đBattery SPAC Is Back; đ§ŞSelf-Running Labs Scale; âď¸ Photonics M&A From Bankruptcy;đ§ Geologic H2 Exploration; đ Autonomous Logistics Goes Defense đ NATO Lunar Power | Deep Tech Briefing n. 92
Weekly Intelligence on Deep Tech Startups and Venture Capital.
Welcome back to Deep Tech Briefing!
This week, a solid-state battery de-SPAC becomes a live test of whether public markets will still finance capex-heavy hardware, just as energy splinters into financeable wedgesâfusion fuel handling, geologic hydrogen, enhanced weathering, and even off-world generation.
In parallel, grid batteries migrate onto infra balance sheets, agritech and self-running labs start industrializing experimentation, flying taxis inch toward commercial airspace, LiDAR assets get recycled into photonics supply chains, and the U.S. Houseâs INVEST Act quietly upgrades the plumbing for private markets.
Deep Tech Briefing Stack:
Interesting Reading â our collection of readings that are worth sitting with.
The Big Idea â a critical inflection, unpacked into a strategic view.
Deep Tech Key Moves â field intelligence on this weekâs most important moves.
Signal in the Data â the one chart that should change how you see deep tech this week.
Deep Tech Power Play â where regulation, incentives, and influence redraw the opportunity set in deep tech.
đś Interesting Reading
When a media SPAC meets nuclear fusion Axios â Trump Media & Technology Groupâs proposed $6B all-stock merger with fusion startup TAE Technologies is both a headline-friendly oddity and a serious governance test for fusion: who controls the cap table when nuclear regulation, populist politics and 50 MWe power-plant promises collide?
Can AI actually help do new science, not just pass benchmarks? TIME â OpenAIâs new FrontierScience benchmark probes how frontier models perform on Olympiad-level and PhD-level questions in physics, chemistry and biologyâhighlighting both how far âAI for scienceâ has come and how hard it is to measure genuine reasoning and research usefulness rather than exam tricks.
âInvesting in regenerative and organic is not a political stanceâAgFunderNews â A $700m USDA pilot for regenerative agriculture lands with a mix of excitement, skepticism and greenwashing fearsâdoubling as a real-time test of whether big federal checks can actually de-risk regen/organic transitions at farm level rather than just juice headlines.
A quiet revolution: how UK pensions are making a private-markets pivot PitchBook â Retirement reforms, shrinking public markets and new rules are lining up to push as much as ~$99B of UK pension money toward private assetsâimportant background if you care about who the next generation of long-dated LPs in venture, growth and infra is going to be.
Brought together by war: Israelâs defense-tech partnerships put startups on the front lines The Times of Israel â From Tel Avivâs DefenseTech Summit to unit 8200 alumni, this is a look at how tight feedback loops between soldiers, engineers and investors are turning battlefield needs into dual-use products at unusual speedâand why NATO types are now treating Israel as a defense-tech playbook, not just a case study.
AI materials discovery now needs to move into the real world MIT Technology Review â A tour of startups like Lila building AI-driven labs to design batteries, catalysts and advanced materials, and of the investors backing them, with the promise of compressing discovery cycles from decades to just a few years if they can close the loop between models, robots and real chemistry.
Britainâs state-owned investment bank goes biotech shopping in the US STAT â The British Business Bank turns up in the US with billions earmarked for life sciences VC funds and startupsâa neat example of industrial policy showing up as LP capital in specialist funds rather than direct subsidies, with implications for transatlantic biotech deal flow.
Livestock startups hit the scaling phase iGrowNews â Funding data for 2025 shows livestock tech shifting from pilots to deployment, with capital concentrating in methane-reducing feed, digital grazing and farm-level analytics that slot into existing operationsâone to watch if your climate thesis includes actual cows, not just alt-protein decks.
IndiaâOman FTA: a new corridor for trade, energy and startups Northeast Herald â Commerce minister Piyush Goyal sketches an FTA that couples traditional trade (textiles, food processing, autos) with future flows in green hydrogen, ports, cold chains and deep-tech startup collaborationâeffectively turning Oman into an extended hub for India across the Gulf and East Africa. Northeast Herald
âRobots are going to be amongst usâ: Qualcommâs five-year AI bet Fortune â EVP Nakul Duggal lays out why your car is likely to be the first real AI agent you live with, and how Qualcomm plans to push on-device reasoning from driver-assist to pervasive roboticsâreframing the company as an AI edge platform, not just a smartphone modem vendor.