“The Netherlands is fun, but as a sport-startup you have to go beyond the limits.” Arno Hermans and his team Sport eXperience committed to support the sport-startup this year. Many sport-startups. He is ending the year with an international Sport Business Day. It takes place on November 3rd, in the PSV Stadium, with a view on the field. “The location should also add value.”
So far, thirty exhibitors have applied, of which five are exhibitors from Eindhoven: DashTag, 3Dmouthguard, Freesense Solutions, The Surface Network en de Veilige sportvloer (the safe sports floor) of Cleanfix. Exhibitors from abroad are applying as well. “Even people from Ukraine are interested and there are exhibitors from Denmark, England, France, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland, to name a few.”
Hermans is expecting approximately 35 participants. “We want sport-startups to have informal conversations with investors, potential partners, future employees and other stakeholders. People are welcome to stay at the exhibition for a whole day or they can come for just an hour and attend a master class. Besides the exhibitors, 16 startups and scaleups are pitching and there are 7 master classes with themes such as digital sports marketing, protection of Intellectual Property and export in Northern Europe and the Baltic States. “This is the first time for such an event to be organised in Europe”, says Hermans.
One of the pitchers is DashTag. “This is an ideal moment and an ideal location to tell our story”, says Dirk van den Berg, cofounder of DashTag. In September 2015, he and his associates Epco Berger and Cliff de Roode followed the accelerator program High Tech XL. That is where there idea turned into a concrete product. High Tech XL is especially aimed at hardware. Sport eXperience is fully aimed at sports and therefore it is now interesting for us. Especially because of the rapidly increasing network with links to foreign countries. We are joining when it becomes interesting to us, like on November 3rd.
Sport eXperience offers an accelerator program to sport startups. Hermans: “In this we are also a startup. We are gradually learning and together with the startups we adjust the program.” This year the program was presented three times and there were two concluding events. Sport Business Day is the end of the third program. “At these events, we notice how rapidly our network is growing. In February there were 50 interested participants, in June there were 100 and on the 3rd of November we are expecting approximately 300.”
Hermans has no idea how the program is going to look next year. He will determine that together with the startups and the experiences during November 3rd. “I am certain that there is going to be a program and we are even discussing to do a program in Denmark and Ireland again.”
You can register on Sport Business Day, participation is free.
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