When does a deep tech company need a rebrand?
If everything looks the same, how can anyone tell that something has changed? That's why most of the rebrands we do build towards a big announcement or a new investment round. It's a good opportunity to realign the brand and present the company in a clearer, leaner way.
A company needs a rebrand when it has outgrown its identity, often when it needs visual tools the first identity was never built to provide. If your brand is already known in your sector, the answer is usually to sharpen the one you have.
Your company is moving faster than its identity
QuantWare had a string of big announcements ahead, from VIO-40K to a record Series B of $178 million, and needed to gather them under one clear brand. Its first branding was made for an earlier stage of the company, and it no longer fitted QuantWare or its ambitions for the future. That's common in companies that move fast and grow quickly.
The new brand and website launched at Q2B Silicon Valley 2025, in time to frame VIO-40K and QuantWare's partnership with NVIDIA.
Let everything below the logo flex
A growing company needs an identity that works on the website, in the pitch deck and at the launch, for investors and customers alike.
We build visual identities as a kit of parts: logo, colour, typography, a signature, and the brand essence they all come from. Each part has more freedom than the one before it. The logo barely changes, while the signature, a recurring visual element such as QuantWare's vertical lines, can stretch a long way. The brand essence is the most open to interpretation. That flexibility, in the tools and in how they're expressed, is what lets a company grow without starting again.
At QuantWare we kept the logo and VIO, the technical anchor that sets its approach to scaling apart, and sharpened everything around them. XMOS went further, with a new logo and the same colours in a fresher look. Its new brand launched alongside GenSoC, its generative system-on-chip.
Your design is evidence of your engineering
To an engineer, your visuals say something about how carefully you build. Technical excellence usually shows in sharp, simple visuals that convey the key technical aspects well, without trying to explain all of them. At QuantWare, the vertical lines echo VIO's 3D architecture without diagramming it, and they guide the layout of every page.
Start as early as you can
Words and visuals work best in tandem, so the timing follows what Commplicated, our PR agency in London, advises for funding rounds: start as early as you can, and six to twelve months before you raise is a good time to talk.
Starting early also gives the rollout space. A new identity has to work its way through the company, and people need time to get used to it.
Before that first conversation, ask which parts of your identity people already recognise, and where you need more flexibility. If the hard part is explaining the technology itself, read How design helps explain complex technology.