Deep Tech Programme, Future Power Capital

Why this programme exists

The hardest scientific and engineering problems (new materials, energy systems, advanced manufacturing, computation at the physical limits) routinely take longer to de-risk than a typical venture cycle allows, and involve capital costs that most early-stage funding was never designed for. The result is a gap: promising teams with real technical depth who are too early for growth investors and too applied for pure academic funding. The Deep Tech Programme is designed to sit in that gap.

We will build the programme around a simple premise: real scientific risk deserves patient capital and technical partnership, not just a cheque. Where the work is genuinely hard and the timeline genuinely long, we intend to be the kind of backer that stays through the parts of the journey that don't fit a normal funding round.

What the programme will fund and build

Direct capital for teams translating fundamental research into a working technology, sized to the stage of technical risk rather than a fixed template.
Technical and organisational partnership: support in structuring the team, sequencing the R&D roadmap, and preparing for the capital-intensive stages that follow.
A long-term relationship rather than a single disbursement: we intend to stay engaged across the multiple stages that hard science typically requires.

Who the programme will look for

✓ A genuine scientific or engineering foundation. Teams whose core advantage is technical depth, not a business model wrapped around an existing technology.

✓ A problem worth the timeline. Work that is genuinely hard to fund elsewhere because of its horizon or capital intensity, not simply early-stage software.

✓ Founders who can go the distance. A team able to articulate the science honestly, including what remains unproven.

✓ A verifiable legal entity. The applicant must be a properly incorporated organisation we can assess and contract with.

How the process will work

Submission

The team will submit an application describing the science, the current stage, and the nature of the support sought.

Technical review

We will assess the scientific or engineering basis of the work against the programme's criteria.

Scoping

Where we want to proceed, we will scope the specific mix of capital and technical partnership together with the team.

Commitment

Once terms are agreed and governance sign-off is complete, we will commit to the engagement.

Our ambition for the next ten years

We want the Deep Tech Programme to become a name that serious scientific teams think of when the usual funding routes don't fit: a place where hard, unglamorous, capital-intensive work gets taken seriously precisely because it's hard. That means being honest, from day one, about where we are: this is a newly built programme, and we have not yet backed a project through it. We are building the mandate and the process now, deliberately, so that the commitments we make later are ones we can actually keep. Ambition, for us, starts with getting the foundation right before claiming a track record we don't have.

Frequently asked

Has the programme funded any projects yet?

No. The Deep Tech Programme is newly established and has not yet committed to a project. This page describes what we intend to build and fund, not a completed track record.

Does applying guarantee funding?

No. Every application will go through technical review, scoping and governance sign-off before any commitment is made.

What counts as "deep tech" for this programme?

Work with a genuine scientific or engineering foundation and a longer, more capital-intensive path than typical software or consumer ventures: advanced materials, energy, manufacturing, and similarly hard technical domains, among others.

A programme for the science that's too early for venture capital and too slow for a grant cycle.