Over the last few decades, a well-worn path has emerged for venture capitalists eager to cash in on the pioneering technology coming out of top universities. Typically, it involves partnering with the scientist behind an idea, launching a company based on it, and trying to find a market hungry for the exact solution it promises to deliver.
But what if they’re going about it the wrong way?
Rethinking the university spinout model
While academics are undoubtedly experts in their field or technology, their remit is not typically directed at solving a particular problem. That means, in many cases, a solution is engineered after the fact, with efforts then focused on applying the new technology to a real-world challenge.
UK-based Deep Science Ventures is trying to flip this approach on its head by starting with a problem, rather than a technology, and only later seeking to understand what solutions might be available.
“The question would be: are VCs deconstructing a problem in enough depth to build a thesis of exactly what is needed before they reach out to who they perceive as the experts?” says Will Summers, a senior associate focused on climate, nature and food security.
“And I would argue that they generally don’t do that. The whole academic structure is not set up to think expansively about the suite of technologies that could be used to solve that problem. Starting with the problem and working backwards means you can figure out which technology is actually the right one to use.”
This does not mean academia is misdirected, Summers insists.
“It’s doing what it should do, which is generate knowledge. But if the goal is to build companies that solve problems, there might be a better way of doing it.”
Summers points to UCL research suggesting even top universities such as Cambridge, Imperial and MIT generate only two or three spinouts per £80 million of research expenditure. For that money, he says, Deep Science Ventures could create 200 companies.
“In other words, if your aim is to scale up deep-tech venture creation, there’s at least a 100-times more efficient route,” he says.
Starting with the problem
So how does the Deep Science Ventures approach differ in practice?
By starting with a problem. A recent example was tackling hidden hunger. The team first analysed which components of the problem were already being addressed and, perhaps more importantly, where the underlying causes remained unresolved.
Lilliput, for example, was a startup launched in May 2024 following an investigation into how to minimise heat stress on crops in the tropics. This began with building an understanding of how the threat manifests, including which crops are most vulnerable, what yield losses are occurring today and how those losses are expected to evolve in future.
This was then overlaid with the existing state-of-the-art solutions to assess what was already being tackled and what constraints were inhibiting further progress.
“It’s really honing in on the problems that need to be solved to get you to the big-picture outcome of mitigating heat stress,” says Summers.
“This is the key. You really focus down on the specific problems you want to solve, and then you almost take a magpie approach, where you cherry-pick different pieces of knowledge and stitch them together into a new solution.”
For Lilliput, this revealed that one of the leading solutions used by farmers is kaolin clay, a coating sprayed onto crops to lower leaf temperature and prevent sunburn. The problem is that it can inhibit photosynthesis and therefore limit yield.
Recognising that a better solution was needed, the team identified an existing concept that could interfere with certain wavelengths of light without leaving a dusty white film on leaves.
Building companies from the ground up
Deep Science Ventures calls itself a “venture creator” rather than a venture capitalist and insists this is more than a semantic distinction.
“The key differentiation is that we’re building the IP in-house,” explains Summers. “We’re not expecting a founder to come with something in hand already. We’re going to really break down this problem together and build something from the ground up.”
While founders are expected to have a strong academic background, Summers says the most important quality is the ability to work from first principles and challenge preconceived assumptions.
“When you’ve spent time in a scientific discipline, you carry a whole load of assumptions about why the world is the way it is,” says Summers, who himself came from academia.
“There’ll be things you’ll say like, ‘Well, this technology will never break through because it’s too expensive’, or ‘Farmers aren’t willing to adopt this for whatever reason’.”
Choosing the right challenges
Much of the firm’s success therefore relies on choosing the right problems in the first place.
For a recent project with Renaissance Philanthropy focused on climate adaptation, Deep Science Ventures began by modelling how the world is likely to change as temperatures rise. The team mapped the cascading effects across food systems, health infrastructure and energy networks, with the aim of identifying where intervention could generate the greatest impact.
Using disability-adjusted life years, a metric that enables comparison between acute and chronic risks, the analysis ultimately identified strengthening plant resilience as one of the most significant opportunities.
“From an impact point of view, it’s pretty unsurprising,” says Summers.
“If we can prevent major crop failures, then there is a massive downstream benefit not only in terms of nutrient security, but also livelihoods and the displacement of populations.”