Author: Ioana Bruma

Oasys Now: dealing with your DNA data ethically

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

Have you ever wondered what happens with your information once it’s processed within a database? Nowadays, every online activity on the internet is valuable both in terms of time and money. Your data is collected, processed, and sold on a daily basis by a variety of companies, websites, and analysis firms.

Every piece of information that we produce is important and says something about us. One of the most important data is our DNA, since it contains the instructions that our body requires to grow, develop, and reproduce. The question is: how can we protect our genomic data (DNA)?

Oasys Now is a start-up that protects your DNA data, founded in 2018 by Nima Salami, Soroosh Torabi, and later joined by  Sara Okhuijsen and Viktor Koppenol. In short, Oasys Now provides a secure storage and computation platform for DNA testing companies & research institutes. Once the data is safely stored, the ownership of this data is given back to the individuals, they can now decide whether they would like to share their data for research purposes in exchange for rewards.

The idea started with a personal story:

Around 12 years ago, Nima – originally from Iran, left the country together with his parents. They moved from country to country before arriving in The Netherlands. Every time they had to travel, what they couldn’t take with them was their medical records. Especially for his mom, this was very important since she had several diseases including asthma. Whenever they would arrive in a new country she would have to be diagnosed over and over again before getting the required medical prescriptions. Nima then realized that the waiting procedure could be deadly for some people, so he wanted to come up with a solution.

“I believe that we have reached a point of advancement in technology where we can practically provide ownership of data to every individual, this is not only the right thing to do with regards to control and transparency but also stimulates scientific repurposing of data.”- Nima Salami, CEO and Co-founder at Oasys Now 

After 2 years, Oasys Now joined the validation program of YES!Delft after they had learnt that the market in which they would like to operate is not easy to enter, especially as a start-up. That’s when they made a pivot to the new idea which has the same mission and vision: bringing technology to the healthcare field and making individuals the owners of their health data; the only difference is that now they focus on genomic data (DNA data) rather than general medical records. Oasys Now started working on validating its new pivot with the help of YES!Delft.

“Genomic data is a defining pivot from general health data, since it is the most interesting data from our point of view. It presents many challenges, which we are excited to solve and see as opportunities.” – Sara Okhuijsen, CSO and Co-founder at Oasys Now

Target market

Oasys Now is a secure data-sharing platform with three main stakeholder groups. The first group is the individuals (citizens, patients) who had their DNA tested, the company /institute who holds their data is the second group, and the third group is the company/ institute who uses this data for (scientific) insights.

The people interested in the data are researchers, which Oasys Now calls the data consumers. They use the data to conduct large research or case studies in the field of healthcare. Therefore, since there is demand, Oasys Now wants to be the enabler for these transactions to happen ethically. On their platform, the individuals are the decision-makers on what happens to their data.

The individuals are eventually at the core of what they are doing from an ethical perspective, but it’s the data consumers that are the major source of income for Oasys Now. They want to serve the individuals, not monetize from them.

Stage in which Oasys Now is at the moment

Oasys Now is in the product development phase whereby they are piloting their solutions with several customers to make sure that everything is set down correctly since they work with sensitive data. The market in which they operate is relatively new and in some ways, they are at a level of ‘market creation’. There are several parties and organizations in this field, and the goal of Oasys Now is to bring them under the same umbrella and help them work seamlessly together enabled by their platform.

How has YES!Delft helped Oasys Now along the way?

Oasys Now validated the idea with YES!Delft after their pivot. Nima attended many events and programs at YES!Delft through which he learned a lot about entrepreneurship. At the moment their office is located at YES!Delft Rotterdam. The association with the Rotterdam office made sense since it focuses on Social and ClimateTech.

Your dream can become a reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your start-up by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a start-up resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES!Talents page!

BE PART OF THE CHANGE, AS CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU…

Qlayers: translating nature into technology

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

Have you ever looked at the way nature sustains itself or at how everything is there for a reason? Well, if you haven’t, it’s never too late to dive into that. Take sharks as an example: they play a crucial role in the ecosystem. They remove both the weak and the sick from the oceans while maintaining a balance for species diversity. But what makes them so unique?

The sharkskin has tiny denticles which allow the sharks to swim faster and more quietly in the water since they decrease drag and turbulence. Imagine if planes, ships, race cars, or fast trains would have this feature on their surface to make them faster. This would automatically reduce fuel consumption, lowering CO2 emissions.

