Deeptech PR is about making scientific innovation understandable and engaging for journalists who are not scientists. This is the core challenge of the sector: the subject matter is complex, the spokesperson is often a researcher, and the news cycle does not align with editorial calendars.

France has 2,830 active deeptech startups, with 410 founded in 2025 and €4.1 billion raised over the year, according to the Deeptech Plan report published by Bpifrance on March 16, 2026. The number of companies vying for attention is growing rapidly. The number of journalists capable of covering these topics is not.

Last updated: August 2026.

‍

Why is deeptech PR more difficult than standard tech PR?

Because a deeptech startup combines the two extremes of what causes a newsroom to accept or reject a story.

On one hand, it possesses exactly what journalists say they value most. In Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism report, 40% of journalists cite original research or data as a key factor that adds value to a pitch. By design, a deeptech company has these: publications, cohorts, measurements, and patents.

On the other hand, it presents the most disqualifying flaw. According to the same Muck Rack report, 88% of journalists immediately discard pitches that fall outside their beat. Furthermore, in Cision’s 2026 State of the Media report, which surveyed 1,899 journalists, 72% stated that less than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant to their coverage.

The entire goal of deeptech PR lies in this shift: moving your story from the second category to the first. It is not a task of distribution; it is a task of translation and targeting.

Three additional obstacles are specific to the sector:

• The cycle is long and news-poor. Between two announcements, a deeptech company can go eighteen months without publishable news, whereas a SaaS company might release a new feature every quarter.
• The proof is not yet commercial. Economic newsrooms look for clients, revenue, and contracts. A deeptech startup in the lab phase has none of these.
• The natural spokesperson is not a PR professional. The founder is a researcher, trained in caution and nuance—two qualities that make for unusable quotes.

‍

What does a journalist actually expect from a deeptech startup?

They expect to understand in three sentences what you are changing, for whom, and by when. Nothing more at this stage.

Newsrooms covering innovation receive a high volume of pitches and have very little time. In the Cision survey mentioned above, 49% of journalists cited budget cuts and heavy workloads as their main obstacles. A thirty-page document will not be read. A clear paragraph will be read twice.

What you must be able to provide without delay:

• A one-sentence definition without technical jargon, tested on someone outside your field.
• A quantified point of comparison with the existing method: time, cost, or precision—a single metric is enough.
• An available spokesperson within forty-eight hours, not ten days.
• Usable visuals in high definition, which is almost always missing from deeptech press kits.
• The names of your competitors, because the journalist will look them up anyway.

We detail what newsrooms look for in our article on the content that interests journalists.

‍

How do you translate a scientific breakthrough without betraying it?

By replacing technical jargon with what it actually produces, and replacing claims of uniqueness with verifiable comparisons. The challenge isn't to simplify, but to simplify without being inaccurate—something a researcher is rightly unwilling to do.

The table below outlines the five most common sticking points in interviews and what you should provide instead.

‍

‍

One principle sums up the exercise: journalists don't need to understand how your technology works. They need to understand what it makes possible and why that wasn't possible before. The internal mechanics interest trade publications, not the business press.

This is the core of our work on PR and LinkedIn for deeptech startups : translating scientific breakthroughs without diluting them.

‍

Who should speak to the press: the scientific founder or the CEO?

In almost every case, the scientific founder—provided they are prepared. Their legitimacy is a deeptech company's primary credibility asset, and no sales director can replace that when a journalist is looking for a source.

The opposite reflex is common and costly. Sending the person who is most comfortable speaking often causes the subject matter to lose its credibility. A journalist writing about breakthrough technology quotes a researcher, not a spokesperson.

Three adjustments are usually enough to make a scientific founder quotable:

• Agree to be assertive within a limited scope. Researchers use nuance out of honesty. The solution isn't to remove the nuance, but to shift it: be firm about what is established, and be clear about where that certainty ends.
• Prepare for the three questions that throw you off. When will you be profitable, what proves this works outside the lab, and who else is doing the same thing?
• Rehearse under real-world conditions. Radio or television appearances cannot be improvised, especially in short formats where you must convey the essentials in forty seconds.

This is the purpose of media training, and we have documented the method in our articles on preparing for interviews and media appearances and on preparing for TV, radio, and podcasts.

‍

Which media outlets should you target based on your deeptech's maturity stage?

The accessible media landscape changes at every stage, and aiming too high too soon is the primary cause of failure for a deeptech campaign. A startup in the laboratory phase pitching to general business press will achieve nothing—not due to a lack of interest, but due to a lack of actionable evidence.

‍

‍

Our overview of tech media for French startups details the publications and their editorial angles, and our guide on building a press list explains how to create one without purchasing a database.

‍

What specific deeptech constraints should you anticipate?

Four constraints exist in deeptech that are not found elsewhere in the tech sector, and they dictate a deeptech company's communication timeline. Ignoring them can lead to damage that goes far beyond just visibility.

• Intellectual property. Discussing an invention before filing a patent can destroy its novelty and, consequently, its patentability. The rule of thumb: no technical communication before receiving written confirmation from your patent attorney.
• Scientific publication embargoes. Peer-reviewed journals impose strict rules on prior communication. A poorly timed press announcement can lead to an accepted article being retracted.
• Caution regarding claims. In the health and food sectors, claims are strictly regulated. Overly ambitious wording in a press release can lead to regulatory risks, not just a public correction.
• Dual-use: civil and defense. Certain technologies are subject to export control regimes. What is said publicly about a system's capabilities is never neutral.

Practical consequence: in a deeptech company, the communication calendar is built around the scientific and legal schedule, never the other way around. This is the clearest methodological difference compared to a public relations campaign.

‍

How long does it take to establish a deeptech company in the media?

Three months are enough to see the first qualified results, provided the narrative is ready before the first contact with a journalist. This is what our deeptech support programs demonstrate.

HABS is a deeptech company specializing in decoding brain waves using EEG and artificial intelligence. During our support program, three months of press relations generated over 10 media hits, including a live appearance on BFM Business and coverage in Challenges, Les Échos, and Maddyness. The goal was not volume, but status: establishing HABS as a credible and responsible player in the neurotechnology debate.

For SurgeCare, a healthtech company working on immunological fingerprinting, we supported three profiles in parallel, including a scientific co-founder who is a professor and researcher at Sorbonne University and AP-HP. In three months, the campaign generated over 205,000 impressions and more than 1,500 qualified connection requests, amplifying a €7.5 million fundraising round.

More broadly, across the five three-month press relations programs we feature as case studies, each mission produces between 7 and 15 media hits across five different sectors. Deeptech falls within this range, with one difference: the upfront preparation time is longer, because translating the subject matter takes more time than distributing it.

‍

Linker, press relations for deeptech startups

Linker supports tech startups and scale-ups in two areas—press relations and LinkedIn—treated as a single system. In deeptech, this combination addresses a specific problem: the number of journalists capable of covering your subject is small, so being discoverable by them is just as important as reaching out to them.

In Cision's 2026 State of the Media report, 62% of journalists stated they use LinkedIn in their work, and 33% ranked it as the platform that provides them with the most value. For a scientific founder, publishing regularly on their field is like leaving a trail that can be consulted by the very population of journalists likely to call them.

Our work covers 18 tech verticals, including deeptech,artificial intelligence, healthtech , and cybersecurity. The terms are detailed on our deeptech communication page.