Technical diligence · European deep tech
Anyone can price the deal. Far fewer can tell you whether the technology works.
Aguatic is a French practice for principals, family offices and funds putting capital into European deep tech. I examine the technology itself — the physics, the process, the distance to manufacture — and say what is actually worth building around.
Aguatic SAS · Paris
SIREN 982 224 479
Mechanical engineeringDTU, Copenhagen
Three years, Ortofon A/SMicro-fabrication, microfluidics
Eurostars — AcouPlastAcouSort, Lund University, DTU
Aguatic SAS, ParisRegistered 2023
Capital has no shortage of people who can model a return.
It has a shortage of people who will open the machine. Three things go unexamined in almost every deep-tech deal I am shown.
A pitch deck is not evidence.
Claims about yield, tolerance, throughput and scale-up are testable. Most diligence tests the market, the team and the model, then takes the physics on trust — because nobody in the room can do otherwise.
Lab results are not a product.
The distance between a prototype that works and a process that can be made repeatedly, at cost, is where deep-tech capital is lost. I spent three years inside that gap on a factory floor, closing it.
"No" is rarely the useful answer.
Knowing a technology does not work saves money. Knowing precisely what would have to change for it to work is what makes money. Every verdict arrives with the second half.
The engagement
The Read
One technology, one thesis, over three to four weeks. It ends in a written document you own — one layer a board can act on, one layer with the detail the company would need to fix what it finds.
Scope is agreed before you commit. I tell you what I can test directly, what I can assess but not verify, and what sits outside my competence. That third category exists on every engagement, and naming it is part of the work.
- 01What the technology actually does, in terms a board can act on
- 02Which claims the evidence supports, which are unproven, and which are wrong
- 03What would have to be true for this to be worth backing
- 04Where it stands against what already exists in Europe
Beyond that, what gets examined depends on the technology — route to manufacture, process yield, materials, tolerance stack, regulatory path. We settle which of those are in scope, in writing, at the kickoff.
Three ways to work together.
Deliberately few, and deliberately small. The work does not survive being scaled.
A consultation
Forty-five or ninety minutes on one question — a second opinion, a pitch, a technical claim you want tested before you commit to anything larger.
The Read
A single technology or investment thesis, examined and answered in writing. The usual starting point, and often the only thing required.
Three to four weeks
Standing counsel
A thinking partner on retainer — for principals building or backing something in Europe who want the technical question answered continuously rather than once.
Two principals at a time
European access
Consortium formation, EU innovation funding, and university and laboratory partnerships. Non-dilutive capital and European standing, through programmes most outside investors never see.
Eurostars · Horizon Europe
Who you would be working with
I have been on both sides of the question I am hired to answer.
I moved to Denmark for a doctorate and spent three years at Ortofon building micro-fabrication and microfluidic systems — the unglamorous work of making something that functions in a laboratory function on a production line instead. Part of it ran inside a Eurostars consortium with AcouSort, Lund University and two departments at DTU.
In 2023 I registered Aguatic in Paris and started a health-tech company of my own. It did not work. I kept the company and began doing for other people's ventures what I had spent a decade learning to do for my own: look at the technology first, and be honest about what I find.
That is the reason the work is worth buying. I know what an over-confident technical claim costs, because I have made them. I also know what the other side of the table sounds like — the meeting where an investor tells you your number is wrong and is right.
I work in English, French and Persian, and I have built in four European countries.
Also
Speaking & programmes
I work with incubators, funds and investor programmes on the technical side of early-stage evaluation — and speak to founder cohorts about what a European investor is actually listening for.
- Technical diligence for investment committees
- First-pitch structure for deep-tech founders
- What European capital asks that other markets do not
- Turning research into a fundable company
- EU innovation funding for private capital
- Judging and mentoring at demo days
Questions I am always asked
The awkward ones, answered first.
What happens to a claim you cannot test?
It is recorded as unverified, alongside what would settle it — a measurement, a sample, an independent test, a site visit. An unverified claim is a finding in its own right. It is not a hole in the work, and it is not something I will quietly convert into an opinion.
What if the technology sits outside your field?
I say so before the engagement starts, not in the report. My own depth is micro-fabrication, microfluidics, precision manufacturing and the physics around them. Adjacent to that I can assess, and I will tell you how confident I am. Far from it I decline, or bring in a named specialist and say exactly which conclusions are theirs.
Do you take equity, carry or a success fee?
No. Fees only, agreed in advance, payable in full whichever way the verdict goes. An opinion that pays better when the deal closes is not an independent opinion, and you should not buy one from anyone who offers it.
Do you invest alongside your clients?
No. I hold no position in anything I am asked to examine.
Do you sign non-disclosure agreements?
As standard, in both directions. Nothing from an engagement appears in my writing, on this site, or in conversation with anyone else.
Do you handle legal, tax or incorporation work?
No. That is a separate profession with its own liabilities, and I work alongside the lawyers and accountants you appoint rather than in place of them.
Next step
Request a conversation.
Tell me what you are looking at and what decision is waiting on it. If it is something I can answer properly, we will speak for half an hour and I will tell you honestly whether the full engagement is warranted.
Book a consultation →Larger engagements start with an email — komeil@aguatic.io
- A technical claim sits underneath a decision you are about to make
- You are deploying into hardware, materials, biotech, climate or advanced manufacturing
- The company is European, or wants to be
- You would rather hear an inconvenient answer early than a comfortable one late