(Editor’s note: We started the Eindhoven Business Briefing in 2017, because we had more news in our headquarters city, which has a huge expat population, than we could possibly post.)
It’s been another wildly successful period since our most recent Eindhoven Business Briefing, with HighTechXL executives starting to see their alumni companies mature and raise millions in funding while expanding.
Rogier de Haan pitching Monday for StormRam, an MRI-compatible robotic biopsy startup from University of Twente here in the Netherlands. De Haan’s pitched worked … they made the cut.
We’ve counted at least five making the news, with two companies coming out of the five-year-old high-tech accelerator getting serious funding, and one competing for an award from a prestigious Silicon Valley entrepreneurial group.
All this news is breaking as HighTechXL held its Impact Finals on Monday at ASML headquarters, where the ultra-high-tech machines that underpin the entire global digital matrix are made.
From 18 candidates, HighTechXL selection teams chose 10 companies for spring 2018 cohort, which begins April 9 and runs for three months at HighTechXL’s offices on High Tech Campus Eindhoven.
This next cohort for the HighTechXL accelerator is focused on robotics and AI for medical applications. But HighTechXL CEO Anique Soetermeer-Gabriels noted selection was strong across the board into other sectors including high-tech waste disposal.
You can read the full HighTechXL Impact Finals post here.
This is HighTechXL’s seventh program, with a total of 56 teams not counting the 10 selected yesterday.
HighTechXL co-founder Guus Frericks reckons that 20 percent of the companies are “stars,” companies ready to scale. About 70 percent of alums are still active, updating their products or seeking new investment.
That’s like so crazy compared to the Silicon Valley rate of success – 10 percent – that we’ll just leave it there.
Bambi Medical raises 4 million
As we said, this has been a phenomenal couple of weeks for HighTechXL alumni, with several getting serious funding. In a crowded field, Dutch medtech start-up company Bambi Medical stands out, closing an A Round of 4 million euros with private investors. In the Netherlands! A place not known for early stage investors who embrace risk.
This brings the two-year-old startup’s total funding to 4.5 million euros. The company will use the investment to finalize product development, conduct clinical trials and bring the Bambi Belt Solution to the market, stated CEO and founder Fabio Bambang Oetomo in a news release.
The startup is developing a the Bambi Belt Solution, the latest generation of their wireless neonatal intensive care vital sign monitoring device. Their technology replaces adhesive electrodes used to monitor preemies with a wireless monitoring device and a base-station that processes the signals in patterns of breathing, heart rate and temperature and sends them to the patient monitor.
“Fundraising can take up lots of time from a startup company. I am happy that we have successfully closed the financing round and can now focus again on our two priorities, product development and business development,” Bambang Oetomo said.
Raising money from risk-adverse private Dutch investors is in-and-of-itself an accomplishment.
“This type of funding by private investors is pretty unique for the Netherlands. Normally a round of this size would be raised with Venture Capitalists and regional development companies” stated Bambang Oetomo.
“This is more like how companies in Silicon Valley are often financed. Being able to
do this here in the Netherlands makes us very proud.”
Bambi Medical already has serious traction. More than 20 hospitals from all over Europe and Asia signed LOI’s with the intention to participate in clinical trials and/or buy the product when it comes on the market.
https://vimeo.com/208046772
Ka-ching
We have some actual news as sources give us the details of several HighTechXL grads raising money either through partnerships or from direct investment. And we’re still working to confirm one major development, so bear with us.
• Larisa Kryuchkova and her Berlin-based UVisio team have received 250,000 euros in a deal with Zurich-based consumer and pharma giant Bayer. UVisio developed a wearable device that measures sun exposure and notifies the user via an app when they’re approaching UV exposure limits. UVisio was in HighTechXL’s March 2017 cohort.
• HighTechXL alum Sustonable was just selected to participate in the TIE50 Top start-up awards semi-finals organized by TIE inflect Silicon Valley.
The Indus Entrepreneurs is a 26-year-old non-profit in Silicon Valley. The organization was founded by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives and senior professionals and is the world’s largest global network, with a mission to foster entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking, and education.
Sustonable made a huge splash last year when they received a total of 350,000 euros live on stage at HighTechXL’s Demo Day. That investment came from BOM, the economic-development/investment arm of the Brabant Region of the Netherlands, which includes Eindhoven, and Dekker, a countertop company based in the Netherlands.
Sustonable, a Dutch/Swiss company, has technology that takes Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, waste (plastic bottles and other packaging) and turns it into next-gen composite “stone.” This is not a new idea. Sustonable is built on technology under development for a decade, tech that actually came out of Shell Oil, where most of its team worked.
Sustonable’s first market sector – composite stone is kitchen countertops – is worth an estimated 10 billion euro market.
https://youtu.be/vXfdozT3L58
• Amber Mobility just established its first hub in Amsterdam! ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is taking a concrete step towards solving mobility issues in Zuidas, Amsterdam’s financial district. Based at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Amber currently has a fleet of BMW i3s, but is working on developing its own autonomous cars.
Late in 2017, Amber received 500,000 euros to close their seed funding from a mix of Dutch subsidies and a private investment from a Netherlands-based investor. In addition, Jan Scholt, founder of Scholt Energy Control, became their lead investor in Amber’s upcoming Series-A round.
Jobs
We could post just on all the jobs in Eindhoven, and we will. But for the moment, here are positions open now.
• Additive Industries, which makes modular 3D printing system and integrated information platforms for several industries including aerospace, automotive and medtech, has at least 22 jobs posted on its website including sales director for Europe.
