From Deeptech to Weirdtech

Overused, under-specified. Deeptech is a term that gets thrown around constantly but means almost nothing. Investors and founders alike love the term because it sounds complex and defensible — a kind of shorthand for technical moats and hard science — even if it lacks precision. There are vague notions that deeptech means hard tech, but also that "hard tech" refers to hardware (sometimes) but also to difficult engineering or science problems. The term has been so overused it’s become meaningless: a fuzzy, catch-all label — once clever, now just a way of saying “not SaaS” or “there must be a barrier to entry in here somewhere.”

Deeptech, shallow moat. In my view, the term deeptech contains a built-in fallacy: it’s often assumed to imply defensibility, but the opposite is frequently true. When a company’s core concept hinges on a specific technical advance — an algorithm, a model, a material — it can be relatively easy for competitors or incumbents to replicate the innovation and erode margins. The true barriers to entry are rarely in the technical moat alone. They’re often found in product execution, go-to-market strategy, customer relationships, and distribution. Engineering and scientific excellence are important — but they’re only part of the winning formula.

Let's get weird. At Angular Ventures, we’ve come to suspect that “deeptech” just isn’t precise enough. It doesn’t really describe the kind of companies we want to back. We think “weirdtech” might be closer to the mark.

Weird Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Weirdtech companies often look strange at inception. The founders sound a little too intense. The customer doesn’t quite exist yet. The architecture is unconventional. And the pitch doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. There are no competitors, and it’s unclear that it would ever make sense to start a company in the domain at all. That’s the point. These are the companies that don’t just challenge incumbents — they challenge conventional wisdom and challenge us as investors to throw out our frameworks. The best weirdtech founders aren’t chasing trends. They’re pulling on threads no one else sees — sometimes for years.

The Many Flavors of Weird

Weirdtech comes in many forms:

• Weird markets. These are sectors most investors avoid — either because they seem too hard, too crowded, or too old-school. Think shipping (like Portchain) or custom parts procurement (like Sourcix). These are massive industries with deep inefficiencies, often overlooked because they’re not “cool.”
• Weird technologies. Some companies pursue approaches that go directly against conventional wisdom. These aren’t just novel — they’re heretical. FalkorDB is a good example: it challenges the widely held belief that LLMs alone can underpin knowledge-driven applications, and is delivering a graphRAG solution that is 100x faster than the competition.
• Weird business models. Some of the most exciting bets we’ve made are in categories widely seen as poor fits for venture capital — like nuclear energy, power grid optimization, and space launch systems. We’ve backed companies in all of these areas. They’re weird for good reasons — but if they work, the upside is enormous.

We might be weird enough for you. These companies often get passed over by traditional VCs. They’re too early, too risky, too technical, too hard to explain in a deck. But that’s exactly where we want to be. We fund these bets — not because they’re weird, but because if they’re right, they’re huge. Could it be time to retire the term “deeptech?” It’s lost much of its edge. “Weirdtech” isn’t perfect, but it gets us closer to what matters: the courage to back companies that don’t fit — yet. Companies that seem “bad” in some way or far from obvious. That’s where the biggest outcomes live. If you're building something weird, we want to hear from you.