Viktor Olsson, the lead for internationalization at Stockholm’s KTH Innovation, is heading to Croatia for the Nuqleus Liftoff conference this June. It’s his first time in the country, but he isn’t there for the Adriatic coast. He’s there because the boundaries of European tech are expanding, and he’s arriving with two decades of Stockholm’s deep tech playbook in his back pocket.
Sweden and Croatia, it turns out, have more in common than the average founder might assume. Both are smaller markets, forcing founders to think globally from day one. Both suffer from deep centralization: Stockholm punches well above its weight, generating a quarter of Sweden's GDP, and reaching top spots on European deep tech reports, while the rest of the country barely registers.
Lenka Vranová
But as an editor covering the CEE ecosystem, I didn’t find the similarities where I hoped. The trust, confidentiality, and support this Swedish university offered, before demanding anything in return, are what set it apart. While Central and Eastern Europe has the scientific talent, turning breakthroughs into businesses remains a systemic challenge, largely because the ecosystem lacks this foundational mindset.
Ahead of his visit, Olsson shares a playbook that turns conventional wisdom on its head: one that starts by giving the university’s most valuable asset away for free.
The Professor’s Privilege
In many European countries, the journey of a university spin-off begins with a difficult negotiation over equity and intellectual property (IP). Universities often claim a significant stake, sometimes making the new venture uninvestable from day one. Sweden, however, operates under a different legal framework known as the “professor’s privilege”.
“When you are a researcher at a Swedish university, including PhD students, you own all of your patentable IP,” Olsson explains. “Even though the university pays your salary and for the lab space, the things that you take and commercialise are yours.” This immediately removes the first, and often biggest, hurdle.
"It changes the entire conversation from ‘What can we take from you?’ to ‘How can we help you succeed?’
That simple but profound distinction fundamentally reshapes the relationship between the university and its entrepreneurs. “We’re not here for a quick transaction; our legacy is built on being a long-term partner in a researcher’s journey,” Olsson emphasizes.
This approach is crucial because deep tech doesn’t follow a typical startup timeline, he points. Deep tech "requires patient capital and, more importantly, patient and persistent support. We are prepared to stand by our founders for years, not just months.”
“Trust is our primary currency. When a researcher knows we have no ulterior motive to grab their IP, they open up. They share the real challenges, the half-baked ideas, the doubts. That’s where the real innovation support begins.”
Earning the trust
And the most important aspect of their approach: KTH Innovation cannot compel researchers to work with them, it has to earn its place at the table.
“We have to be founder-friendly,” Olsson notes. “We need to give them an offer that makes them want to involve us, because we cannot just control and try and take what they’re doing.”
For Olsson, this is not just a philosophy but a competitive necessity. “Being founder-friendly isn’t just a slogan for us; it’s our survival mechanism. It means our advice has to be world-class, our network has to be genuinely useful, and our process has to be transparent. If we don’t add real value, they will simply walk away, and they have every right to do so.”
This forces the university to operate not as a gatekeeper but as a genuine partner, providing free, confidential support without taking any equity. And it’s a model that has helped make Stockholm the 13th-best ecosystem in the world for deep tech, with KTH alumni behind three (of 4 total) city’s AI unicorns last year.
Financing an equity-free machine
If KTH Innovation doesn’t take equity, how does it fund itself and measure success?
The organisation receives its core financing from Sweden’s Ministry of Education, supplemented by the university’s own budget, and financing from the ERDF for the Stockholm region.
Also, while the initial support from KTH Innovation is equity-free, this does not mean financial backing is off the table. For the most promising ventures ready for investment, they provide a clear path to capital through KTH Ventures. This is the university’s own venture capital arm, which invests in early-stage companies born from KTH research.
“Think of our innovation support as the foundational stage where we de-risk the project."
“Once a team validates their idea and is ready to scale, KTH Ventures can step in as a pre-seed or seed investor. It’s a separate vehicle, but it’s part of the same supportive philosophy, helping bridge the gap to external capital.”
The “beauty of this two-step model”, as Olsson describes it, is that their innovation support team can remain neutral. "Our only goal is to make the venture as strong as possible. We don’t push them towards KTH Ventures; we prepare them for any investor. If KTH Ventures happens to be the best fit, fantastic. But our job is to serve the founder, not the fund.”
Measuring success beyond the balance sheet
While metrics like number of incorporations, and money the startups later raise, do provide a good measure of KTH Innovation success, Olsson argues the real impact lies in developing human capital. Cliche as it sounds, the focus is on the journey, not just the outcome.
“Failure for us doesn’t really exist,” he says. “We are happy if you take it as far as you can, even if that means you shut it down for good reason. You still learn something, you still develop as a person.” He shares that researchers who attempt commercialisation and return to academia often become better scientists. “We call it ‘recycling talent’,” Olsson explains.
“A researcher who tries to build a company and then returns to the lab is a huge asset to the university."
"They bring back an understanding of market needs, project management, and communication that enriches their research and their teaching. It’s a win for the entire ecosystem, not a loss on a balance sheet.” They learn to tell their story, package their ideas, and think about real-world impact beyond publications. And this is just a fraction of the mindset KTH Innovation fosters. Their people-centric, community-oriented, long-term view is what drives significant change.
To help founders navigate their complex journey, KTH also created the KTH Innovation Readiness Level, a framework inspired by NASA’s Technology Readiness Level (TRL). But instead of just focusing on technology, it assesses an idea across six dimensions: Technology, Customer, Business, Funding, Team, and IP. This holistic view provides a clear roadmap and ensures teams don’t get lost in the lab.
The most frequently neglected dimension by scientists? “Customer,” Olsson states plainly. “The market validation aspect, which is usually customer and business, and that’s the really most important part.”
The myths holding Europe back
To truly unlock its deep tech potential, Olsson believes Europe must dismantle two pervasive myths.
The first is that researchers cannot be great entrepreneurs. “I think that’s not true, and I think especially if you look at a European perspective and if you look at deep tech, it’s actually the other way around,” he argues.
"Who better to lead a deep tech company than the person who has dedicated a decade of their life to the core science? They have a depth of knowledge and a resilience that you can’t just hire. Our job is not to replace them with a ‘business person’, but to surround them with the skills and support they need to become great leaders themselves.”
He advocates for treating entrepreneurship as a valid and celebrated part of a scientist’s career, creating synergies where successful commercialisation can fund future research, rather than a conflict where one must be chosen over the other.
The second myth is that universities should act as asset managers, focused on controlling IP and maximising profits. Instead, Olsson calls for universities to become loud, active participants in their ecosystems, leading the charge to create founder-friendly environments.
“We need to ask ourselves, how are we a good innovation partner for the founders?”
This requires a shift from a defensive posture to a proactive one. With growing momentum across the continent, Olsson is optimistic but insists the work must be done collectively. It’s not about waiting for permission from policymakers, but about ecosystem players taking responsibility.
“We need to think about how our universities are active participants and enablers for innovation,” he concludes. “It is our responsibility, and it’s also a way for us to stay relevant.”
Member discussion