On the 21st of July the top 10 Start-ups to watch 2016 will be presented at De Oude Rechtbank in Eindhoven. They were preceded by twenty other start-ups in 2014 and 2015. We wrote down the names of previous winners, threw them in a box and picked seven random names to check up on.
Intrinsic-ID creates technology that allows computerchips to recognise each other through their own ‘DNA-profile’. They were already working on this in 2014, when they were awarded a spot in the top 10. The difference between then and now is that Intrinsic has expanded, since 2015 they occupy an office in Silicon Valley as well as in Eindhoven. Co-founder Pim Tuyls said the following in this article: “Over here (Silicon Valley), business seems to cost less effort. What takes up a years time in The Netherlands, can be done here in a matter of months. California was built to do Big Things.”
EFFECT Photonics and SMART Photonics, in the top ten in 2014 and 2015, by now are looking for serious investments, varying from ten to fifty million euro. The growth of both photonics start-ups coincides with the opening of the Institute for Photonic Integration by Photon Delta. At the European Photonics Venture Forum at High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, it became clear that photonics are starting to take up an increasing part in Dutch economy. Yet, landing an investment, sometimes can seem difficult. “That’s due to the branch we work in”, says EFFECT Photonics CFO Dennis Maas in this article. “Research is expensive and takes a long time. We are working on hardware solutions to problem that seem to be in the future still.”
Civolution was one of the winners in 2014 was awarded an Technology & Engineering Emmy in 2015 for their watermark technology in films. Founder Alex Terpstra split up the company in three parts: Syncnow, TeleTrax and Nexguard, this July, the third part of the company was sold, concluding a trilogy of sales from 2014 to 2016. “That there would be a consequence on the business side of this became very clear. Both the investor as us as a business it seemed wise to come up wiht multiple exit-strategies. In our case, that resulted in getting an exit for two out of three companies within a year”, Terpstra said in this article. By now, the third company has also been sold.
No Food Wasted has contracted ten super market chains to join their app which signals which supermarkets are selling their food against a discount because it is going past its due date. Among others, Albert Heijn, Plus and Coop have joined No Food Wasted. “The next step is going abroad, we are currently talking to parties in Belgium as well as Germany”, co-founder August de Vocht says.
Tip 10’s that developed
GenKey was among the companies that were tipped in the 2015 edition, they didn’t make it to the top 10 however. Since then, GenKey worked on further developing het afgelopen jaar aan biometrische technieken die onder meer ingezet zijn in de Ghanese verkiezingstijd. Het bedrijf heeft inmiddels een kantoor in Eindhoven, Ghana en Chicago.
LifeSense Group was also among those companies that were tipped. Since 2015 they have been working on the further development of Carin, the wearable that helps women defend themselves against unwanted urine loss. LifeSense collected over a million of investments last year, expanded to Asia and has started to built a start-up fund to help new companies in Eindhoven get of the ground. Co-founder Valer Pop: “I’m surrounded by people with great ideas and ambition. However, the one thing young companies seem to lack is capital. That’s were we want to come in. At LifeSense Group we have been working on a startup-fund, which helps young businesses progress through a cash injection. It’s up to them what they want to do with it, we do not demand any shares of the company and don’t interfere with the way they do business.”
Not all prediction become reality
Start-up Avular builds drones that do maintenance and inspections on farms and oil-tankers per example. In this article they predicted that the first inspection drone would take flight at the end of 2015. It didn’t. Avular is about to deliver the first drones on a project basis. The product is not finished yet. The software to the drones is still in a trial-phase.
2016’s top 10 will be presented on thursday the 21st of July. Starting the 22nd of July, the first of a series of portraits on the new winners will be featured on the site.
Related Posts
