from 80 episodes of Deep Tech Catalyst: how capital, talent, factories, and governance become your real moats — if you build them right.

Jul 4 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

Water Tech from Lab to Market: Pilots, Contracts, and Exit Strategies | Deep Tech Catalyst

Watch now | A chat with Peter Yolles, Managing Partner @ Echo River Capital

Jun 27 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

24:14

From Molecule to Market: What VCs Look for in Early-Stage Biotech Startups | Deep Tech Catalyst

Watch now | A chat with Ingrid Kelly, Partner @ xista science ventures

Jun 20 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

33:34

Private Equity Meets Deep Tech: What It Takes to Raise and Scale Beyond VC – Part 2 | Deep Tech Catalyst

Watch now | A chat with Jean Schmitt, Managing Partner @ Jolt Capital

Jun 13 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

31:49

Insights

Reverse Diligence: How Three Advanced Energy Materials Companies Beat the Scaling Bottleneck

Amprius, Nexeon & Enovix: A reverse DD analysis of three real-world scale-ups on moats, capital discipline, and scaling advanced materials for…

Jul 3

Pre-Revenue Valuation in Deep Tech: How to Price What Doesn’t Exist Yet — Part 2

Valuation in Action: Deep Tech Startups and Real-World Case Studies

Jun 19

Pre-Revenue Valuation in Deep Tech: How to Price What Doesn’t Exist Yet — Part 1

How do you build a pre-revenue valuation in deep tech, where ARR doesn’t exist and the “market” still needs to be educated?

Jun 12 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

Exits in Advanced Materials Startups

3 Case Studies on How Exits Were Strategically Engineered Behind the Scenes.

May 15 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

10 Truths No One Tells You About Building a Deep Tech Team

You Don’t Scale Science. You Scale People.

Apr 22 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

Capital Movements

💸 $187M Microgravity Pharma; $51M Zero-Carbon Steel; €2.6M Rare-Earth Recycling; $11.5M Autonomous Mining; $29M Nano-Silicon Anodes | Deep…

The Week’s State of Deep Tech Capital: who’s Raising, who’s Betting, and why.

5 hrs ago •

Giulia Spano, PhD

💸 $1B Hover Mining; $124M Low-Carbon Cement; $105M AI Robotics; €32M Nuclear Heat; $50M RNA Crops; $2.5M Ocean Digital Twin & more | Deep…

The Week’s State of Deep Tech Capital: who’s Raising, who’s Betting, and why.

Jul 7 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

💸 $1.8B Superconducting Chips; $20M Waste-to-Graphene; $500M Hyperscale Grid; $60M AI Data Foundry; $92M LEO Nav; $7.5M AgriFood Genomics …

The Week’s State of Deep Tech Capital: who’s Raising, who’s Betting, and why.

Jun 30 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

💸 €600M AI Defense; $105M Rocket Scale-Up; $650M Sodium Reactors; $18M CO₂-to-Cement ; $23M Energy-Lite Plastic Recycling & more..| Deep…

The Week’s State of Deep Tech Capital: who’s Raising, who’s Betting, and why.

Jun 23 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

The Deep Tech Negotiation Playbook

Bonus Appendix: The Deep Tech Negotiation Playbook

Deep Tech Negotiation Worksheet, Scripts and Templates to handle even the toughest negotiation scenarios.

May 7 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

The Deep Tech Negotiation Playbook | Chapter 4/4

Welcome to the Real Table.

May 6 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

The Deep Tech Negotiation Playbook | Chapter 3/4

Master the Fundraising Tug of War Before It Masters You

Apr 3 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

and

Giulia Spano, PhD

The Scenarionist - Deep Tech Startups & Venture Capital

The Scenarionist - Deep Tech Startups & Venture Capital

Practical tools to win with Deep Tech you simply won’t find elsewhere. Where will you be?

VC Guides

28:55

Investing in Mining Tech: Scalable Models, Case Studies, And Due Diligence

From AI-Driven Discovery to Critical Mineral Supply Chains | Jason Holt, Partner @ Orion Industrial Ventures

Jun 5 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

From STEM to Deep Tech VC

The Essential Guide for Scientists Entering Venture Capital | Chloë Payne, Principal at Ponderosa Ventures

May 22 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

32:02

How to Invest in Robotics Startups: Insights and Tactics from a VC Perspective

Due Diligence, Insights, and Case Studies | Karthee Madasamy, Founder & Managing Partner at MFV Partners

Apr 24 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

30:59

Winning the Deep Tech Scaling Bottleneck

Practical Tactics and Strategies to Support Industrial Startups at Scale | Phil Morle, Partner @ Main Sequence Ventures

Mar 13 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

28:47

Dual-Use VC Investing

Due Diligence, Insights, and Case Studies | Sherman Williams, Managing Partner, and Forrest Underwood, Venture Partner, @ AIN Ventures

Feb 20 •

Nicola Marchese, MD

23:54

Special Editions

Deep Tech Monthly in Review – May 2025

Field Notes from The Scenarionist. A Strategic Recap for Builders and Backers

Jun 4 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

and

Nicola Marchese, MD

Here’s What the Most Successful Deep Tech Teams Are Doing Differently

You Can’t Build Deep Tech With a SaaS Mindset...

Apr 17 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

and

Nicola Marchese, MD

Launching a Virtual Meetup for Deep Tech Founders (Beta Test)

First test in the Advanced Materials space!

Feb 18 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

and

Nicola Marchese, MD

Getting ready for 2025

Working to Take Your Experience to the Next Level...

Jan 7 •

Giulia Spano, PhD

and

Nicola Marchese, MD

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