The DC region has a growing cluster of deep tech startups building cutting-edge technologies with real-world applications.
Work happening in this sector is specialized and complicated by definition, so this energy can be tough to trace company by company. But it’s incredible what happens when you bring them together in one space as evidenced by September’s Deep Tech Startup Crawl.
Working across autonomy, applied AI, bio, energy, cyber and other cool stuff that’s basically sci-fi, 38 companies put their work on exhibit, science-fair style, in the National Innovation Quarter. More than 300 attendees chatted with founders and got their bingo card stamped. Some even walked home with an on-theme raffle prize.
This was a showpiece event for the inaugural Deep Tech Week Washington, a four-day extravaganza for technology that is moving out of the lab and into the real world in the National Capital region. DC’s unique base of national security institutions, unparalleled university research centers and forward-thinking policy talent creates a fertile ground for startups to address national security challenges in novel ways.
In addition to piqueing the interest of venture capital firms, the event brought out attendees from government agencies, military service branches, and defense industry giants. The Deep Tech Startup Crawl showed that fielding those solutions could start with a conversation.
A mark of true tech week success, the most enthusiastic attendees and founders took to the sidewalk outside, chatting away into the night long after the doors had closed.
Check out photos from the event, below.
