Scaling for sovereignty: How EU policy is reshaping Europe’s deeptech playbook

Europe's deeptech startups are increasingly being asked to do more than build successful businesses. As policymakers focus on strengthening strategic autonomy, securing critical supply chains, and accelerating the green transition, a new generation of companies is emerging at the intersection of innovation and geopolitics.

Backed by initiatives such as the European Innovation Council (EIC), they illustrate how European innovation policy is increasingly aligned with broader objectives around supply-chain security, resource efficiency, industrial competitiveness, and technological independence.

CorPower Ocean (Sweden)

CorPower Ocean is a wave energy company developing technology that converts the motion of ocean waves into renewable electricity. Inspired by the pumping principles of the human heart, the company's compact wave energy converters are designed to capture significantly more energy than traditional wave power systems while withstanding harsh ocean conditions.

CorPower's technology aims to provide a reliable source of clean energy that can complement wind and solar power, helping accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy system.

By harnessing a domestic, largely untapped natural resource, CorPower helps reduce Europe's dependence on imported fossil fuels while strengthening the resilience of its clean energy infrastructure. ​

EnduroSat ( Bulgaria)

EnduroSat is a space company that designs, builds, and operates satellites, offering a "satellite-as-a-service" model that allows customers to deploy space missions without building spacecraft from scratch. Its technology covers satellite platforms, components, integration, launch support and mission operations.

EnduroSat expands Europe's independent satellite manufacturing capabilities, providing governments and businesses with access to European-built space infrastructure while reducing reliance on non-European suppliers.

Its satellites support applications ranging from Earth observation and communications to defence, environmental monitoring, and critical infrastructure, strengthening the broader European space ecosystem alongside launch providers, geospatial companies, and defence-tech firms.

The company recently opened an 188,000-square-foot Space Centre in Sofia and secured more than $100 million in funding to scale production of its larger ESPA-class satellites, with the goal of manufacturing up to two satellites per day.

Investors include the European Innovation Council Fund and major international backers.

Kraftblock (Germany)

Kraftblock is a deeptech scale-up developing high-temperature thermal energy storage systems for industrial decarbonisation.

The company has built a flexible, modular platform that stores cheap renewable electricity as heat and dispatches it on demand to energy-intensive industrial processes.

The storage systems enable manufacturers to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, helping reduce dependence on imported gas and volatile global energy markets. Its technology aligns closely with broader European efforts to build cleaner, more self-sufficient industrial supply chains and accelerate the transition to a sustainable, sovereign energy system. ​

Modvion (Sweden)

Modvion is a climatetech company that builds wind turbine towers using a patented modular tower system made from laminated veneer lumber (LVL), which it describes as "nature's own carbon fibre."

As wind turbines get taller, traditional steel towers become increasingly difficult and expensive to manufacture and transport. Tower sections for very tall turbines can exceed road transport limits across Europe and North America. Modvion's solution is to manufacture towers as smaller wooden modules that can be transported on standard trucks and assembled on site. Taller towers become more economically viable, allowing turbines to access stronger winds and generate more electricity.

By replacing conventional steel wind turbine towers with engineered wood sourced from European forests, the company helps reduce dependence on imported, carbon-intensive materials while strengthening local manufacturing and clean energy supply chains.

Its technology supports the EU's goals around energy security, sustainable industry, and the transition to a circular bioeconomy, aligning closely with initiatives such as the Net-Zero Industry Act and broader efforts to enhance European industrial resilience.

In 2026, Modvion secured up to €39.1 million from the EU Innovation Fund to establish volume manufacturing for its wooden wind turbine towers in Sweden.

Multiverse Computing (Spain)

While much of the AI race has focused on building ever-larger foundation models, Spain's Multiverse Computing is pursuing a different route to European AI sovereignty.

Multiverse Computing develops quantum-inspired AI compression technology that dramatically reduces the computing power, energy consumption, and cost needed to run advanced AI models, enabling organisations to deploy powerful AI on their own infrastructure rather than relying solely on hyperscale cloud providers.

As Europe seeks to reduce dependence on foreign cloud providers and scarce AI compute resources, efficiency itself is becoming a strategic asset.

Companies mentioned in this article are members of the EIC Scaling Club, a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.

The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership with Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech. eueu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.