Ruben Geutjens (CTO of Qlayers) and Josefien Groot (CEO of Qlayers), who met back in 2017 through TU Delft, were simply inspired by nature and, in particular, the sharkskin. Therefore, they  came up with the idea to imitate it and develop a technology that can apply sharkskin microstructures on industrial surfaces to increase their functionality and make them more energy efficient.That’s when Qlayers was founded.

When Qlayers conducted market research and looked into big industries such as storage tanks, maritime and wind turbines, Ruben and Josefien realized that current coating applications are still done by hand. Therefore, they felt the need to disrupt the current methods and made a shift from developing sharkskin microstructures to first applying coatings automatically using high-precision robots.

Their first concept is the 10Q robot which was designed for the storage tanks industries, followed up by the 7CS robot (for the maritime industry) and the BL8 robot (for the wind turbines industry). The robots automate the coating processes for these certain assets.

Qlayers is developing a unique coating technology that will increase not only the safety but also the accuracy and productivity of coating operations. The shielding system on the robots prevents overspray and the release of paint chemicals and fumes into the air, making the process more environmentally friendly.

Qlayers’ 10Q paint robot is in the commercial phase and has been deployed in several coating projects in tank terminals around the world while the 7cs and BL8 robots are in the development phase.

Stage of the company:

“We went in just 5 years from the start-up to the scale-up phase and that comes with a lot of changes, but our team is ready to conquer the global industrial coating application market!”- Shadi Parsa, the Head of Marketing at Qlayers

Due to its unique technology, Qlayers receives interest from potential clients all over the world. The company’s expansion into the global market started last year with its first international projects in the UK and the USA. The company also launched its APAC subsidiary in Singapore in June and plans to open an office in the US and the Middle East by the end of the year.

How has Qlayers been funded so far?

The co-founders began with some non-dilutive capital (personal savings; contributions from family and friends who believed in their vision), as well as cash from prizes obtained. Their paying customers also played an important role, and since the company is expanding globally, they are looking for more investment.

One of the milestones of the company was to sign an investment round with ECFG (a venture capital from Eindhoven) and AkzoNobel– which is both a partner and an investor. The relationship with AkzoNobel goes back to 2019 when Qlayers won AkzoNobel’s “Paint the Future” award.

Concerning that, YES!Delft has also played an important role since Qlayers got their first customer through their network. YES!Delft provided a lot of opportunities and support at a very early stage of funding, as well as access to valuable information and office space.

“The relationship with YES!Delft has always been amazing.”- Shadi Parsa, the Head of Marketing at Qlayers

Steps for the upcoming 6-12 months:

Since the company is growing and is focused on expansion, they aim to create an excellent service experience for customers and distributors around the world. In 2023, Qlayers will produce additional 10Q robots to meet demand in various regions. in addition, there will be more demos and trials for the 7cs robot

Your dream can become a reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your start-up by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a start-up resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES! Talents page!

Be part of the change, as change starts with you…

DuckDuckGoose: making the online environment a safer place

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

Spending so much time in the online environment and being exposed to so much information can make it challenging for users to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not. But how do we know that the information is fake when our eyes and ears tell us otherwise? Nowadays, deepfakes are taking over the internet representing a threat to cybersecurity and society.

This problem didn’t go unnoticed by a group of students at TU Delft. Back in 2019, Parya Lotfi, together with four other students, analyzed this social technical problem and decided to talk with potential end-users to see if they would be willing to use their product and pay for it. The product they came up with is based on algorithms that can detect what the human eyes cannot: an image or video that has been manipulated or completely generated by artificial intelligence.

The journey

The prototype, which was created by one of the co-founders- Mark Evenblij, was presented to their potential customers (the police and the government) along with different case studies of fake news or false evidence that could happen in court. The idea was highly appreciated, and they gained valuable insights and feedback. As a result, they founded DuckDuckGoose in March 2020.

“Our goal is to create a safe digital environment where we can still believe what we perceive. Deepfake attacks have an impact on every level of society and we want to prevent that from happening.” – Parya Lotfi, CEO, and co-founder of DuckDuckGoose

At first, the focus of DuckDuckGoose was on the police industry and the government. During this period, the company noticed its reactive nature- meaning that something has to happen to take action. That’s when they realized that even though there is a lot of interest in their product, the process can take longer simply because there is a lot of bureaucracy involved. In consequence, they decided to investigate other markets, such as the digital identity verification market, with a focus on financial institutions.

