This Dutch Startup Raised $22.5M to Fix Electronics Manufacturing's Biggest Headache

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-31

Here's a problem most people never think about: every smartphone, laptop, and electric vehicle on the planet relies on a manufacturing step that fails more often than it succeeds. We're talking about solder paste printing — the process of applying the tiny dots of solder that connect microchips to circuit boards. It's messy, imprecise, and according to industry insiders, it's been the single biggest source of defects in electronics assembly for decades. But a company from Eindhoven says it has finally cracked the code — and investors are betting big on that claim. ### What Just Happened? Keiron Printing Technologies, a Dutch DeepTech firm specializing in a technology called Laser-Induced Forward Transfer (LiFT), just closed a $22.5 million Series A round. The funding was co-led by Invest-NL, DeepTechXL, and Waves Capital, with participation from Ramphastos Investments, ATUM Ventures, Cottonwood Technology Fund, and TNO Ventures. The money will be used to ramp up production of the company's flagship HF2 printer, expand operations across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, and accelerate research on next-generation systems. ### The Multi-Billion Dollar Problem Nobody Solved Here's the context that makes this funding round so interesting. The global electronics assembly market is worth over $650 billion a year. But for as long as anyone can remember, the solder paste printing step has been a bottleneck — responsible for more than 70% of all PCBA (printed circuit board assembly) defects. That's not a small hiccup; that's a massive drag on the entire industry. Paul Rooimans, CEO and founder of Keiron, puts it bluntly: "Solder paste printing has been the industry's most expensive open secret for decades – a failure driver on a market worth well over $650 billion a year that everyone lived with because no one could fix it." ### Why Traditional Methods Keep Failing The old approach relies on stencils — essentially metal screens with tiny holes that you scrape solder paste through. It works, sort of, but only up to a point. As components get smaller and more complex, the stencil method starts to break down. Yields drop, defects multiply, and manufacturers are left with expensive rework or scrapped boards. Keiron's solution is fundamentally different. Instead of stencils, the HF2 uses a laser to transfer solder paste directly onto the board — no contact, no stencil, no mess. ### The Numbers That Caught Investors' Attention Here's where things get exciting. Keiron claims its LiFT process delivers some pretty dramatic improvements: - First-pass yield jumps from the industry-typical 60% to above 95% - Production lead time is cut in half (zero stencils to make or change) - Production uptime doubles - Programming is 10 times faster For manufacturers operating in a high-mix, low-to-medium-volume environment, that translates to higher throughput, lower working capital, and stronger EBITDA. In plain English: more good boards, faster, with less money tied up in inventory. ### The AI Hardware Angle The timing couldn't be better. Next-generation AI hardware is pushing conventional manufacturing to its breaking point. Some advanced components now have up to 10,000 interconnects — that's 10,000 tiny solder joints that all have to be perfect. Traditional methods just can't keep up, leaving yields extremely low. Keiron's digital process was designed specifically to close that gap. ### A Dutch Innovation with Global Ambitions Keiron was founded in 2019 as a spin-off from TNO Holst Centre, a well-known research institute in the Netherlands. The company is still working closely with TNO as its primary strategic research partner, which gives it access to decades of deep-tech expertise. Hessel Mittelmeijer, Investment Manager at DeepTechXL, explains why his firm keeps backing Keiron: "AI, defense growth, and increasing manufacturing complexity are accelerating the need for digital transformation in EMS. Keiron solves one of the industry's biggest production challenges with a scalable, digital approach to solder paste printing." ### What This Means for the Industry The broader takeaway here is that the electronics manufacturing industry is finally ready for a digital upgrade. For years, the sector has been stuck with analog processes that haven't fundamentally changed in decades. Keiron's approach represents a genuine shift — one that could make the entire supply chain more reliable, more efficient, and more profitable. It's still early days, and the company will need to prove that its technology can scale beyond pilot lines and early adopters. But with this funding in hand and a clear roadmap for growth, Keiron is positioning itself as a serious player in the race to modernize electronics manufacturing. For anyone watching the space, this is a story worth following — not just because of the money raised, but because it might finally solve a problem the industry has been living with for far too long.