Over the past 125 years Eindhoven has grown into the innovation hub it is today. It all started with a startup called Philips. Today Eindhoven is home to a diverse array of innovative companies, some startup, some mature, some huge, some small. This ecosystem gives Eindhoven its strength and agility.
New startups with the ambition to be the next Philips or ASML are founded regularly here. From all over the world people come to Eindhoven because this is fertile ground for new innovative companies. We want to celebrate this entrepreneurial spirit. This is why E52 and the High Tech Campus created the Top 10 Startups to Watch. Tonight, in the third edition of the event, the 10 winners will be honoured with the Gerard & Anton Award.
With this new name for the Startups-to-Watch we want to express respect to the city’s heritage and to the very first Eindhoven startup that ultimately became a giant success. Gerard and Anton Philips are an example for every startup in 2016.
In this third edition the jury again had a long list of startups to choose from. The 10 winners were not chosen because others were losers. The startup scene is way too diverse to identify winners and losers in this early stage. No, the jury made their choice because these are startups that will show remarkable progress in the coming 12 months. It could be that they will morph into a scale-up, or get bought by a big corporation seeking access to a new market. Anyway, they will change our lives with their technology.
These 10 were selected because together they show the breadth and depth of the Eindhoven startup scene. Some are very early stage (or not even there), some are already successful in the market. Some are in the service industry, some provide a high tech solution.
The members of the jury – consisting of Chairman Staf Depla (alderman City of Eindhoven), Gerard Spanbroek (Brainport), Saskia Romero (Rabobank Eindhoven-Veldhoven), Bert Jan Woertman (High Tech Campus Eindhoven), Broos Bakens (EY Eindhoven), Mark de Greeff (Eindhoven365), Robèrt Molenaar (Witlox van den Boomen) – together have a broad view on the Eindhoven startup scene. But even this jury has relied on outside expertise to come to the final top 10.
Tonight at 19:30 the first winners of the Anton & Gerard Awards will be presented in a sold out Tuchthuis. E52 will publish the winners as soon as they are known to the public.
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