Ignite Next today announced its launch as Europe’s new scaleup program for deep tech innovation, designed to bridge the gap between early-stage founders and industrial-scale success.
Headquartered in Dresden, the heart of Silicon Saxony, and created by the team behind the renowned Intel Ignite program, now independently operated, Ignite Next introduces a new collaborative model that brings together leading global technology players, including Infineon and Intel, to support the continent’s most ambitious deep tech founders.
I spoke to Markus Bohl, CEO and co-founder of Ignite, to learn about it.
Bridging the gap between science and industry to solve Europe’s scaleup problem
Europe’s deep tech startups face a persistent challenge: strong scientific foundations and early funding, but limited industrial collaboration and scaleup support. Ignite Next directly addresses this gap between innovation and market success, enabling founders to reach commercial scale faster through direct access to relevant industry expertise and decision makers from strategic partners.
Rather than operating as a traditional accelerator, Ignite Next positions itself as the missing link between startups and industry — a hands-on, non-dilutive program helping founders scale IP-heavy breakthrough technologies from Pre-Seed to Series B and beyond.
Each three-month cohort provides deep technical mentorship, commercial validation, and investor engagement, helping startups reach product-market fit, go-to-market readiness, and Series A and B funding faster.
“We’re building the bridge that Europe’s deep tech founders have long needed,” shared Bohl.
A multi-partner model built for frontier tech Ignite Next’s independent structure allows the team to work with multiple partners and engage far more deeply across frontier technologies — from semiconductors, photonics and advanced manufacturing to robotics, AI and quantum computing.
Although operating independently, Ignite Next has the support of key partners, including Intel and Synopsys, enabling the programme to stay closely connected to the industry while maintaining full strategic flexibility.
According to Bohl:
The blueprint stays the same: it’s non-dilutive, we don’t take equity, we don’t charge, we don’t sell. Our North Star is founder success.”
The only metric that matters: progress
Bohl says the clearest proxy for success at this stage—anything from seed to Series A — is whether startups secure follow-on funding and continue to progress.
“Because we only work with breakthrough, IP-heavy innovation, it takes years to judge commercial success,” he explained.
“So the best proxy is simple: did they get funded, and did they move forward?”
A smaller conversion metric is whether the startups make it to the next round — graduation from seed to Series A. Currently Ignite Next graduates are north of 70 per cent.
“The market average is maybe 25–30 per cent. Not all our companies are due for a Series A yet, but that’s how we track it. Eventually, it’s also about how the startups themselves assess it — whether they say it was successful, ” explained Bohl.
The model has already proven itself. Alumni from the Ignite model include Black Semiconductor, Proxima Fusion, Corintis, Quantum Diamonds, Cerabyte, and Space Forge - each proving Europe’s outstanding capabilities in frontier technologies.
Ignite Next’s investment mode
Ignite Next’s non-dilutive, founder-first structure ensures startups can scale without sacrificing ownership, while its high-touch approach - guided by more than 300 senior industry mentors - gives founders direct access to technical expertise, market insight, and investor readiness support.
In contrast to the classic accelerator model, Ignite Next’s new fund won’t operate on small cheques exchanged for automatic equity stakes.
“We’re not doing the usual ‘give me 7 per cent, and I give you €20k or €50k,’” Bohl explained.
“We will invest real money at the valuation after the program.”
Because Ignite Next sources its companies directly from deep-tech research ecosystems, the pipeline is “already highly curated,” he said. The fund won’t lead rounds, but will act as a de-risking or conviction ticket alongside other investors. And despite working with major corporates, Bohl stresses it is not a corporate venture arm.
“CVCs invest either for strategic or purely financial reasons. We are independent. But corporates are free to invest in the fund if they want to benefit from the work they’re already doing with the startups — that’s up to them.”
Fast decisions, high standards
Each cohort is highly selective, typically drawing over 300 applications for just ten places. Startups are mostly referred to the program by leading venture capital investors and chosen for their potential to become Europe’s next scaleup success stories.
And applicants aren’t left waiting for a decision. According to Bohl, “it’s basically a fast-track yes/no. We couldn’t do this at Intel due to the internal structure. Now we can. It’s exciting.”
Cooling, compute, and the infrastructure frontier
Beyond the program mechanics, Bohl sees macro-level opportunities emerging across the deep-tech stack. He believes some of the most transformative opportunities sit far below the application layer — in the physics of infrastructure.
“If you do anything with cooling in a data centre today, you are the king of the hill — and you will be for the foreseeable future,” he said.
It’s why Ignite Next focuses on breakthrough IP rather than incremental improvements.
“When you have four or five of the eight world experts in a field, defensibility is high, and competition is low,” Bohl explained.
“It’s a hard journey, but if these companies make it, they become wildly successful.”
Breakthrough innovation doesn’t happen over a beer
Most of the startups entering the programme are the product of years — often decades — of research.
“They come from university labs, research institutions, or operators,” he said.
“We had a Philips spinout where the technology had been developed for 15 years. It’s people’s life’s work. These technologies don’t get invented over a beer. They come from the lab.”
Bringing these founders together can be intimidating. “You’re in a room with PhDs who have multiple PhDs,” he joked.
“But the technology is rarely the problem. The real challenge is turning that technology into a solution someone will pay for.”
Foundational technologies often have dozens of potential applications — automotive, robotics, industrial automation — and that breadth can be fatal for young teams.
“If you’re 10–20 people with €5 million, trying to chase everything will kill you,” Bohl said. Part of Ignite Next’s role is helping founders make disciplined choices. “We bring in industry experts who can say, ‘Go this direction, not automotive,’ or, ‘Go automotive, but with this angle,’” he explained.
“They understand the bottlenecks, the pricing, the hidden dynamics. They also know what corporates are building internally — and sometimes the founders realise a startup has already outperformed the internal team.”
The ‘end of the beginning’: where the real work happens
One of my frustrations as a journalist with a history of writing about industrial tech is that while there are an abundance of pilots partnering startups with OEMs, few translate to commercial opportunities.
Bohl is familiar with this pain point and, as a result, during the 12-week program, teams identify several concrete opportunities:
“After the program — the “end of the beginning”—the real work starts. We call it value creation. Most of the work is strategic: building new business units, unlocking new joint opportunities, not cost-saving projects.
When things work well, it’s a combination of startup tech + corporate tech + an end customer urgently needing the joint solution. Everyone wins.
That's when scale happens, because these companies need a lot of capital and must grow on the shoulders of giants.
We also help them understand precisely where they fit in the value chain — what they do, what they don’t do, what their right to exist is.”
Coachability is a competitive advantage
According to Bohl, the best founders are super-technical, straight from the lab, geeks — and they want to commercialise.
“But you don’t always get that. So you augment the team. That creates culture clashes. Bringing in a seasoned sales veteran with industry expectations can be difficult.
Chemistry is critical. We insist on a chemistry check before adding senior hires. If it doesn’t click, nothing works.”
Further, he contends that “Senior hires—especially sales—are good at selling themselves. Scientists can’t always evaluate that.”
He shared that founders must also think ahead:
“What will be my job in two years? In five years? What do I need to learn to stay a CEO? Roles change. The roadmap is long — fusion companies, for example, will spend decades together. We look for coachability.”
Additional corporate and institutional partners are set to join in the coming months, further strengthening Ignite Next’s value proposition to founders. All partnerships are long-term, offering startups sustained support while reinforcing a lasting commitment to Europe’s deep tech ecosystem and supply chain resilience.
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