The EIC Scaling Club Podcast on European Deep Tech

In this interview, Stephan van Sint Fiet, CEO of Vivici, shares how the Dutch startup produces real dairy proteins without animals through precision fermentation. Headquartered in Delft, Vivici has taken its lab-developed whey protein, beta-lactoglobulin, to full industrial food-grade scale, now commercially available in the United States. Backed by a seasoned leadership team and now raising a Ser...

In this interview, recorded on October 21, 2024, Olivier Lebeau, CFO of Agriodor, shares how the company is pioneering biocontrol solutions to protect crops without pesticides, offering farmers a sustainable way to combat insect pests while preserving biodiversity and human health. Using biomimicry and patented scent-based repellents, Agriodor develops customized blends that push harmful insects a...

In this interview, Ivar Kruusenberg, CEO and founder of PowerUP Energy Technologies, explains how their hydrogen fuel cell and battery-based hybrid energy solutions are addressing one of the biggest challenges of our time energy resiliency. Headquartered in Estonia, with offices across Europe and the US, PowerUP designs lightweight, efficient, and scalable power systems to replace outdated grids a...

In this interview, Alberto Bucci, CEO of Jolt Solutions, shares how the company is revolutionizing green hydrogen production with advanced electrochemical coatings for electrolyzers. Based in Spain, Jolt Solutions has developed a scalable, cost-effective, and highly durable coating technology that improves stability, efficiency, and mass production for electrolyzers—key to unlocking the future of...

In this interview, Matthijs Soede, CEO and Co-Founder of Battolyser Systems, explains how their unique hybrid electrolyzer-battery technology is revolutionizing the clean hydrogen and energy storage industry. Combining iron-nickel battery chemistry with hydrogen production, Battolyser enables renewable energy storage and on-demand hydrogen generation, making it a game-changer for the energy transi...

In this interview, Julie Sufana, CMO of ContextFlow, shares how the company is revolutionizing radiology AI to improve the early detection of lung cancer, interstitial lung diseases, and COPD. A spinoff from the Medical University of Vienna, ContextFlow uses comprehensive AI to assist radiologists by reducing workload, improving reporting accuracy, and detecting lung cancer up to one year earlier....

In this interview, Julian Melchiorri, CEO and founder of Arborea, shares how his company is transforming food production with biosolar leaf technology. This breakthrough converts sunlight and CO₂ into high-quality protein without using land or water-intensive resources. 150 times more protein-efficient than soy, Arborea’s net-zero, nature-positive ingredients are already being integrated by the wo...

In this Tech.eu interview, Matthew Schmidt, Head of Partnerships at Sakowin, discusses how the company is pioneering methane plasmalysis to produce clean hydrogen and solid carbon, offering an energy-efficient alternative to electrolysis. With five times the energy efficiency and zero CO2 emissions, Sakowin is helping industries decarbonize at scale. Having raised €11M+ in funding and now opening...

In this interview, Benjamin Lager, CEO of Protealis, shares how his company is revolutionizing sustainable protein production in Europe. With a mission to localize soybean cultivation, Protealis tackles major global challenges—sustainability, farmer resilience, plant-based food security, and Europe’s protein import dependency. By developing climate-adapted soybean varieties and microbial inoculant...

In this interview, Maxime Lemiere, Head of Corporate Development at Cailabs, explores how optical ground stations are solving critical challenges in satellite communications, including spectrum congestion, security threats, and low data rates as satellite numbers surge. He explains how Cailabs’ advanced laser technology enables high-speed, highly secure data transmission by mitigating atmospheric...

In this interview, Fabio Rosa , Co-Founder and Head of Research at Asgard Therapeutics , discusses their groundbreaking cancer therapy, AT108 , which reprograms cancer cells into immune cells. Asgard has raised €30 million in Series A funding and is preparing for clinical trials by 2027 . With strong scientific validation and key publications, the company is now focused on partnerships, production...

Introducing one of the EIC Scaling Club Cardiovascular Therapies group members – Anaconda Biomed, a Barcelona-based scale-up revolutionizing stroke treatment with its cutting-edge technology. Their mission statement is ambitious yet simple: to provide the best thrombectomy system to health care professionals. And since its foundation, Anaconda Biomed has been on track to accomplish just that. List...

