European spinouts hit EUR €370 billion, led by photonics

A new study has found that European university spinouts have reached a combined value of €370 billion, with photonics and quantum science identified as central fields in that ecosystem.

Produced by Dealroom.co, the European Spinouts Report 2025 tracked 17,000 university spinouts founded across Europe since 1990. Of those, 7,300 operate in deep tech and life sciences, spanning robotics, artificial intelligence, climate technology, semiconductors, nuclear technology and space.

According to the findings, the companies employ more than 160,000 people across Europe. Their combined value is roughly comparable to Romania's gross domestic product.

Photonics was highlighted as an enabling technology embedded across several of the sectors covered in the report. Centred on the use of light in sensing, imaging, communications and manufacturing, it appears in spinout activity linked to semiconductor production, medical diagnostics, Earth observation, robotics and advanced sensing.

Deep-tech growth

The report points to a sharp rise in value creation over the past decade. Nearly 40% of the total enterprise value generated by European deep-tech and life-sciences spinouts comes from companies founded since 2015, suggesting a faster pace of commercialisation from university research.

Spinouts have also become a larger share of the startup market. Since 2019, they have accounted for around 40% of all new deep-tech and life-sciences startups in Europe, an 80% increase on the previous decade.

That shift reflects a broader move by investors towards science-based businesses emerging from research institutions rather than conventional software-led startup models. The data suggests universities and public research programmes are playing a larger role in creating venture-backed companies in strategically important technologies.

The study presents photonics as one of the core research areas driving that trend. Its role extends beyond a single industrial niche, reaching across sectors that depend on precision sensing, imaging, optical communication and advanced manufacturing tools.

Research pipeline

The findings also underline the importance of publicly funded research in Europe's spinout pipeline. The report links growth in photonics-related company formation to continued investment in quantum technologies, advanced manufacturing and communications infrastructure.

Those ties matter because many photonics businesses emerge from long development cycles in university and laboratory settings. Unlike consumer internet startups, deep-tech spinouts often require years of technical work before reaching commercial scale, making early research support and access to specialist investors more important.

Platforms, including Tech Tour Photonics, have helped connect photonics startups with investors. The report describes that kind of engagement as part of a broader effort to turn laboratory research into companies capable of attracting private capital.

For European policymakers and industry groups, the commercialisation of photonics research has become tied to concerns about industrial autonomy in technologies such as semiconductors and quantum systems. The report places photonics alongside quantum science as a foundational layer in fields seen as strategically important to the region's economy.

"Europe has built one of the most dynamic research spinout ecosystems in the world. We have a pipeline of science-driven companies that is increasingly the envy of global innovation economies," Dr Lutz Aschke, President of Photonics21, said.

"Photonics sits at the core of this success: as a foundational technology of the modern innovation landscape, Europe's strength in optical science is translating into globally competitive companies across many sectors and domains. Ensuring these spinouts can scale and remain anchored in Europe will be critical to our industrial future," Aschke added.

The report's framing of photonics as a cross-cutting technology reflects the way many of Europe's research-driven companies are formed. A business may be classified under semiconductors, robotics or climate technology while relying on optical systems developed in photonics laboratories.

That overlap helps explain why photonics appears throughout the data rather than as a standalone category. It also shows how university research in one scientific discipline can shape company formation across a much broader industrial base.

The figures add to evidence that Europe's spinout ecosystem is growing in economic weight as governments and investors place greater emphasis on technologies rooted in scientific research. Together, these companies now represent one of the continent's most active sources of science-led innovation, employing more than 160,000 people across Europe.