Biotech startup ecosystem
Europe's biotech ecosystem benefits from world-class research universities, strong IP frameworks, and growing specialist VC funds. The UK, Switzerland, and the Nordics are particularly strong in drug discovery, diagnostics, and synthetic biology. We track 103 organisations in this sector across 6+ countries.
Showing 21–40 of 103 Biotech
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Biotech results
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BIOSPAIN 2026
One of Europe's largest biotech partnering events, in its 13th edition and run by industry association AseBio, known for its high volume of one-to-one investor and company meetings. Essential for biotech and life-sciences founders raising capital or seeking pharma and research partners.
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Brain Bar 2026
A future-focused festival in Budapest exploring how technology, science, and society intersect. Draws 5,000+ attendees including founders, researchers, and policymakers. Known for provocative talks on AI, biotech, and the future of work. Tickets start from EUR 100.
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Brunnur Ventures
Brunnur Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2013 and focused on high-growth Icelandic startups. The firm backs scalable B2B software, gaming, biotech, cleantech, and marine-tech companies, writing initial seed cheques and following on through growth rounds. With around 34 portfolio companies, the firm has achieved notable exits including CCP Games and Oculis. Key partners include Founding Partner Sigurdur Arnljotsson and Managing Partner Arni Bloendal.
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BSV Ventures
BSV Ventures (formerly Baltic Sandbox Ventures) is an early-stage VC firm focused on deep tech, life sciences, and dual-use technologies across the Baltic region, with offices in Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland. It was founded in 2018 and offers both an incubation program and direct investment, writing pre-seed cheques up to €125,000 and seed cheques up to €400,000. In 2024 the firm closed a €15 million fund backed by NATO Innovation Fund and the Lithuanian national development institution ILTE. It has made over 27 investments.
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Coinvest Capital
Coinvest Capital is a state-backed co-investment fund established in 2018 as a 100% subsidiary of the National Development Bank ILTE, itself owned by Lithuania's Ministry of Finance, and co-funded by the European Union. The fund's model requires all investments to be made alongside accredited business angels or other VC funds, splitting upside in favour of private co-investors to grow Lithuania's angel ecosystem. With €44.3 million in committed capital, it has deployed over €25.9 million into 51 portfolio companies spanning AI, climate, biotech, defence, and frontier tech. Since 2023 it has earmarked roughly €6.8 million specifically for aerospace, defence, and dual-use startups, making it one of the earliest European sovereign funds to lean into defence tech.
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Commercialization Reactor
Commercialization Reactor is a deep-tech venture creation platform and accelerator established in 2009 in Riga, ranked among the most experienced science-commercialisation programmes in Europe. It pairs scientists and researchers with entrepreneurial co-founders to build deep-tech startups, and provides up to €50k in pre-seed investment through a six-month programme focused on market and customer development. In 2024 it launched ESA BIC Latvia as the national ESA incubation centre operator, and has supported over 40 portfolio ventures across biotech, cleantech, materials, and space.
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Cradle
Cradle is an Amsterdam-based biotech startup using generative AI to accelerate protein engineering. Founded in 2021 by former Google DeepMind researchers, the platform enables scientists to design and optimize proteins for therapeutics, vaccines, enzymes, and novel materials far faster than traditional methods. Cradle raised over $33 million, including a Series A led by Index Ventures, and works with pharmaceutical and industrial biotech customers globally. The company sits at the intersection of machine learning and life sciences, representing one of Europe's most promising AI-for-biology plays.
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CureVac
CureVac is a biopharmaceutical company based in Tuebingen, Germany, founded in 2000 as a pioneer in mRNA technology. The company was one of the earliest to explore messenger RNA as a therapeutic platform, long before mRNA became a household term during the COVID-19 pandemic. While its first-generation COVID vaccine candidate underperformed in clinical trials, CureVac pivoted to next-generation mRNA technologies and partnered with GSK on a second-generation COVID vaccine and other infectious disease programs. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ and continues developing its proprietary mRNA optimization platform.
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CuspAI
CuspAI is a frontier AI company building a generative-AI search engine for materials that accelerates the discovery and design of new molecules and engineered materials. Users specify desired properties (for example, selective CO2 binding for carbon capture), and the platform generates, evaluates, and optimises synthesisable candidate structures. It combines generative foundation models, deep learning, and molecular and scientific simulation, targeting applications across carbon capture, water purification, energy storage, catalysis, and industrial chemistry. The company was co-founded in 2024 by Dr Chad Edwards (CEO) and Prof Max Welling (CTO), and is headquartered in Cambridge.
