At the Tallinn Entrepreneurship Awards 2026, the Deep Tech Startup Network was named Research and Development Project of the Year, Tehnopol reports. The prize was handed over at Tallinn City Hall on 13 October.
The network started this year as a joint effort of five partners: the University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology, Sparkup Tartu Science Park, the Estonian University of Life Sciences and Tehnopol. Its purpose, in Tehnopol's words, is to help research-based ideas grow into internationally competitive companies.
The partners accompany scientists and young deep tech companies along the whole way: judging whether a research result or technology can become a business, shaping the business idea, and later finding investors and entering foreign markets.
Tehnopol says that by working together the partners make their know-how easier for founders to reach, which should lead to more companies built on research and to jobs with high added value. Two companies linked to the Tehnopol campus were also among the nominees: C2Grid, an alumnus of the NATO DIANA Estonia accelerator, for Tallinn's Bright Startup, and Marduk Technologies in the manufacturer category.
The city of Tallinn has now given out these awards 23 times; this year 26 nominees competed in seven categories.
Source: Tehnopol, . The text above is our own summary; the words in quotation marks are the source's.
What this means for an Estonian entrepreneur
For a research team in Estonia, the step from a laboratory result to a business usually starts with a company of its own: the founders, their shares and who holds the rights to the results are best agreed when the company is formed. A team that plans to bring in investors later should agree these points in writing at formation, so that the first round does not stall on them.
We form a new Estonian private limited company for a founding team, online or by power of attorney. Company formation