đ¸ 5 unicorns, plus a decacorn; 9-figure defense OS, robotics & next-gen aircraft; big fusion & BCI rounds, plus quantum cameras and lithium refining | Deep Tech Capital Movements #53
The Weekâs State of Deep Tech Capital: whoâs Raising, whoâs Betting, and why.
Welcome back to Deep Tech Capital Movements.
This week, capital moved from GPU routers and robotics brains at unicorn valuations down to microbes squeezing more copper from rock and modular reactors for ammonia and fusion. AI isnât getting funded as a story anymore; itâs getting funded where it owns a control plane â over compute, over code, over missions, over materials. Around that, state-backed fund-of-funds, defense growth vehicles, and infra-style debt are quietly rewiring deep tech from âstartupsâ into long-lived, financeable assets.
This week at a glance:
55 items tracked: 49 startup and transaction rounds + 6 funds & vehicles.
BY STAGE
Activity stayed concentrated in pre-seed/seed and Series A, particularly in AI governance and tooling, climate and industrial materials, ag/biotech, autonomy, and space servicing and inspection.
Series B and C / growth capital leaned toward AI and robotics platforms, defense and command software, sensing and geospatial infrastructure, and energy and manufacturing systems that have largely cleared core technology risk and are scaling deployment.
At the top end, a small set of nine- and ten-figure rounds in AI/robotics and next-generation aircraft, alongside sizable checks in fusion, geospatial, and lithium/battery processes, priced and behaved more like infra or project finance than traditional growth equity.
BY THEME
AI infra, security & embodiment: multicloud GPU and workload control planes, unified security and vulnerability intelligence, agent monitoring and governance, industrial documentation copilots, robotics foundation models, and early brainâcomputer interface stacks.
Defense, space & sovereignty: planning and command operating systems, secure platform engineering for national security, integrated defense stacks in emerging markets, orbital inspection and in-orbit construction, GEO life-extension vehicles, fiber- and quantum-enabled sensing, and marketplaces for overhead imagery and analytics.
Energy, climate & industrial materials: fusion development, electrochemical refining for critical minerals, bio-enabled metal recovery, modular ammonia, 3D-printed and conformal batteries, predictive wind and hyperlocal weather intelligence, biochar and ambient power, electric freight, and standards and infrastructure around carbon and water.
Bio, ag & food systems: AI-native discovery engines in biology, biological crop protection and microbiology testing platforms, bio-enabled materials and metals, autonomous livestock management, plant-based dairy and clean fragrances, and small-molecule approaches that mimic biologics.
Quantum, optics & post-quantum security: silicon-based quantum compute, hardware-aware quantum middleware, post-quantum key infrastructure, quantum imaging constellations, AR-grade optics and low-power sensors, and fiber-based monitoring for subsea and grid infrastructure.
BY GEOGRAPHY
North America: largest checks across AI platforms, security and governance, robotics, fusion, space, geospatial, and biotech, with a mix of equity, convertibles, and venture debt tied to commercialization milestones.
Europe (incl. UK, Nordics, Israel): depth in climate tech, advanced materials, sensing, quantum, and carbon markets, often supported by public or quasi-public lenders and specialist investors, with visible momentum in Nordic and Italian deep tech.
India & broader Asia-Pacific: momentum in electric trucking, wind O&M, construction-tech, in-orbit servicing, and regional defense and security systems, alongside manufacturing-heavy deep tech backed by regional growth and climate vehicles.
Africa (directly and indirectly) & Australia: a growing role as deployment and stress-test terrain for integrated defense platforms and autonomous ag-robotics, with systems piloted across large geographies before wider roll-out.
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WEEK 3, 2026
Robots, Brains & Sovereign Sensors: Platforms Over Point Solutions
This weekâs tape was tight and directional: capital flowed into stacks that turn AI into an operational substrate, minerals and molecules into secured supply, and orbit into infrastructureâwhile the financing itself started to look more like infra and project credit than classic venture.
The largest checks concentrated where deployment is near-term and moats compound from control over hardware, physics, and complianceâdeveloper-first security, multicloud GPU schedulers, embodied robotics brains, fusion and ammonia for power and feedstock, quantum cameras and silicon qubits, and defense operating systems that own the planning and wargaming loop. Seeds got done, but the premium went to teams that