(Editor’s note: This list of who’s who in the Eindhoven ecosystem is part of our Tech Tuesday Series and will be updated as we get nominations. Dispatches covers tech because so many of our highly skilled internationals are entrepreneurs and engineers.)
Eindhoven has one of the most – if not the most– sophisticated and varied tech ecosystems in Europe, with foundational companies such as ASML and NXP helping fund it, and two venture builders building it. We’ve been in the middle of it for eight years, and we’ve profiled a fair number of these players.
What we see missing is connection. Too often, we’ll refer to a major ecosystem player only to be met with blank stares: “Who’s that?” So, we decided to make a list of everyone you really need to know if you’re going to change the world as a founder, funder or educator. Because when you’re just starting out, or even when your team has gotten traction, it’s good to be able to reach out to other startup veterans who can help.
We can’t list every single person, so we’ve tried to narrow the list down to those you’re most likely to run into at events, conferences and parties.
Legends
Guus Frericks: Guus, the youngest VP in Philips history, is the Godfather of the startup scene. Back in 2015, he took Startup Bootcamp and turned it into HighTechXL, the original hardware accelerator. Then, he turned HighTechXL from a traditional accelerator into a deep-tech venture builder in 2019, the same time he was building and selling his own semiconductor companies. Now, he’s transitioned to VC with DeepTechXL’s 110 million euro fund.
Pim Tuyls: Pim founded Intrinsic ID here in Eindhoven, a spin-off of Philips. Then he expanded to the United States with an HQ in The Valley. Pim told us in an interview that Dutch startups should get to the U.S. faster. He just sold Intrinsic to Sunnyvale-based Synopsis for a lot of money. Read more about Pim here.
Carmen van Vilsteren – Carmen is a professor at Technical University of Eindhoven, a national policymaker and an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, she started Microsure, a TU/e spin-off in the field of microsurgical robots. Now, Carmen is an investor in female-founded companies. She doesn’t say no when women entrepreneurs ask for help
Funders
Monika Hoekstra: At NXTGEN Hightech, Monika oversees a National Growth Fund program with a total investment of nearly 1 billion euros where, with 61 projects in six market domains, the next generation high tech equipment is developed. See her Dispatches profile here.
Andy Lürling and Sven Bakkes are co-founders of venture builder/VC LUMO Labs. They’ve funded a number of promising startups, including medical software startup Autoscriber, which just started a joint venture with Microsoft. Earlier this year, they unveiled their 100 million euro fund.
Nard Sintenie and Harm de Vries, Innovation Industries: We see these venture capitalists on panels whenever investment is the topic. Innovation Industries has an impressive portfolio having funded, or been part of a syndicate funding, most of Eindhoven’s successful startups including Carbyon and Axelera AI. Innovation Industries announced in May they had raised a 500 million euro fund for deep-tech companies.
Michel Ziekman at Rabobank is a must-know … his actual title is startup and scale-up banker. He’s the only Rabobank loan executive who can lend your startup money at realistic terms. He calculates he’s done more than 70 loans in the region since 2018, with a goal of 20 deals per year. Read more here.
Brigit van Dijk, CEO of BOM: This regional economic agency is an investor in HighTechXL and has invested in HighTechXL and LUMO Labs startups as well as many, many others in Brainport. An influential but accessible player.
Founders
Martijn Boerkamp and Robert van Tankeren, inPhocal: InPhocal had a rocky start during the pandemic as a HighTechXL startup. But with a few role reversals and a proprietary laser technology that can do everything from printing to cutting computer chip wafers, they are on track to expand into the U.S. and other markets.
Fabrizio Del Maffeo: Fabrizio is the founder of Axelera AI, which has set new standards for startup growth and fundraising. With more than 63 million euros in recent funding, ambitious expansion plans and a team full of PhDs, Axelera AI is one of High Tech Campus Eindhoven’s hottest startups. Developing AI hardware and software at the edge, this semicon startup is one of the hottest in Europe.
Hubert Martens, Daniel Schobben and Wim Pollet: This is the team of founders behind Salvia BioElectronics, the most promising start up we’ve seen lately. All came out of Sapiens, the implant technology developed here and snapped up back in 2014 by Medtronic for 200 million. Now, they’re back in the game big time with Salvia, which makes an implantable thin-film device to treat migraine.
Hans de Neve: We saw Hans’ initial pitch for Carbyon at a HighTechXL FasTrackathon back in 2018. Since then, Hans has turned the carbon capture concept into a real company with real clients while raising more than 16 million euros, including 15.3 million this year in one of the biggest A rounds we’ve seen lately in Eindhoven.
Fabio Bambang Oetomo: Fabio at Bambi Medical is one of the emerging tech startups that actually got its start in the early days of HighTechXL. Bambi Belt recently (February 2024) celebrated getting the CE Marque for its wireless vital signs monitoring device for preemies and is being used in Dutch hospitals. Read more about Bambi here.
