Energy shocks, supply chain breakdowns and strategic dependence on faraway critical minerals are straining European industries. But they are also stimulating hopes for a European industrial renaissance.
The HackSummit, taking place this year in Lausanne, Switzerland on 22-23 April, is betting on European founders, investors and experts to meet the challenge of Europe’s deeptech moment.
Long dismissed as slow, capital-intensive and risky, deeptech has quietly become the continent's dominant top-funded sector, pulling in €78.6bn in 2025, according to Sifted data.
Today, the hardest, most infrastructure-heavy problems are attracting eyeballs and capital.
Deeptech is one of Europe’s strengths and a key driver of this is its renewed focus on its industrial base, according to Maximilian Schwarz, founder and general partner at deeptech VC firm Nucleus Capital.
"For decades, Europe built global leadership in chemistry, agriculture and materials science. What we're seeing now is biology emerging as a new manufacturing platform on top of that foundation,” he says.
Switzerland has become an epicenter of this transformation. According to Deep Tech Nation, around 60% of its venture funding now flows into deeptech, across an ecosystem of more than 1.5k startups. Research and innovation institutions such as Swissnex, Presence Switzerland, EPFL and ETHZ have also forged a once fragmented landscape into a regional engine.
Brussels is also reacting. The EU's latest attempt to streamline company creation across 27 member states, promising incorporation in 48 hours for under €100, signals speed now matters.
But the proposal still routes legal disputes through national courts and leaves employment law untouched. For founders hiring engineers across countries, the frictions remain real.
Europe needs builders
By 2027, the EU is expected to face a 3.9m tech talent gap, according to McKinsey's Tech Talent Gap report. But framing this as a ‘skills shortage’ undersells the problem.
Europe needs more entrepreneurs and more builders. Not simply people who do world-class science, but those who are able to turn these into business opportunities.
Deeptech alone won’t build the industrial renaissance and neither will capital. What matters is the speed at which ideas can move from lab to market and the number of talented teams able to deliver.
This year, HackSummit is betting on Europe’s industrial renaissance in the context of geopolitical turmoil. It hopes to play a role in Europe's successful execution by bringing together the continent's brightest talents, founders, investors and operators to mobilise capital and unlock tangible pathways to market.
Three days. Three bottlenecks. One place.
HackSummit is built around three problems Europe's deeptech ecosystem hasn’t yet solved simultaneously: talent, capital and access to market.
"HackSummit brings together people who don't just talk about the future, but want to build it — from investors with long-term horizons to technical talent working on rebuilding industrial capability," says Max Werner, CEO and cofounder at mining company Hades Mining.
On 22-23 April, the summit will be hosting The Builder Challenge hackathon bringing together teams of engineers, PhD students and researchers to tackle industrial problems through AI.
On 24 April, HackSummit will be hosting an additional event, the Hack Pilot Day, connecting deeptech startups directly with SMEs and industrial operators ready to buy and deploy products.
Emilie Dellecker, cofounder of HackSummit, has high hopes this year’s event will be no different in bringing together leading individuals within Europe’s deeptech ecosystem.
She says: “This is a rare moment, where capital, talent and politics could finally align. If Europe can pull off execution, it can lead in the industries that will define the next decades. That's exactly what HackSummit is built to accelerate."
Click here to register for HackSummit tickets.
