(Editor’s note: This special edition of the Eindhoven Business Briefing is dedicated to new housing dedicated to High Tech Campus Eindhoven.)
This could be huge, but how huge remains to be seen. High Tech Campus Eindhoven and the municipality of Waalre signed a letter of intent Tuesday for what initially appears to be a major housing development near Campus in an area between Dirck van Hornelaan and Burgemeester Mollaan.
The HTCE project aims to build several hundred residential units suitable both for HTCE’s high-tech companies and the general public, according to the Campus website. The development will be across the A2 highway from the campus proper on undeveloped property. The site is directly adjacent to the A67 and A2 highways.
Plans for rental housing and short-stay accommodation will be further developed in 2026, with review by area residents and businesses, according to the Waalre municipality website. We’re not naive enough to think that this project will just appear magically overnight … construction in Europe always includes a long approval process before construction starts. But having an R&D campus with dedicated housing will be a (clichè alert) game-changer, allowing High Tech Campus-based companies to hire talent and house them immediately rather than trying to find them an apartment in this overheated housing market.
So, say HTCE-based NXP – a major player in the chip for cars market – is recruiting a top physicist from Taiwan or the United States. Suddenly NXP has an incentive that few other companies have. And of course, any new housing would give Eindhoven as a whole a tangible advantage over other innovation centers in this part of Europe.
We had heard buzz about this for years, even from campus executives, but were skeptical. That said, with Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management and GIC, Singapore’s sovereign fund, as HTCE owners, there’s plenty of capital available to enhance the campus.
Waiting now for renderings, so … as always, more as we know more.
Top 50
If you need more proof that Eindhoven is becoming the dominant tech hub, Eindhoven-based companies dominate the R&D Top 50 list published by Technisch Weekblad (Technical Weekly). The list ranks the investments of the Netherland’s largest R&D efforts. With an investment of more than 3 billion euros in 2024, ASML is by far the largest R&D investor in the Netherlands, according to the list. The globally dominant photolithography company invests more than the companies listed from No. 2 to No. 10 combined.
Other Eindhoven-based companies on the list include Philips, DAF Trucks, VDL Group, Vanderlande and Axelera AI.
LUMO Labs finishes 2025 on a high
Venture builder/VC LUMO Labs had an insane 2025, signing so many deals what we lost track weeks ago. We will take a more detailed look at LUMO in an upcoming EBB. But for the moment, let’s look at two big achievements that just happened.
The first is that the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) has again selected LUMO as its TTT.AI fund manage. The 8 million euro TTT.AI successor fund will be used for pre-seed investments in promising Dutch artificial intelligence spin-offs.
The TTT.AI fund will be managed as a subsidiary fund of LUMO Labs’ 100 million euro main fund. The TTT.AI program is part of RVO’s broader national technology transfer effort and promotes collaboration between knowledge institutions, investors and entrepreneurs to bring technologies to market faster with financial support and expert guidance.
The second is, LUMO Labs is a partner of Norrsken House Amsterdam, designed to become western Europe’s largest startup hub … even larger than Station F in Paris.
The hub is slated to open in 2026.
Located in the Van Gendt Hallen on Oostenburg island, a former steam train factory and historic warehouse district with roots in 17th century shipbuilding, Norrsken House Amsterdam will bring together 1000-plus founders, investors and partners across three floors and more than 3,600 square meters (400,000 square feet) of space designed for co-working, networking and events.
Norrsken House Amsterdam co-founders include CarbonFix, Eduard Zanen, Heleen Dura – van Oord, De Hoge Dennen, Jolanda Degen, Karin van Leeuwen, Marijn Pijnenborg, Raoul Kiksen, Tanka Foundation and De Wereld van Vermaat.
As an ecosystem partner, LUMO Labs is helping create a platform to showcase solutions to problems that genuinely matter. They will support in connecting capital, talent and expertise for those who share the vision of entrepreneurship as a force for positive change.
Stay tuned for more news about Norrsken Amsterdam! Meanwhile, you can learn more here: norrsken.org/amsterdam
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