In this episode, we sit down with Keith Sequeira , Head of the European Innovation Council Unit at the European Commission, during the Scale 100 Forum in Athens, Greece . Keith shares insights into the challenges and opportunities for European scale-ups, highlighting the role of the EIC Scaling Club in closing the scale-up gap. He discusses Europe's strengths as a scaling environment, the rise of...

At the recent EIC Summit , we caught up with Jean-David Malo , Director of EISMEA , the European Commission’s executive agency for the European Innovation Council and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It was a timely encounter, coinciding with the release of the EIC Impact Report 2023 , which highlighted that the total value of the overall portfolio of EIC-supported companies has now reac...

The EIC Scaling Club team sat down with Fabrizio Del Maffeo on the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 Europe event in Paris. As the co-founder and CEO of Axelera AI , Del Maffeo kicked off the interview pitching his company as a 'small, fast-growing Nvidia'. That's intriguing enough on its own, but the entrepreneur of course told us a bit more about the backstory of Axelera AI, and what t...

Dr. Christian Nagel is a co-founder and partner of Earlybird , a technology investment powerhouse with more than €2 billion under management. Founded in 1997, Earlybird invests in all development and growth phases of tech companies, and has nestled itself among the largest and most experienced venture investors operating in Europe today. We caught up with Christian at the recent Tech Tour Growth50...

Amadeus Capital Partners has been investing in technology-enabled products and services for nearly three decades. Founded by Anne Glover and Hermann Hauser in 1997, Amadeus has backed more than 190 companies and raised over $1 billion for investment to date. When we had a chance to sit down with Anne on the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 Europe event, we seized the opportunity to ask...

At the recent EIT Summit in Brussels, we sat down with the organisation's Director, Martin Kern , to discuss what's cooking over at the European Institute of Innovation & Technology . Kern, who's been part of the EIT leadership for almost a decade after a long career stint at the European Commission, told us more about the EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (the so-called KICs), which ar...

On the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 Europe event, we caught up with Jean Schmitt , Managing Partner at Jolt Capital , a growth capital investor in European B2B deep tech companies. Having been part of the predecessor programme of the EIC Scaling Club, Jean shared his views on the evolving deep tech scale-up creation and financing landscape in this part of the world, which barriers h...

Azeem Azhar has had a rich career as a journalist, entrepreneur, author, speaker, analyst, consultant, but now bills himself as an 'independent academic'. These days, he's perhaps best known for Exponential View , which offers weekly deep dives on AI and breakthrough technologies to a vast audience of investors, C-suite execs and global leaders who like to be challenged on thinking about the futur...

We recently attend the EIT Summit in Brussels, where we had a chance to catch up with Maria Tsavachidis , CEO of EIT Urban Mobility , one of the organisation's so-called KICs. What is a KIC, you ask? As the EIT explains on its website , the acronym stands for "Knowledge and Innovation Communities" and they are essentially Europe-wide networks centred around addressing a specific societal challenge...

We had a very interesting conversation with the co-founder and CEO of clean energy scale-up Proxima Fusion at the recent DLD Conference in Munich, and fortunately for you we recorded it! Have a listen to this interview with Francesco Sciortino , whose deep tech company aims to build an entirely new generation of fusion power plants, using QI stellarators. Proxima Fusion is the first-ever spin-out...

On the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 event in Paris, we recorded a short but sweet interview with Jennifer Schenker , founder and editor-in-chief of The Innovator , which she describes as a "pan-European publication with global aspirations". Having covered the European technology sector for 30+ years, the veteran journalist started The Innovator in late 2016 to cover digital transfor...

On the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 Europe event in Paris, we had a chance to sit down with Timo Toikkanen , an early investor and advisor to, and these days chief executive officer of Finland-based professional mixed reality company Varjo . Toikannen talks about the origins and early, R&D-focussed years of the deep tech scale-up, lessons learned on the road to commercialisation...

We jumped at the opportunity to sit down with Jennifer Webb , an Investment Director at Swisscom Ventures who leads investments in sustainable technologies. She joined from LGT Lightrock in London where she spent five years building the innovative sustainable technology investment vehicle with investments in B2B SaaS, healthcare and education. On the sidelines of the recent Tech Tour Growth 50 eve...