Hamed Sadeghian: Hamed is the founder and CEO of Nearfield Instruments, which scans chips for irregularities. Samsung is a client. But there’s more. Hamed is active with Fe+male Tech Heroes, promoting women in tech. Nearfield Instruments, headquartered on High Tech Campus Eindhoven and in Rotterdam, has raised a $148 million C round from investors led by Walden Catalyst, based in San Francisco, and Temasek Holdings, based in Singapore. Look for Hamed to move to the “legends” category sooner rather than later.
Read more about Hamed here.
Victor Donker and Jori Verbeek at Usono: We met these guys all the way back in 2015 when they were in the earliest cohort at HighTechXL. They struck us as being cut from the same cloth as the successful startup founders we knew back in the States. They developed a device that allows clinicians to attach a sonogram for diagnosis for sports injuries and other issues.
Techies
John Bell: This is another guy we could have put in several categories. He succeeded Guus Frericks as CEO of HighTechXL, coming out of Johnson & Johnson’s JLabs, where he collaborated closely with startups to co-create products.
Hans Boumans: Hans is director of technology transfer at TNO, the Dutch R&D institute. Hans is the guy overseeing tech transfer efforts, which is a huge contributor to the ecosystem. Technology that started at TNO includes Carbyon, Nearfield Instruments and AIKON.
Shane Ó Seasnáin: Shane is the AI guy in Eindhoven and a Dispatches contributor. But, he’s connected to everyone from Fontys, where he used to run the Fontys Consultancy at High Tech Campus to The Gate at TU/e.
Gareth Thomas: Gareth is the South African-born, Eindhoven-based tech influencer who’s organized a number PyData conferences for coders and developers. The most recent event in July was so big it had to be held at Philips Stadium. Gareth is also co-founder of VersionBay at High Tech Campus.
Connectors and supporters
Sander Arts: Though he’s long been based in The Valley, this Stanford Biz School alum stays connected to the Eindhoven ecosystem and is incredibly available and willing to make introductions. A master markerter, he’s also an investor in several Eindhoven startups and handles marketing for others.
Bart Brouwers: is the guy who oversees Gerard and Anton Awards and covers tech with his Innovation Origins media company. Good guy and you’ll see him at most of the startup and tech events.
Karl McGoldrick: Karl has worked at nearly every tech pioneering company that matters from Silicon Valley to Eindhoven including Intel, where he used to have dinner with Andy Grove. Karl co-founded solid-state battery startup LionVolt and 14 other startups. He’s now COO at FononTech, a next-gen micron printing startup. Read our interview with Karl here.
Stijn Steenbakkers: Stijn is Eindhoven city alderman for Brainport, economy, education and Eindhoven-Noordwest in his portfolio. Stijn was instrumental in pushing through Operation Beethoven, the 2.7 billion euro fund to upgrade Eindhoven in an effort to keep ASML, Europe’s most valuable company. He gets involved in all the startup events when a lot of people from other organizations don’t bother.
Ingelou Stol, Salvia BioElectronics: Ingelou has a media background, which means she’s met everyone twice. She was part of the High Tech Campus Eindhoven staff for years but is at Salvia now as director of marketing communications. With Hilde de Vocht at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, she founded Fe+male Tech Heroes.
Bert-Jan Woertman: Everyone knows Bert-Jan is the connector. Though he’s since departed for Wageningen, he’s still in Eindhoven regularly as emcee of Drinks, Pitches and Demos and was the idea man behind the Gerard & Anton Awards a decade ago. He’s connected literally to everyone who matters. The only person who might be more connected is Guus Frericks.
Corporates
Otto van den Boogaard – AS CEO of High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Otto manages the largest R&D campus in Europe, home to NXP and hundreds of other tech companies, as well as newly open 3EALITY, and AI Innovation Center. Otto has a direct line to owner Oaktree, one of the U.S.’s largest asset managers, in LA. Otto is also a trivia master.
Eelko Brinkhoff: As PhotonDelta CEO, Eelko is tasked with expanding the organization as a leading international ecosystem for integrated photonics. And even more than photolithography, photonics is the future as data centers upgrade from analog switches … and one of Eindhoven’s strongest sectors, with EFFECT Photonics and SMART Photonics based here.
Lars Reger: Lars is CTO and Executive VP at NXP. We first heard him three years ago at an AI Innovation Center event when he told founders that NXP wants to work with startups. We were fortunate to be with Lars at TNW in June when he explained his vision of incorporating NXP technology into, well, everything. (See the vid above.) Lately, the company has doubled down on chips for the systems that make self-driving vehicles possible.
Hilde de Vocht: – As director of Ecosystem Management at High Tech Campus, Hilde is one of the most visible people in the ecosystem, somehow making every event and party. To say she keeps her finger on the pulse would be a wild understatement. Hilde also is co-founder of Fe+male Tech Heroes along with Ingelou Stol.
Philipp Werle: Philipp is the new Innovation Manager at High Tech Campus, taking over the new 3EALITY immersive tech hub and the AI Innovation Center.
Jeroen van Woerden and Sonja Vos-Poppelaar: Jeroen and Sonja are directors at Brainport and TU/e’s The Gate, the university’s deep-tech startup effort. The Gate is essentially an incubator program for student startups, helping teams with essentials such as business workshops, IP and business development.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
