We Love Deep Tech Pre-Seed: Why Foundational Conviction Trumps Hype
By the Id4 Ventures Team
At Id4 Ventures, our enduring pre-seed thesis has always been centered on a single truth: Technological breakthroughs create generational value. For years, we have been the first institutional capital for the founders solving the hardest problems in the world, the ones with a Deep Tech Moat.
Our experience backing these visionaries across multiple cycles - from our early Angel and Seed Funds to the present day - has reinforced one critical lesson: True innovation is rarely an incremental software update; it is a fundamental scientific leap.
The Deep Tech Pre-Seed Paradox: The Gap is the Opportunity
Many investors are looking for fast-scaling software that fits a neat 12-month timeline. But true innovation - Deep Tech - is messy, time-intensive, and fundamentally requires more patience.
This leads to a paradox in the capital markets, and it is precisely where we thrive:
- The Time Horizon Challenge: We acknowledge that Deep Tech companies, anchored in science and engineering, require approximately 18 months longer to reach Series A traction and utilize 35% more time and 48% more capital for R&D before generating early revenue. However, this commitment is the price of admission for outlier returns. The potential for transformative market disruption and outsized financial outcomes fundamentally outweighs the perceived risk and longer capital hold period.
- The Allocation Imbalance: Despite these challenges - or perhaps because of the barriers to entry they represent - Deep Tech has steadily grown to account for a stable 20% of global VC funding (and nearly one-third of all VC funding in key European hubs). The capital is flowing, but too often, it bypasses the most crucial, riskiest stage: Pre-Seed.
This is a market inefficiency. The founders who are truly building the future - the next Gen AI infrastructure, the next sustainable materials breakthrough, or the next Space Economy pioneer - often struggle to find a partner who understands that the scientific validation is the early traction.
Our Role: The Partner for the Long Arc of Innovation
At Id4 Ventures, Pre-Seed is not a segment of a larger fund's strategy; it is our only strategy. We are built to address the unique needs of the Deep Tech founder through:
- Technical Conviction First: Our investment decision rests on the depth and defensibility of the technology. We back the founder's vision and the integrity of the science before demanding a pre-baked business model.
- The "Extra Mile" Engagement: We commit to being the active partner that helps translate lab work into a commercial product. For us, supporting Pre-Seed means doing the extra work to structure follow-on funding, introduce key strategic partners, and help recruit the first technical leaders.
- Patient Capital for Validation: Our capital is designed to carry a team through the necessary R&D cycles and technical milestones, ensuring they don't run out of runway before they achieve the Series A benchmark.
- Mobilizing Capital for Scaling: Beyond our primary pre-seed capacity, we act as a committed partner throughout the growth journey. We have the proven ability to mobilize our extensive LP base to construct Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), allowing us to support our best-performing Deep Tech companies all the way to exit. This extra capacity manages to mobilize multi-million dollar investments, effectively bridging the notorious Deep Tech funding gap in later stages.
We look for founders whose ambition is not to optimize, but to transform.
Update on Our Ecosystem Commitment
Our investment philosophy, honed over multiple funds (including our earlier Angel II and Seed Funds), is fully intact.
Our commitment to the pre-seed ecosystem extends beyond our direct investments - we actively work to build capacity and share best practices across the European market.
To that end, we have also strategically invested in complementary micro-funds as a limited partner (LP), including commitments to:
- Tiny VC II and Tiny VC III
- Possible Ventures I
- Nordic Web II and Nordic Web III
This Fund-of-Funds strategy helps us develop our network across borders, learn faster by sharing experiences, and ultimately better support our direct portfolio companies by tapping into a wider ecosystem of pre-seed champions.
We are proud to be deploying capital from our latest direct fund, Fund III, which reinforces our unwavering, long-term focus on backing foundational Deep Tech at the earliest stage.
If you are a scientist or engineer building a foundational technology that will define the next decade, we understand your language and we are ready to be your first 'Yes'.
Let's build the future together.