(Editor’s note: This Eindhoven Business Briefing is part of our Tech Tuesday series. We cover the startup and tech scene because so many of our highly skilled internationals are engineers and entrepreneurs.)
We just report the news. We don’t usually make the news. However, IO+ CEO Bart Brouwers was at the AI Innovation Center when we made this pitch for developers to help us with EuroPassport, a new AI-enhanced search agent.
Bart can tell the story better than we can, so here’s the gist of what he wrote:
In a pitch during last week’s Drinks, Pitches & Demos event, the founders emphasized the importance of adapting to global mobility trends. “As we all know, there’s a lot of talent flowing into the Netherlands from the U.S.,” Terry Boyd said, framing the migration trend as a direct response to market opportunities and geopolitical shifts. “Donald Trump is one of the reasons. And so we think there’s really going to be an arithmetic increase in the number of American expats coming here.”
Our project is meant to help people – all people, not just Americans – making the journey to get accurate, objective information as well as connections to service providers. EuroPassport will integrate sophisticated features such as ranking algorithms and a community portal.
How will all this work? Well, we’re working on that every day. So, we need developers and UX talent. If you’re interested, email us: terry@dispatcheseurope.com or hit us up on LinkedIn.
Eindhoven officials on BIC acquisition: ‘Trust us’
Wait … the Eindhoven City Council isn’t going to reveal what its financial obligation is to acquire the Brainport Industrial Campus? Why would a public expenditure with public funds be secret? But a post in the Eindhoven News states: “The amount of money for which the municipality of Eindhoven will take over the campus is still a secret to the outside world.” The council knows, but they’re not divulging how much the city will be on the hook for an industrial park. In an incredibly unstable global economy.
It gets worse.
TEN quotes Eindhoven councilor Tjeerd Ritmeester as stating “despite numerous efforts to prevent it,” High Tech Campus Eindhoven ultimately was acquired by a Singaporean state-owned entity. “Strategic assets like HTC and BIC1 should never fall into foreign hands, either public or private.“
In what world is this statement credible?
The one where Amsterdam-based CTP NV is largest listed owner, developer and manager of logistics and industrial real estate in 10 European countries from the North Sea to the Black Sea? The one where ASML has a monopoly on computer chip tools? One where Dutch oil giant Shell controls much of American petroleum production? In one where Dutch insurance giant Aegon owns a huge percentage of the U.S. insurance market, worth about $1 billion?
Well, if that becomes the norm and foreign companies are excluded from competing in the open market, a lot of Dutch companies are going to suffer, as will the public. If you want to create policies that punish global investment groups such as Oaktree Capital, which owns High Tech Campus, backed by SIG, then get ready for a war, one the Americans will win.
You really don’t see this kind of decision making driven by parochial views very often here in the Netherlands. When you do, it’s depressing.
Business Climate
At the risk of beating a dead horse, let’s look at another facet of this issue … the one where more and more Dutch companies are going to the U.S. because of over-regulation and under capitalization.
Amsterdam-based Bird, a rare Dutch tech Unicorn, announced it is leaving the Netherlands. Bird is leaving for a global footprint of operating cities, including New York and Dubai, according to IO+. Bird started out as MessageBird, reaching a billion-euro valuation in 2020. Its SMS API allows users to send and receive SMS messages to and from any country in the world through a REST API.
Elcke Vels at IO+ talked with Cees van Beers, a professor of innovation management at TU Delft. He warned, “We must be careful that the Dutch business climate does not suffer because of overregulation and a swabbing government policy.”
We recently had an interview with Pim Tuyls, founder of Intrinsic ID, who’s an advocate of Dutch startups moving to the U.S. sooner rather than later to take advantage of early stage risk capital and other advantages. Increasingly, the Dutch grow the technologies the Americans harvest.
BioMaterials revolution
Eindhoven is unique in the world if for no other reason than its range of advanced technologies: semiconductor, AI, chip tools, photonics, medtech and now smart biomaterials. We went to Campus² Tech Talks – Smart Biomaterials yesterday and had yet another epiphany about where this city is headed.
