Cyprus’ Deep-Tech Sector Moves From Promise To Scale

Cyprus has emerged as a notable deep-tech hub, with more than 150 start-ups now active across the island and nearly €1 billion in competitive research and innovation funding secured over the past decade, according to ecosystem mapping presented at the University of Cyprus.

The findings were unveiled at the 7th DeepTech CY Meetup on September 23, held at the university’s Faculty of Engineering. It marked the first time the community gathering took place inside a university setting, placing founders, investors and researchers at the centre of the same institution producing much of the science the ecosystem aims to commercialise.

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The event brought together students, professors, researchers, founders and investors to assess a question that matters far beyond Cyprus: how to convert strong scientific output into companies with commercial traction.

A Grassroots Meetup With Institutional Weight

The DeepTech CY Meetup series was launched earlier in 2026 by Andrei Yarantsaeu and Oleg Reshetnikov as a grassroots forum for people building technology on the island.

Since then, Dionysis Partsinevelos of venture capital firm 33East and Evangelia Athanasiou, Ventures Associate at Plug and Play Cyprus, have joined as co-organisers. The latest edition also received support from Cyprus Seeds, one of the country’s leading research commercialisation platforms.

Opening the meeting, Marina Neophytou, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Cyprus, framed the university’s broader ambition: to bring research closer to entrepreneurship and industry. She argued that, alongside academic excellence, industry and innovation must increasingly become core pillars of the student experience.

What The Data Says About Cyprus’ Deep-Tech Economy

Partsinevelos presented the results of a year-long mapping exercise by 33East that examined the scale and composition of Cyprus’ deep-tech ecosystem.

According to the mapping, the island is now home to more than 150 deep-tech start-ups spanning health and biotechnology, energy and climate, applied artificial intelligence, robotics, defence and space.

At the same time, Cyprus has absorbed almost €1 billion in competitive research and innovation funding over the past decade. Partsinevelos also noted that the country has secured more competitive EU research funding per capita than any other member state under both Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe.

That funding base has helped support seven centres of excellence and 22 European Research Council grants hosted in Cyprus.

But the mapping also pointed to a familiar challenge in innovation economies: the gap between research-backed companies and those that go on to raise private venture capital. Roughly half of the identified companies have received grant support from the Research and Innovation Foundation or EU programmes, while a smaller number have later attracted private investment.

The Missing Link Between Grants And Venture Capital

That gap became one of the central themes of the evening, as participants discussed how public support, private capital and institutional policy can work together to help promising technologies reach market.

The Cyprus experience also reflects a broader European trend. Partsinevelos said deep tech now accounts for about one third of venture capital investment in Europe, more than double its share a decade ago. Research also suggests that European deep-tech companies are reaching billion-dollar valuations faster than other start-ups.

For Cyprus, the implication is clear: the research pipeline is strengthening, but the next phase will depend on turning laboratory success into investable companies.

How Universities And Research Bodies Can Close The Gap

The discussion, moderated by Yiannis Eftychiou, co-founder and General Partner at 33East, brought together voices from academia, research commercialisation and the start-up community.

Among the speakers were Margarita Chli, Professor of Robotic Vision at the University of Cyprus and Visiting Professor at ETH Zurich, and Anastasia Constantinou, who leads the Innovation Management Sector at UCY’s Research and Innovation Support Service.

They were joined by Anixi Antonakoudi, Director of Innovation at The Cyprus Institute, Maria Markidou Georgiadou, Executive Director and Founder of Cyprus Seeds, and Charis Christofi, co-founder and chief executive of Orom AI.

Their discussion focused on the practical mechanisms that can reduce the distance between scientific work and entrepreneurship. Cyprus Seeds was highlighted as a key platform for supporting research commercialisation, including university spin-outs that have emerged in recent years.

The Cyprus Institute was also cited as an example of how founders can benefit from a research institution’s facilities, scientific expertise and infrastructure both before incorporation and after company formation.

Structural Barriers Still Slow Commercialisation

Even so, the panel made clear that Cyprus still faces structural obstacles. These include the legal framework governing university spin-outs, intellectual property ownership and the extent to which researchers can participate in companies they help create.

Those issues can directly influence how quickly research moves from the lab to the market.

Constantinou outlined the University of Cyprus’ efforts to support researchers through licensing, contract research and incubation, as well as measures designed to shorten the path from technical development to company creation.

Chli added an international perspective, drawing on her experience at both the University of Cyprus and ETH Zurich, one of Europe’s most productive sources of university spin-outs. Her remarks highlighted how institutional culture can shape whether researchers see entrepreneurship as an extension of academic work or as something distant from it.

What Cyprus Can Build Next

From the start-up side, Orom AI was presented as a working example of what the island’s ecosystem can produce. The company, co-founded by Christofi, is among the start-ups identified in 33East’s mapping and served as a reminder that globally relevant technology can be built from Cyprus when founders choose to stay and scale locally.

The event extended beyond panels and presentations. After the fireside discussion, the University of Cyprus opened several engineering laboratories for guided tours, offering attendees a closer look at research currently underway at the faculty.

Visitors were encouraged to consider how the university’s facilities could support their own research and technology ventures, reinforcing a central message of the evening: Cyprus already has the scientific talent and infrastructure needed to support more company creation. What remains is to align policy, capital and institutional incentives so more of that potential is converted into durable businesses.

The evening ended with a networking session designed to connect academia, investment, research and entrepreneurship—an increasingly important bridge for an ecosystem that appears to be moving from ambition to scale.