Daan Kerstens
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Alkmaar-based Technobis has found a new CEO: Daan Kersten, until recently the owner of Additive Industries. Kersten has the ambition to build Technobis into a leading company in the field of integrated photonics sensing. The company’s products are based on the technology that has been developed over the last eighteen years by pioneer and founder Pim Kat and his team.

Technobis has developed a portfolio of solutions, ready to be applied to a large variety of applications in industries like Aerospace, Medical, Mobility, and Energy worldwide. “Integrated photonics sensing is a rapidly developing technology, substituting conventional sensing technologies with a factor 10,000 in frequency, the number of sensing points and resolution (accuracy), and at least ten times less weight, with very low power usage”, the company says in a statement.

Daan Kersten has gained extensive experience in building and scaling a global tech company in additive manufacturing that serves similar end-markets. Kersten: “The photonics industry resembles the additive manufacturing market when I founded Additive Industries, the technology was almost mature and ready for industrial applications, and I’m eager to catch this new wave in integrated photonics.”

Pim Kat added: “Technobis’ integrated photonics sensing outlook is promising with the goals and roadmaps well set. Based on his recent track record, we trust to have found in Daan Kersten the right man to accelerate the business and capitalize on the extensive research and development.”

Active Capital Company, a stakeholder in Technobis, played an important role in finding Kersten. Victor Schols, Partner of Active Capital Company and responsible for Technobis as a portfolio company: “We acquired the Technobis Group a year ago to grow the recurring businesses and scale up the integrated photonics business. We now realize the potential of Technobis’ integrated photonics sensing is far larger than we could have hoped for. We are, therefore, excited that Daan can help Technobis unlock this potential in the coming years.”