This $22M Round Could Fix Electronics Manufacturing's Biggest Headache

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-31

Some problems in manufacturing are so old, so baked into the process, that everyone just accepts them. Solder paste printing has been exactly that kind of problem for decades. But now, a Dutch deep-tech company just raised a hefty round to finally kill it off for good. Keiron Printing Technologies, based in Eindhoven, has closed a $22 million Series A round (that's €20.7 million for our European friends). 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 Hidden Cost of a Tiny Flaw Here's the thing about solder paste printing: it's the single biggest point of failure in a global electronics assembly market worth well over $650 billion a year. If you've ever wondered why your phone occasionally glitches or why a car's control module fails, chances are a tiny solder joint is to blame. The numbers are staggering. Solder paste printing is responsible for over 70% of PCBA defects. That's not a small problem—it's a massive drag on reliability, speed, and yield for every electronics manufacturer on the planet. "Solder paste printing has been the industry's most expensive open secret for decades," says Paul Rooimans, CEO and founder of Keiron. "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." ### A Completely Different Approach Founded in 2019 as a spin-off from TNO Holst Centre, Keiron isn't trying to tweak the old stencil-and-jet-printing playbook. Instead, they've replaced it entirely with a single digital, non-contact process called Laser-Induced Forward Transfer (LiFT). Think of it like the difference between using a rubber stamp and a laser printer. The old way involves physical contact, stencils, and a lot of setup time. Keiron's way is fully digital, contactless, and infinitely more flexible. Their HF2 LiFT Printer does something remarkable: it replaces three separate machines—the stencil printer, jet printer, and SPI inspection system—with one platform. And the results speak for themselves: - First-pass yield jumps from an industry-typical ~60% to above 95% - Production lead time is cut in half with zero stencils needed - Production uptime doubles - Programming becomes 10 times faster ### Why This Matters for AI Hardware The timing couldn't be better. Next-generation AI hardware is pushing conventional solder paste printing past its breaking point. Components with up to 10,000 interconnects simply can't be reliably produced with old methods. That's exactly the gap Keiron's fully digital LiFT process was built to close. "AI, defense growth, and increasing manufacturing complexity are accelerating the need for digital transformation in EMS," says Hessel Mittelmeijer, Investment Manager and Sustainability Officer at DeepTechXL. "Keiron solves one of the industry's biggest production challenges with a scalable, digital approach." The technology originated at TNO Holst Centre, a collaboration between TNO and imec, and Keiron continues to develop it with TNO as their primary strategic research partner. ### What's Next for Keiron With this fresh capital, the company plans to scale aggressively. That means increasing production capacity, expanding commercial and support operations across Europe, North America, and APAC, and accelerating R&D on their next-generation LiFT platform. For electronics manufacturers stuck with yield rates around 60%, this isn't just an incremental improvement. It's a fundamental shift in what's possible. Higher throughput, lower working capital, improved cash flow, and stronger EBITDA—all from fixing the one problem everyone thought was unsolvable. Keiron isn't patching a problem the industry has lived with for decades. They're removing it, for good.