Start to scale. Startup and Scale-up Founder Stories.

In 2017 she co-founded Peelpioneers, the largest producer of raw materials from citrus peels in Europe -  together with Sytze van Stempvoort and Bas van Wieringen, where she now sits at the supervisory board.  Next to that, she is co-founder and director at Tekkoo, an organization that helps startups and established organizations with sustainable innovation. She is also the initiator of Circular F...

Fonger is an experienced leader in the energy sector. He obtained his PhD in mathematics and physics at Oxford University, after which he worked as a strategy consultant and McKinsey and as head of a Eneco Smart Energy Lab. Since then, he was the CEO of Brainbay, and a cofounder of Blockheating - the scale-up that recycles data center energy. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics:...

Niels Verwij is a successful e-commerce entrepreneur. He started dekbed-discounter, a disruptive online duvet webshop, in 2014 from scratch. It disrupted traditional retail and soon became one of the most successful e-commerce companies in the Netherlands.  Today, as the CEO of Jamani, he oversees multiple businesses, including Dekbed-Discounter, Boxspring Lease, KoopJeDeal.nl, and WoonQ. At the a...

Joost is the founder and SeaEO of The Seaweed Company. A global pioneer in developing high-quality seaweed applications, with farms in the Netherlands, Ireland, Morocco, India and Greenland. After a corporate career at P&G and Pepsico, Joost  worked with leadership teams allo over the world to help them create a better future, until he met Edwin Sneekes and Stefan Kraan, his co-founders in 201...

Koen is the co-founder and CEO of Solarduck, the Dutch leader in offshore floating solar. He started his career as a management consultant, before he joined Damen Shipyards, where he was the Director Strategy and Business Transformation.  Koen is a member of The Economic Development Board of the Drecht Cities. And although his home is in Nijmegen, his office is… in… Rotterdam! In this episode, we&...

***Ok, we have a confession to make. Stealth Founder Rebekah does not exist. Nor does Pilar. One, the company that raised 450 million and grew the team to 500 employees in 6 months. This episode script was written by Chat GPT and read by Lisette. April fools! Enjoy Rebekahs crazy answers and the AI generated music anyway*** Rebekah is the CEO and founder of Pilar.one, a fast growing startup that c...

Ferhat is the CEO and Co-founder of Valyuu, the circular economy marketplace to sell and buy pre-owned goods, like smartphones and macbooks. With first hand experience from T-mobile and a first venture in b2b refurbishment, he started the company in January 2021.  Valyuu joined Techstars and in March 22 they raised a first investment with ten prominent angel investors. Valyuu has been growing rapi...

Abdessamad Dari is the MD of Techgrounds Netherlands. With a background in management, sales and system admin, in 2019 he joined Techgrounds. He is Managing Director of the Rotterdam based program that reskills talent in IT.  Katia Ramos’ career includes several administrative roles at different organizations until she found herself out of a job. She is a participant in the current program. In thi...

Born in Iran, Parya moved to the Netherlands at the age of twelve. She has a background in systems engineering at Technical University of Delft. There, together with Joris Mollinga and Mark Evenblij she founded DuckDuck Goose - a remarkable company on a mission to detect deepfake. DuckDuckGoose first clients included the NFI (Dutch Forensic Institute) and the Dutch House of Representatives. In 202...

With a background in engineering and business, Peter Paul started his career at the acclaimed shipbuilder Damen Shipyards. In 2017, together with Daan Geldermans he founded Skoon on a mission to make clean energy accessible. Damen Shipyards became his first investor soon the Netherlands most prominent cleantech investor Kees Koolen followed.  Today, Skoon is scaling up at an impressive rate, growi...

Born and raised in Rotterdam, Jamal has been involved in a number of social initiatives: from RefugeeHero, Edubility foundation. Starters4Communities.  In 2020 he founded Social Debt, on a mission to ensure that there is no more profit on debt collection. His work has not gone unnoticed: Jamal featured in various Dutch media, which even led to questions in the dutch parliament. Social Debt is one...

Simon co founded NOWI Energy together with Omar Link, a fellow Strategic Product Design Master student at TU Delft. In 2016, they set out to design a chip that harvests energy - to replace batteries. They grew the company to forty employees, with sales teams in San Francisco and Shanghai. They raised a series A in november 2019 and in November 2022, the company was acquired by Nexperia. In this ep...

