Deep tech – to infinity, and BEYOND!

Avatar photo Jörn Dunker - 10th Feb, 2022

Deep tech is one of those terms that we’ve all heard and probably throw around knowledgeably without being entirely sure what it actually is. It has undoubtedly become a catch-all, used and abused by the industry to refer to a huge variety of tech innovation.

Roughly, we define deep tech as any company that is working on a product that represents the translation of a new technical concept into something economically viable. Deep tech can be anything from spin outs of university trials or research to niche solutions in the software pipeline. Common to all deep tech is that it addresses a fundamental bottleneck that currently limits what most people are working towards, and that it’s trying to monetise a genuinely new concept and create an entirely new category of economic activity.

Ballou works in deep tech. One example is our client Seldon, which aims to accelerate the adoption of machine learning. Seldon offers state-of-the-art tools that allow companies to deploy machine learning models effectively and ethically at scale. We’ve worked with them to secure funding announcements, thought leadership content coverage and win awards, as well as helping with their social media. At every step we’ve worked with Seldon, Ballou’s main focus has been on creating content and copy that enables potential customers, partners, and investors to understand and appreciate the team’s ground-breaking work.

Another one of our deep tech clients is Red Hat, which also works at the frontiers of computer science. Red Hat is the world’s largest open-source software provider for businesses, and our work with them has also revolved around thought leadership and securing vertical coverage, along with publicising Red Hat’s products and projects. Red Hat is a leader in a variety of big topics in enterprise IT – such as containers, Kubernetes, edge computing, and hybrid cloud – and a major focus of the Ballou team is to put that expertise on display.

If you’re working in deep tech, there are a variety of great outlets to secure coverage in. Some of the biggest outlets that are showing interest in the area include The Telegraph, Wired, and The Economist (via their Technology Quarterly). There’s also a plethora of popular outlets that target techies, businesses, and investors specifically, including MIT Technology Review, The Register, TechRadar Pro, and Sifted.

Deep tech is an increasingly exciting space to work around. For the past decade or so, a lot of tech investment has tended to go into apps or companies that aren’t that technically complex – think a lot of SaaS companies and FinTechs – because they didn’t require much capital to gain traction and make great returns. With tech investment having continued to grow exponentially over the past years, however, technologically complex companies that require lots of time and capital to do hefty R&D are having their day in the sun.

Thankfully, today’s generation of business leaders and investors are also much keener to grapple with the complexities that come with deep tech, given that many have grown up with technology. And there’s also a tantalising allure to deep tech: it’s the inspirational, heroic side of the tech sector, producing innovations that can radically boost our economic and industrial output and reshape our society. Is it any wonder it’s a buzzword?

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