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DeepTech Ventures Summit 2026 (September 2026)
A deep-tech summit powered by Technoport that brings together Europe’s lab-to-market actors, including research institutions, technology-transfer offices, funding partners and entrepreneurs, to co-create structured deep-tech pathways. The invitation-only event features pre-arranged one-to-one matchmaking, an exhibition showcase and a demo zone of breakthrough technologies.
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Diffusion Capital Partners
Diffusion Capital Partners (DCP) is Istanbul's leading deep-tech focused venture capital fund manager, with a team that began operations in 2007 and the fund formally established in 2015. DCP closed its first fund at €37M and launched a second fund targeting €35M, backing startups in BioTech, AgroTech, CleanTech, Robotics, Material Science, and Nanotechnology across Turkey and the broader region. The firm has made over 44 investments, primarily at Seed and early Series A stages with initial tickets typically below €500K. DCP's cumulative team experience spans over 70 years in high-tech sectors, offering portfolio companies business development, legal, and operational support alongside capital.
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Dualyx
VIB-linked biotech developing Treg-based immune modulators for hard-to-treat autoimmune diseases. Lead program DT-001 is a TNFR2 antibody agonist in IND-enabling studies. Founded 2020; raised EUR 40M Series A in 2023.
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EcoBean
Circular-economy startup commercializing technology to upcycle spent coffee grounds into bio-based ingredients, including oils, antioxidant fractions, polymer feedstocks, and protein-rich additives for cosmetics, packaging, and food supply chains.
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Elypta
Elypta (Elypta AB) is a Solna-based biotech company developing a metabolism-based liquid biopsy, the MIRAM Kit, for early cancer detection. It measures the GAGome, a set of systemic biomarkers of tumor metabolism in urine, and applies machine learning to noninvasively detect cancer signatures. Elypta is a main partner in the EU-funded PREDI-LYNCH project, a pan-European hereditary multi-cancer screening initiative for people with Lynch Syndrome that received EUR 13.6 million in EU funding, and it has completed the largest kidney cancer recurrence monitoring study using its urine test. The company holds ISO 13485:2016 certification.
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Ena Prosser
Partner and co-founder of Fountain Healthcare Partners. A biotechnologist with a PhD and former Enterprise Ireland and Elan experience, she leads investments across biopharma and diagnostics and manages many of the firm's cross-sector relationships.
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EnginZyme
EnginZyme (EnginZyme AB) is a Solna-based biomanufacturing company that uses a patented enzyme immobilisation technology to create bespoke, stable biocatalysts for multi-step enzymatic reactions. Its aim is to make chemical and materials manufacturing greener and cleaner by unlocking enzymes as an alternative to conventional chemical processes, with applications spanning industries such as personal care ingredients.
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ESCMID Global 2026 (ECCMID)
Global congress for clinical microbiology and infectious diseases at Messe Munich, drawing 15,000+ clinicians, researchers, and industry buyers from 130+ countries. Registration about EUR 600-900. Ideal for diagnostics, AMR, and medtech startups with clinical data seeking KOL validation, hospital pilots, and pharma partnerships.
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Estonian HealthTech Week 2026
A week-long showcase of Estonia's e-health, healthtech, and biotech ecosystem, opening in Tallinn and moving to Tartu, and including the DTx New Nordics Conference. Free to attend, designed for healthtech entrepreneurs, startups, clinicians, and investors.
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ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) is one of the world's leading technical universities, consistently ranked in the global top ten for engineering, computer science, and natural sciences. Founded in 1855 by the Swiss federal government, ETH Zurich has produced 22 Nobel laureates and is the academic origin of many of Europe's most important deep-tech companies, including Scandit, Planted, and Araris Biotech. Its Technology Transfer Office (ETH Transfer) manages IP licensing and supports spin-out creation, having enabled over 500 spin-off companies. ETH Zurich's Pioneer Fellowship and Student Project House programmes provide early-stage support to founders still on campus. For founders in the Swiss ecosystem, ETH Zurich is the deepest single source of engineering talent, research partnerships, and institutional credibility across fields from quantum computing and robotics to materials science and food technology.
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Exciva
Clinical-stage biotech developing therapeutics for neuropsychiatric disorders. Lead program Deraphan targets agitation and aggression in Alzheimer's disease dementia and is in Phase 2/3. Raised EUR 51M Series B in 2026.
