(Editor’s note: This Eindhoven Business Briefing dedicated to High Tech Campus Eindhoven is part of our Tech Tuesday series. As an independent contractor, Dispatches contributed research and content to this project. We cover the startup and tech scene because so many of our highly skilled internationals are engineers and entrepreneurs.)
High Tech Campus Eindhoven has created a new marketing campaign aimed at attracting startups, scale-ups and tech talent to the Smartest Square Kilometer in Europe, then giving them the amenities so they never leave.
The campaign says out loud what the modest Dutch are sometimes hesitant to say – forget Amsterdam, Berlin and Stockholm.
Eindhoven is the dominant deep-tech startup ecosystem in Europe, and High Tech Campus Eindhoven increasingly is its center.
If you can prove it, it ain’t braggin’.
A number of Eindhoven startups and scale-ups are emerging as future Unicorns, raising hundreds of millions of euros. And most are headquartered at High Tech Campus. The Campus campaign includes a new landing page with all the details about what’s available for startups, complete with video interviews with successful entrepreneurs such as Hans De Neve at Carbyon and Robert van Tankeren at inPhocal.
Brand new day
When we arrived at High Tech Campus Eindhoven in 2016, it was a far different story. The startup scene consisted of accelerator HighTechXL in HTC 1 , with graduates of the program going on to HTC 12. There was no startup hub and certainly no AI Innovation Center because AI software didn’t exist in any meaningful way.
The Campus was still owned by Marcel Boekhoorn, who bought it from Philips after Philips moved its headquarters to Amsterdam. It was in its infancy, not what it would quickly become eight years later.Campus management at the time was creating an outline of the future, announcing plans for the largest startup hub in Europe, a three-building complex consisting of HTC 12, HTC 27 and HTC 29.
Eight years later, the Campus is home to some of Europe’s hottest deep-tech startup and scale-ups … billion-dollar babies including Axelera AI, Intrinsic ID (now Synopsys) and Nearfield Instruments. Nearfield Instruments announced in July 2024 it had raised 135 million in a Series C funding round, which means its valuation is likely over 1 billion. The funding round is the second largest capital raise in the semiconductor fabrication equipment market in Europe and the United Statews in the past five years, according to Mergermarket.
Direct air capture scale-up Carbyon announced in early September 2024 it had closed a Series A funding round of 15.3 million euros. Longtime campus resident Intrinsic ID sold to Silicon Valley giant Synopsys, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., for an undisclosed sum. And to connect the circle, Synopsys was founded by Aart de Geus, an electrical engineer from … the Netherlands.
The first three-building startup hub is now a complex of seven dedicated buildings:
- HTC 12 has office space for early-stage startups.
- HTC 27 offers office space and electrotechnical lab options for growing startups.
- HTC 29 offers office space, electrotechnical lab space, chemical lab and cleanrooms.
- HTC 32 + HTC 41 are designed for more mature companies who need their own space and who have customers and other visitors visiting their offices
- HTC 5 is where the AI Innovation Center for Applied AI startups is located. There is flex space for smaller teams and smaller office space and rooms available to accommodate each stage of growth.
- HTC 37 is the home of 3EALITY, HTCE’s newest innovation hub for startups and scale-ups focused on spatial computing and digital twin technologies. There are flex desk spaces for sole entrepreneurs as well as larger office space for growing startups. There are also young companies such as Salvia in the building.
Everything changed in 2020 after the sale of the Campus to a joint venture between L.A.-based asset management firm Oaktree Capital Management and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. That was followed by High Tech Campus Eindhoven executives’ repurposing HTC 5 into 16,000 meters2 of startup/scale-up space including the AI Innovation Center.
All about startups
Now, Campus officials have announced a new startup-focused vision. And it turns out to everyone’s surprise that there are more than 100 startups and scale-ups at HTCE, making up about one-third of the nearly 300 companies. Those new companies, most formed in the past three years, include Carbyon, Axelera AI and inPhocal.
From the HTCE website:
For years, HTCE’s focus has been providing the perfect ecosystem to nourish fragile startups and scale-ups, including Europe’s largest startup hub. Now, the entire Campus is all about startups and scale-ups, with renovations of thousands of square meters of choice space in multiple buildings. For example, HTC 32 has organically transformed into a scale-up building, where Carbyon and inPhocal opened offices since launching at HTC 27.Last month, Campus officials announced they’re dedicating even more resources to Europe’s innovation effort. The message is, the Campus has it all, from offices to labs to early stage investors such as DeepTechXL.
On the new landing page, you can find info relevant to startups including:
• Startup Highlights
• Buildings for Startups & Scale-ups
• Technical Facilities & Services
• Knowledge Institutions Working at High Tech Campus
• Venture Builders & Investors
• Patenting, IP & Legal Services
• Startup & Scale-up Events
• Innovation Hubs
This is all part of what we hinted about back in the 24 September EBB.
But this is also the beginning of a multi-year expansion, with Campus officials revealing two new technical buildings that can be used for, well, anything. And is the Campus still in the running for a new PIC research fab? Inquiring minds want to know.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
