Every year, we receive thousands of applications for our Deep Tech startup competition, the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge. This year was no exception. We broke all our previous records, reaching 5176 applications from 128 countries! This number undoubtedly gives us a good idea of what Deep Tech innovation looks like today. Our team and expert network selected the best 750 startups from the applications after thorough reviews. The 4 criteria by which we evaluated the selected startups are technological innovation, economic viability, leadership & team, and potential impacts on industry and society. We call these startups 'Our Deep Tech Pioneers'. In this article, you can find what we know about the best projects.
Deep Tech from Well-Known Ecosystems and Some Promising Ones
First and foremost, location, location, location. A total of 55 countries are represented among the most successful selected startups. While 27% of these incredible projects come from North America, more than half (54%) are participating from Europe. 14% of the projects come from Asia, and the remaining 5% are spread across different corners of the world.
The represented cities, including Berlin, Boston, Lausanne, London, Munich, Paris, the San Francisco Bay Area, Singapore, Toronto, and Zurich, are evaluated by the World Economic Forum as having the most innovative economies in the world. This doesn't surprise us, but we are happy to see promising startups from smaller and lesser-known ecosystems like Russia-Thailand among us!
Deep Tech Innovation Supported by University Research
37% of our Deep Tech Pioneers are comprised of startups emerging from the highest-ranking universities in Switzerland (ETH Zurich and EPFL), the USA (Harvard and MIT), Singapore (National University of Singapore), and Germany (Technische Universität München). We are pleased to see the increasing number of universities that support the transfer of research from the lab to the market! 54% of our Deep Tech Pioneers have obtained at least one patent to protect their intellectual property rights. As we can understand from this, these innovative ideas consist of both unique and unconventional research, and they are waiting to be discovered (at the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit!). Moreover, 40% of the startups have published academic papers in reputable journals. We can say once again that the connection between Deep Tech innovation and research is quite strong.
High-Impact Solutions Relevant to All Sectors
The Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge hosts startups focused on producing solutions that concern everyone, with healthcare coming to the forefront among all represented sectors! 31% of our Deep Tech Pioneers work to develop solutions for healthcare (medical biotechnology, medical devices, and digital health services). We cannot help but mention that all these solutions are inspirational, goal-oriented, and 88% of them meet one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The high-impact nature of these solutions is partially linked to the fact that startups primarily target B2B markets (79%). Developing a technology platform that can be implemented directly on different products and can be conducted by industry participants makes these innovations more disruptive.
What Does a Deep Tech Pioneer Look Like?
The average age of Hello Tomorrow Deep Tech Pioneer startups is under 3 years, and we can say that this is still very early in the Deep Tech world! Developing groundbreaking technologies takes time and requires a comprehensive R&D process compared to web and mobile applications that can be easily developed in a few months.
24% of the startups are founded by women. Although this ratio is definitely not encouraging in terms of gender equality, it reflects the continuation of male dominance in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields (at least for now!). Over the years, the number of women starting STEM careers has been increasing, and we hope to see this number continue to rise.
All of This is About Acceleration
In conclusion, we must emphasize that acceleration programs are of great importance for Deep Tech startups. 33% of Deep Tech Pioneers are already registered in an acceleration program, while 35% are looking for a program they can join. It is often observed that Deep Tech startups lack access to vital business expertise and a mentor network. These programs are a great way to gain the necessary skills and connections to take the startup further. This is why we dedicate an entire day to business meetings through accelerator programs and incubation centers that we call Business Day. This allows startups to seize the opportunity to find the program that suits them.
In order to provide a platform for these groundbreaking startups and to answer the specific questions of Deep Tech startups, we designed a week dedicated to events and meetings called Deep Tech Week to be held in Paris from March 9-13, 2020. This week includes the Business Day to be held on March 10, the Investor Day to be held on March 11, and the Global Summit to be held on March 12-13. Register today!
We extend our heartfelt thanks to all of our partners who support our mission to accelerate the transfer of newly developed high-impact technologies!
