Where does the data come from?
The startups featured in the Deep Tech Finder were identified by carefully matching European startups listed in Dealroom – a global data platform for intelligence on startups – with the EPO's register of patent applicants. We adopted a similar approach to research institutions by matching the European Patent Register with European universities listed in the microdata of the European Higher Education Sector Observatory (EHESO), and with public research organisations (PROs) listed in the microdata of the Research Infrastructure for Science and Innovation Policy Studies (RISIS).
When building the tool, our priority was reliability. As a result, some European startups or universities may be missing if they were not included in the original data or could not be reliably matched to an EPO applicant. Only entities that have filed at least one European patent application are included. To ensure relevance and a sharp focus on genuine startups, we excluded companies with 1 000+ employees (based on their Dealroom profile) and those founded over 30 years ago. The scope is also limited to startups that Dealroom classifies as being in the early, breakout or late growth stages.
As the Deep Tech Finder includes only companies that meet the described dynamic eligibility criteria, the total number of companies featured may fluctuate over time. Companies that are longer established, that exceed the employee threshold or whose patents expire may no longer meet the eligibility criteria and may therefore drop out of the dataset. Conversely, newly founded and newly matched companies may be added.
As far as university data is concerned, the EHESO data source lists unique IDs for universities, making it possible to create an aggregation of university names for all universities in EPO member states. We limited our matches to the category “Higher Education Institution” in the EHESO microdata and added a few universities identified as missing from the EHESO database. To further align university-level data with the reality of national university systems, the datasets were reviewed and corrected by the national patent offices of EPO member states that collaborate with the EPO’s Observatory on Patents and Technology. Data on PROs are in turn sourced from OrgReg, a public facility produced by RISIS and providing a comprehensive register of public-sector research organisations in European countries.
University and PRO spinouts are designated using Dealroom’s definition. Spinouts are startups that either have equity and/or royalty or licensing agreements with a university or research institution; or are explicitly referred to as university spinouts (or spin-offs) by a reliable source such as a university website, company LinkedIn profile or trusted news outlet. Startups may also qualify as spinouts if they are clearly described as having been founded to commercialise technology developed at a university or research centre. This definition excludes corporate spinouts and startups founded by university alumni or those only incubated at a university, unless a direct link to a technology developed by a university is established.
The patent data has been further enriched by the EPO to enable searches by the technological field(s) of the inventions they relate to, using special queries developed by EPO examiners in their respective fields of expertise.
The Deep Tech Finder draws on comprehensive patent data from the EPO, covering all granted European patents and published applications at the EPO. This includes direct filings at the EPO, applications for which an EPO search report has been issued and international (PCT) applications that have entered the European phase. PCT applications for which the EPO acted only as International Searching Authority are not currently included in the Deep Tech Finder.