Michael Baczyk, early-stage deep tech Investor at Heartcore Capital, one of Europe's top-performing early-stage VC firms with approx. €10B in created enterprise value and a track record including Tink (acq. by Visa for $2.2B), Peakon (acq. by Workday for $700M), Boozt ($1B IPO), GetYourGuide, TravelPerk, and Neo4j. Michael focuses on quantum technologies and invests broadly across physics-driven and frontier tech. He holds a Cambridge MA and ETH Zurich MSc, with hands-on research at CERN and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Previously VP of Business Intelligence at Global Quantum Intelligence, he has advised governments, Fortune 500s, and investors on quantum strategy, led 10+ deep due diligences on leading quantum companies, authored 3 peer-reviewed papers, and was awarded Europe's best young scientist by the European Commission.

Dr. Marc Almendros is a co-founding Partner at Grow Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on tech transfer that invests in deep tech, sustainability, med tech, etc. Marc holds an MBA from ESADE Business School, and has years of experience in startup creation and fundraising, R&D and technology consulting, and general management. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Science and Technology with a focus on long-distance quantum communications from ICFO/UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) and a MSc/BSc in Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering from La Salle (Ramon Llull University). In previous positions, Marc has been the general manager and co-founder of the Quantum Engineering Solutions (QES) division at Keysight Technologies (NYSE: KEYS), a US-based world leader in test and measurement equipment which was originally part of Hewlett-Packard. He has also been the chairman of Keysight Technologies Spain. In his earlier career, Marc was the co-founder and CEO of Signadyne, a company that spun off from an ion trap research group at ICFO (The Institute of Photonic Sciences) in 2011. Signadyne was acquired by Keysight in 2016. On the technical and scientific side, Marc is the co-author of a dozen scientific papers about trapping and manipulation of single ions for quantum engineering applications, and the co-inventor of three patents around FPGAs, synchronization and real-time technologies

PhD in Environmental Sciences from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), with international research experience in Boston, Aberdeen, and London. After more than a decade working in innovation consulting, he specialized in private financing for technology and deep-tech projects. He is currently the founder of Nowus, a firm dedicated to structuring private investment to support high-impact R&D projects.

Kari Hjelt is a senior European innovation and industrialisation executive with over 25 years of experience translating frontier research into industrial and commercial impact at scale. He currently serves as Director at Chalmers Industriteknik, where he leads innovation initiatives focused on advanced materials and semiconductor-adjacent technologies. He is Vice Director of the Swedish Chips Competence Center, contributing to national and European semiconductor strategy under the EU Chips Act, and Head of Industrialisation for the EU Graphene Flagship’s lead coordination action. Previously, Kari was Head of Innovation and a member of the Executive Board of the €1B EU Graphene Flagship. During his tenure, the initiative generated 346 patent applications, created 20 spin-offs raising over €475M, and contributed an estimated €5.9B in gross value added to the European economy, delivering a 14.5× return on public investment. Earlier in his career, Kari held senior leadership roles at Nokia for over a decade, including Director, General Manager, and CTO positions across research, ventures, and emerging business units. He has also founded and led deep-tech startups and served as chairman and board member in early-stage companies. Kari holds a Dr.Tech in engineering physics, an Executive MBA from London Business School, and has published on technology commercialisation in Nature Electronics and Nature Nanotechnology. He is recognised for his ability to operate at the intersection of science, industry, and policy, and for building innovation systems that deliver measurable industrial impact.

Oriol Sans is the Senior Startup Manager at ACCIÓ, the business competitiveness agency of the Government of Catalonia. His primary goal is to have more startups becoming scaleups, particularly those in the deep tech field. The team he leads supports startups by addressing key growth barriers, such as access to markets, financing, knowledge, and expertise.
Prior to joining ACCIÓ, he worked at Deloitte (formerly Arthur Andersen) as a semi-senior in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), as a venture capital manager at Invertec, and in the financial sector within the capital markets at BCH. He has served on the Boards of Directors of several startups, including Voz Telecom and TR Composites, and as an observer for companies such as Digital Legends, Crystax Pharmaceuticals, and Era Biotech, among others.
He has been a member of various investment committees for venture capital funds and Business angel networks, including Inveready Seed Fund, Invertec-Capital Concepte, Invernova, Ingenia Capital, and ESADE BAN. He has also participated in the shareholders’ meetings of Ysios Biofund I, Finaves I, and Invercat. Furthermore, he has served as an evaluator for the SME Instrument (Phase I and II) for the European Innovation Council and was a member of the Advisory Board for the European alternative financing project ALTFInator.