Clinton is the founder and CEO of Maxwell & Spark, manufacturer of renewable energy systems. Originally from South Africa, he has led highly innovative engineering teams, in the fields of materials engineering and renewable energy. From academics, solar car racing and the large hadron collider, to shipping lines and litigation in Africa and Europe.  He is an Honourary academic at University of...

Michiel is a b2b e-commerce veteran.  He joined ISM e-company - which was founded by Jan Kees de Jager and Karel van der Woude - during his Master at Erasmus University more than 20 years ago.  Later, he became Managing Partner. Since 2011, he has been dedicated to building Sana Commerce. As their CEO, he helps companies worldwide achieve e-commerce success, with a team of more than 400 people all...

Ellen joined Yuki right after they launched in Belgium, where she grew the business with more than 100% year on year.  In 2020, Yuki was acquired by the Nordic Visma Group. And a year later, Ellen took over from CEO and Yuki founder, Lucas Brentjes. Today she is responsible for The Yuki Company, which includes Yuki in three countries as well as two other ventures. Ellen graduated with honors in Ap...

Dervis studied Aerospace Engineering at Delft Technical University. Already in 2002 he invented an endoscopic simulator. In 2010 he became managing director of Epona medical until in 2015, he founded Medical-X, global market leader in simulation products for medical teaching and training. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics: Scaling a global med-tech business; Managing cashflow;...

Sander graduated Cum Laude in Biomedical Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Where he also did his PhD and a postdoc until he co-founded his first company Virtualock in 2009 together with Jasper Schuurmans. In 2014 this lead to their second venture Mapiq, market leader in software for optimizing office space and facilities.   Under his leadership, the company has grown tremendously over...

Micky is on a mission to turn today's brightest students into tomorrow's workforce.  Her first successful venture was a Harry Potter platform she built and monetized at age 7. She worked at Salesforce and IBM prior to founding Minite together with her sister Linky, in 2020. Their story has been featured across all major media, from Quote to RTLZ and has been on stage many, including MT/S...

Early 2020 Niels wrote an angry post on linkedin: About large platform companies who were asking for government support while generating billions in dividends.  That message went viral - and led to a 2M crowdfunding round to create a more social alternative to hotel booking platforms. In May 2020, moonback was founded in Rotterdam. Today, Niels is the co-founder and CEO of Moonback. The HONEST boo...

Ferdinand is the CEO of PHYSEE Technologies, which he founded together with Willem Kesteloo in 2014 in a physics lab at Technical University Delft.  PHYSEE is on a mission to make the build environment energy neutral in an aesthetic way. With success: in 2019 PHYSEE was recognized as the most innovative SME of The Netherlands, and in december 2021, the European Innovation Council recognized PHYSEE...

Esther is the founder of hundo careers - dedicated to upskilling the next generation in web3 and metaverse. Esther is a Global Tech Advocate, a digital nomad and a triathlete. Her 20+ years of experience span government, CSR, ESG, arts, culture and music. It’s impossible to summarize her achievements. Just to name a few: she is an award winning DJ/producer, Freeman of the City of London, Internati...

In 2006, together with Tycho van Paassen and Remy Verhoeven Wouter built VONQ - which turned out the household name for recruitment marketing - used every day by over 1000 leading companies - including over 25 Global Fortune 500s.  In 2019 Capital D acquired a majority stake of the company, and in 2021 wouter handed over the realm to the new CEO, Arno Schafer. Now he divides his time between famil...

Tim Houter is the co-founder of Hardt Hyperloop. Founded in 2016, the team at Hardt is working tirelessly to disrupt the transport industry with an innovative and sustainable mode of transport. With a recent 15 Million euro grant from the European Union, they are building a new test facility in the European Hyperloop Center in Groningen.  Tim has a background in mechanical engineering at TU Delft,...

Born in SriLanka, raised in Australia and moved to the Netherlands. Arosha spent her career in Management Consulting with PwC and with companies like DSM and TNT. After a few years of consulting organizations on employee well-being, she started Quan Wellbeing together with Lucy  Howie. Arosha is the co-founder and CEO of the first ever female-led Dutch to be accepted into Y Combinator, raising a m...

Pieter is a well known Dutch serial entrepreneur and investor. After founding a publishing business and two IT companies, in 2005 he started NLE together with his business partner Harald Swinkels. NLE opened up the Dutch market for utilities and soon became the largest independent energy supplier in the Netherlands. In 2018, they were acquired by NUTS group, for an undisclosed amount, of around 20...