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

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-31

### A Hidden Problem Costing the Electronics Industry Billions Every year, the global electronics assembly market churns through more than $650 billion in value. Yet hidden inside that massive number is a dirty secret: solder paste printing. It's the step where tiny amounts of solder are applied to circuit boards before components are placed. And for decades, it's been the single biggest point of failure in the entire process. In fact, solder paste printing is responsible for over 70% of all PCBA defects. That's a staggering number when you consider how many devices we rely on daily—from smartphones to medical equipment to cars. The industry has just lived with it, accepting the scrap, the rework, and the lost time as unavoidable costs of doing business. But one company from Eindhoven thinks that's no longer acceptable. Keiron Printing Technologies has raised $22.5 million (€20.7 million) in a Series A round to bring its laser-based solution to more factories around the world. ### The Funding Round and What It Means The round was co-led by Invest-NL, DeepTechXL, and Waves Capital, with participation from Ramphastos Investments, ATUM Ventures, Cottonwood Technology Fund, and TNO Ventures. That's a solid group of investors who clearly see the potential here. Paul Rooimans, CEO and founder of Keiron, put 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." He added, "This round lets us do exactly what the market has been asking for: put the HF2 on more lines, faster, without giving up an ounce of the precision that sets LiFT precision printing apart. Keiron isn't patching a problem the industry has lived with for decades. We're removing it, for good." ### How Keiron's LiFT Technology Actually Works Keiron spun out of TNO Holst Centre in 2019, and it's been developing something genuinely different. Instead of the traditional stencil-and-jet-printing approach, the company's HF2 LiFT Printer uses Laser-Induced Forward Transfer (LiFT) to deposit solder paste in a fully digital, contactless process. Think of it this way: traditional printing is like using a rubber stamp or a stencil to apply paint. Keiron's approach is more like using a precision laser to place each drop exactly where it needs to go, without ever touching the board. The results, according to the company, are dramatic: - First-pass yield jumps from the industry-typical ~60% to above 95% - Production lead time is cut in half because there are zero stencils to create or clean - Production uptime doubles - Programming becomes 10 times faster For manufacturers, that translates into higher throughput, lower working capital, improved cash flow, and a stronger EBITDA. In a high-mix, low-to-medium-volume environment, those improvements can make or break a business. ### Why This Matters for AI Hardware Here's where things get especially interesting. Next-generation AI hardware is pushing the limits of what traditional solder paste printing can handle. Components now have up to 10,000 interconnects, which simply overwhelms conventional methods. Yields drop to extremely low levels, making production painfully expensive. Keiron's fully digital LiFT process was designed to close that gap. It's not just about making existing processes a bit better—it's about enabling the next wave of electronics manufacturing that AI demands. As Hessel Mittelmeijer, Investment Manager at DeepTechXL, noted, "AI, defence 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's Next for Keiron The company plans to use this fresh capital to scale aggressively. That means increasing production capacity, expanding commercial and support operations across Europe, North America, and APAC, and accelerating R&D on the next generation of its LiFT platform. It's an ambitious plan, but the problem it's solving is real and costly. If Keiron can deliver on its promises, it could fundamentally change how electronics are made. And that's something worth watching. Keiron's technology is still being developed in partnership with TNO, its primary strategic research partner, which gives it a strong foundation for continued innovation. The electronics industry has lived with this expensive problem for way too long. With this funding, Keiron is betting it can finally fix it for good.