The event included four brief but information-dense talks:
• Brainport: Global Leader in Biomaterials
Jan Rietsema, CEO, Smart BioMaterials Consortium
• Revolutionizing Healthcare with new Biomaterials
Professor Carlijn Bouten, Eindhoven University of Technology
• Tiny Scaffolds, Big Impact: Microgels in Tissue Engineering
Maritza Rovers, PhD, Dankers Laboratory at TU/e.
• From Research to Reality: Transforming Science into Business
Bart Sanders, PhD, CEO, STENTiT.
The presentations were too complex to sum up here, so we’ll have a full post later. But trust us: Researchers can coax human cells to heal the body in ways that sound like science fiction. Except it’s happening here. It’s taken decades of research, but suddenly, an increasing number of innovative products such as STENTiT are ready to jump to the marketplace from the lab.
Smart BioMaterials Consortium (SBMC) is at the forefront of advancing regenerative medicine technologies by providing top-tier facilities for the industrialization of pioneering biomaterials and biodegradable implants.
The real news is, SBMC is putting the finishing touches on a state-of-the-art pilot production facility at High Tech Campus, fueled by the growth fund program RegMed XB. This cutting-edge pilot factory in HTC 11 is projected to come online this year.
Axelera AI
More big news from High Tech Campus Eindhoven resident Axelera AI, which secured an eye-popping 61.6 euro million grant as part of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) DARE project to develop its Titania AI chiplet. (We had to look up “chiplet,” which is a tiny integrated circuit that contains a well-defined subset of functionality. In other words, it performs a dedicated function, just not all functions.)
This high-performance, energy-efficient technology will play a crucial role in advancing Europe’s supercomputing ecosystem, enabling scalable AI solutions from edge to cloud.
Axelera AI, headquartered at the AI Innovation Center at HTC 5, has grown exponentially since launching in 2019. Back in 2020, founder Fabrizio Del Maffeo told us he was on his way to 200 employees. We were skeptical. As of early 2025, he company has more than 220 employees at multiple locations around the globe and has secured more than $200 million in funding in just three years. You read that correctly … three years.
Read the full announcement here.
LUMO Labs makes another investment
Andy Lürling and Sven Bakkes at LUMO Labs, based on High Tech Campus, are on a hot streak, with yet another investment. Their LUMO Labs venture firm has invested in Skyfora. Backed by European Space Agency – ESA, EIC Accelerator and Business Finland, Skyfora is set to expand its Telecom GNSS Meteorology solution and enter key global markets.
The 4 million euro round was led by Ugly Duckling Ventures and LUMO Labs, with participation from Voima Ventures and EIC Fund.
Skyfora CEO Fredrik Borgström highlighted the need for precise weather forecasting amid climate change, leveraging AI-driven weather intelligence to transform telecom infrastructure into atmospheric sensors.
Linn-Cecilie Linnemann of LUMO Labs, Andreas Green Rasmussen of Ugly Duckling Ventures, and Svetoslava Georgieva of EIC Fund emphasized Skyfora’s impact on climate resilience, AI decision-making, and disaster prevention.
We’re scheduled to talk with Andy for an overview of where LUMO Labs is and where it’s going.
Leyden Jar
When we put together our post on Eindhoven-based startups to watch in 2025, the list got a little long. So, we left off LeydenJar, which was regrettable. However, we have them here.
LeydenJar executives announced the construction of their first factory. They’ll produce silicon anode foils for high-energy-density batteries in the Strijp-T area of Eindhoven. The plant is scheduled to open in 2026. In 2022, LeydenJar raised 30 million euros in financing from the European Investment Bank to expand.
The new batteries using 100 percent silicon anodes have shown they can last for 500 charges before losing 20 percent of their total capacity and 700 charges before losing 30 percent of their capacity.
LeydenJar’s secret sauce is figuring out how to build these batteries without the external pressure to make them work. Batteries with silicon anodes had to be kept under high pressure – up to 1 MPa, which is comparable to the weight of three pianos. This made them impractical for many applications, such as phones and laptops.
LeydenJar has solved this problem with a smart, porous structure in the anode. This allows the silicon to expand and contract without damaging the battery. This means lighter, more powerful and more durable batteries without complicated pressure systems.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
