***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 creates better humans through advanced use of CRISPR, the genome editing technique. She raised over 45...
Mar 29, 2023•40 min•Season 2Ep. 37
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 rapidly, so Ferhat is currently raising to support the next stage. In this episode, we'll cover the follo...
Mar 27, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 36
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 this episode, we'll cover the following topics: opportunities in tech for underrepresented talent a para...
Feb 21, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 35
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 2022 the European organization IDNext awarded DuckDuckGoose won the Digital Innovation Award 2022. In t...
Feb 12, 2023•40 min•Season 2Ep. 34
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, growing a whopping 800% in 2022. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics: How do you turn crisis...
Jan 30, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 33
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 of the first two companies to receive funding by the NN Group Social Innovation fund. In this episode...
Jan 16, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 32
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 episode, we'll cover the following topics: Non technical founders solving a technical problem Finding ...
Dec 20, 2022•51 min•Season 2Ep. 31
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 KwaZulu-Natal. His academic career started in Philosophy but led him to a PhD in Materials Engineeri...
Dec 12, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 30
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 over the world. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics: Switching from a project business ...
Nov 28, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 29
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 Applied Economics at University of Antwerp, and now spends her time between Antwerp and Rotterdam. In t...
Oct 31, 2022•54 min•Season 2Ep. 28
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; Similarities between boxing and entrepreneurship. Links Mentioned: People: Dervis Demirtas , Samy Andary...
Oct 17, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 27
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 the past few years, now operating in more than 20 countries, with over 115 people on staff and with t...
Sep 26, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 26
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/Sprout best performing SaaS companies, EU startup summit most promising Early stage Startup, and Most inspiring ...
Sep 13, 2022•52 min•Season 2Ep. 25
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 booking site, which won the Dutch Interactive Disrupter Award and NIels was voted most inspiring entrepr...
Jul 07, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 24
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 PHYSEEas one of the 50 best European Scaleups in Deeptech. He made it to Forbes 30 under 30, but more impor...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 23
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, International Woman in staffing Top 50 and part of the first all-female Decentralized Finance delegation to t...
May 10, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 22
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 family, running marathons, investing in startups and… starting new ventures. In this episode, we'll cover ...
Apr 26, 2022•58 min•Season 2Ep. 21
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, where he has been on a winning streak when it comes to fast modes of transport. He spent 2 years eng...
Mar 29, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 20
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 million euros in pre-seed capital. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics: The importance o...
Feb 22, 2022•51 min•Season 2Ep. 19
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 200 million euros. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics: Disrupting markets; The thin lin...
Feb 07, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 18
She co-founded death tech company - yes you heard that right - Closure with Chantal van der Velde in 2017. They won the Philips Innovation Award and made it to top 3 in Sprout’s Dutch startup of the year. Graciella has a Master in Econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and she was awarded Rotterdam Business Woman of the year. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics: Death and tech; Funding your growth; The things Graciëlla does when she’s not working on Closure. Links mentione...
Jan 18, 2022•50 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Fast company described him as “A hybrid of the serial entrepreneur Sean Parker and Jason Kottke, the web designer and blogger". But we like his own twitter description better: “Father of two; a husband to one, founder and angel investor of some.” Nalden gained his online reputation through his blog, which he started at the age of 16. In 2009, he founded file-sharing service WeTransfer, which he exited in 2019. He is now building a new startup - Adelee - to foster connection for families & fr...
Nov 30, 2021•53 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In 2016, Hamed Sadeghian co-founded Nearfield Instruments together with Roland van Vliet as a spin out from TNO. Nearfield has since then become a leader in semiconductor metrology solutions, with offices in Eindhoven and Rotterdam, employing over a 100 people. Hamed received his PhD cum laude in 2010 from Delft University of Technology in nano-mechatronics systems design. He holds more than 60 patents, has authored over 100 papers and co-authored a number of books. Hamed also holds an MBA from ...
Nov 16, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Julian is the founder and CEO of Somnox, which he started with fellow students at the Technical University of Delft in 2015. Two years ago they introduced the world’s first sleep robot to the market. Somnox patented technology received various awards: Philips Innovation Award, Rabobank Sustainable Innovation Award and the #1 most innovative business of the Netherlands. But most importantly, the Somnox sleeprobot is used by tens of thousands people around the world to improve their sleep. Julian ...
Nov 01, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 14
In 2016, Jarell founded Shypple - the "booking.com for intercontinental sea freight that connects more than 3000 companies worldwide." In 2020, Shypple was voted Sprout Startup of the year. In april 2021, they raised a 7 Million Euro Series A, bringing the total funding to 9,5 Million and gearing up for more to facilitate acquisitions. Jarell earned his bachelor degree in Tilburg and his Masters in Rotterdam and turns out to be quite competitive. In this episode, we'll cover the following topics...
Jul 13, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 13
EJ sold his first business @Media to the Dutch Broadcasting Service in 2001. In 2006, he founded Nimbuzz, which he sold for 137 Million Euros to New Call Telecom in 2014. He then went on to found NGTI, until he dedicated himself to take up a role as the Managing Director of YES!Delft - voted #2 best university incubator in the world. EJ is also a guest speaker at Nyenrode on innovation and transformation, an expert member for the European Commission and… a force to be reckoned with when it comes...
Jun 29, 2021•43 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Vincent is the founder and Managing Director of Magnet.me - the online network that helps young professionals find a job they love. In his spare time, Vincent represents the VVD, the liberal party at the City Council of Rotterdam. So you can see him on Dutch television every now and then. He has also been one of the driving forces behind the scale-up program in Rotterdam. In this episode, we cover the following topics: How do you compete in a crowded market like recruitment; The opportunities in...
Jun 15, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Han is the founder of LeadInfo, category leader in B2B website visitor analytics. Before founding LeadInfo, Han worked for Telecom 360 for almost eight years, where he learned all about growing conference call services in multiple countries. Han featured on Dutch News Radio BNR twice in 2018 and 2019 and his interview at SaasBazen was the most downloaded episode. In this episode, we'll discuss: How do you beat the odds as a bootstrapped single founder? What is Han's strategy for winning new cust...
Jun 01, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Djordy is a tech entrepreneur who is passionate about real estate and building impactful ventures. With a Master in Law (Cum Laude) and a Master in Science, he joined HousingAnywhere in 2014. In 2018, Djordy took over as the CEO. He professionalised the company, led multiple funding rounds taking the total amount raised by the company to €35.5 million, accomplished four successful acquisitions within 12 months and navigated the business through the Covid-19 crisis. In this episode, we discuss: W...
May 18, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Cinzia Silvestri is the Founder and CEO of Bi/ond, the Dutch biotech company on a mission to enable personalized disease treatment. Originally from Italy, Cinzia holds a Master in Electronic Engineering from the University of Rome, and a PhD in Microelectronics from Delft University of Technology. She is a TEDx speaker and was selected InspiringFifty. In this episode, we discuss: What is it like to build a business in the pioneering field of Organ-on-chips? How do you keep faith when your compet...
May 04, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 8
