Brabant40 Award for innovative start-ups that make an impact

By Team IO

Braventure, AgriFood Capital, Brainport Development, Midpoint Brabant, REWIN, B’wise, The Gate, and the Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM) are launching the Brabant40 contest for the start-ups that make the most impact.

The Brabant40 is a Brabant-wide award to encourage innovative entrepreneurs and give them a bigger stage. The initiators select the most influential 40 startups in Brabant from a large pool of contenders. The best three will take the stage during the LEVEL UP 2023 event, after which a jury will determine the number 1. This company will go home with the Brabant40 award.

Innovative Brabant

“With this award, we want to show how innovative Brabant is,” says Brigit van Dijk-van de Reijt, CEO of BOM. “There are about five thousand startups active in Brabant; wonderful things are happening here with AI, in biotechnology, in the field of the energy transition, within the field of MedTech and deeptech, not to mention gaming. We want to give these entrepreneurial standouts a world stage. With the Brabant40, we are doing just that.” The “40” refers to BOM’s 40th anniversary this year.

For your calendar: the ninth edition of Innovation Origins’ Gerard & Anton Awards will take place on August 31

Every year, Innovation Origins puts ten start-ups from the Brainport region in the spotlight. These are ten innovative start-ups of which we expect great things … Continued

Impact as a criterion

To compete for the Brabant40, you must be a start-up from Brabant that makes an economical and social impact and demonstrably contributes to a social task within energy transition, agrifood, health, AI, digitalization, or within key technologies. Also, the start-up must have made a demonstrable growth step in the past 12 months in customers, team, business model, product, or money. “And, of course, you have to show ambition for the next step of growth,” adds Van Dijk – van de Reijt. “So we look back at your achievements, but also reward an inspiring and relevant vision of the future within your domain.”

Procedure

The initiators determine who are among the 40 finalists, based on the applications. They are judged via the pillars of the BOM Venture Building Framework: customer, team, business model, product, and money. For each pillar, they give a maximum of five points. The 40 entrepreneurs with the most points make up the Brabant40. An expert jury then chooses the best three. They will pitch during LEVEL UP 2023 on September 25 in the Evoluon in front of hundreds of start-ups, investors, and media partners. That same jury then chooses a winner, who will get the grand prize.

Are you a start-up and haven’t registered for the event yet? Find more information here.

The story of ASML: it started with poverty and negligence, it succeeded through perseverance and a connecting ecosystem

ASML hasn’t always been this 42,000-employee, number 1 tech company in Europe. On the contrary, it started with “poverty and negligence”, back in 1984.