“Nowadays, banks or other financial or governmental institutions verify the identity of their customers or new employees remotely. That can happen via a zoom call or asking them to take a selfie and a passport picture and send it through. All of them are vulnerable to deepfake fraud.”- Parya Lotfi, CEO, and co-founder of DuckDuckGoose

Since they founded the company, DuckDuckGoose has gained 5 customers that bring revenue along with the subsidies they receive from the government. Their team is growing, and their next goal is to work together with a couple of big American companies that are relevant to their scope. At the moment, they are in close touch with them, making it very likely to convert them into real customers. Once they do that, they would immediately become a scale-up.

Competition

DuckDuckGoose has a few competitors in The Netherlands, other European countries as well as in the United States of America. However, in The Netherlands, they positioned themselves as the experts when it comes to deepfake and synthetic media detection, since they have the first movers’ advantage and because they offer an explainable AI for deepfake detection. When they first entered the market and started interviewing people, they noticed there was no one doing what they do.

“How we distinguish ourselves is based on the technical aspects such as the explainable module. We do not only classify the input as deepfake, but we also explain the reasoning behind the decision of the neuronal network.”- Parya Lotfi, CEO, and co-founder of DuckDuckGoose

So far, DuckDuckGoose didn’t need to look for external funding since the revenue they generated could cover the expenses. However, they noticed the interest from investors in their idea and they are open to getting external funding since they want to grow their company even more.

How has YES!Delft helped DuckDuckGoose

The start-up benefited from access to the ecosystem of YES!Delft is defined by theoretical knowledge, networking events, and support from mentors and other experts, among other things. The two mentors that they worked together with, Ian Wachters and Jin Han, became part of their advisory board. Ian and Jin, having a very strong entrepreneurial spirit and detaining a lot of experience, shared their knowledge and expertise with DuckDuckGoose, contributing to their learning curve as well as helping them take their business to the next level.

In the upcoming six to twelve months, DuckDuckGoose wants to develop its technology even more by adding sound checks as well as improving its algorithm in terms of accuracy. When it comes to marketing and sales, they plan on visiting more events and making their name known in the market to gain more customers. 

Your dream can become reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your start-up by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a start-up resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES! Talents page!

Be part of the change, as change starts with you…

Breeze social: your atypical dating app

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

Baby Boomers, Millennials or Generation Z? Regardless of which generation you are part of, you have to admit that dating at all times can be challenging… Nowadays, dating apps are taking over, and things happen a lot in the online environment. But how do that impact face-to-face interaction and people’s way to perceive themselves?

The lack of success is one of the biggest problems of online dating apps. People are experiencing a lack of self-esteem since everyone seems to be evaluated, and it is determined whether they are interested in being dated based on their looks. This problem didn’t go unnoticed by a group of students at TU Delft.

Back in 2019, Marsha Goei, together with 6 other light-minded students, noticed how much time people around them spent on dating apps. Their friends would keep on swiping, deciding in a split second if they like someone based on appearance, or start talking to someone- sometimes even for weeks- without an actual result. That’s when they knew something has to change in the dating industry, and that’s how Breeze was created.

“It’s just so weird to me that we are constantly on our phones seeking for that human interaction or connection, but we eventually don’t even know each other in real life where the real spark really happens.” –Marsha Goei, Co-founder of Breeze Social

The goal of Breeze was to create an environment where people emphasise on creating real-life connections rather than just sticking to the online environment. After they understood how the current dating industry generates revenue, the 7 co-founders came up with a different business proposition which is based on organizing offline dates.

“All the other apps earn money by making you addicted to the screen. They show you ads or sell you the ‘premium’ subscription. We work differently. We have established partners in different cities, and we charge you € 7,50/date and you also get a free drink.” – Marsha Goei, Co-founder of Breeze Social

Since Breeze organizes offline dates in different cities across The Netherlands, their users are targeted mainly based on location, age, and interests (people who want to spend time offline dating). Usually, they have users between 25 and 35 years old, but they also see younger students or people older than 35 interested in the app. The main important thing is that “everyone is serious about dating or simply serious about going on dates”. The reason behind focusing on this age group is that they aim to increase the experience for them, however, in a later stage, they want to expand their horizon.

Stage in which Breeze is at the moment

The app has over 100 thousand users, from which 1/3 is active. Up until now, Breeze has organized around 35 thousand dates, being live in 15 cities and having 130 established partners. Given their progress, their team is growing steady (currently 15 employees), and they are more than proud to say that their app is the 3rd biggest fastest growing in terms of downloads.

“We have a Breeze baby! One of the couples that got together through Breeze has now a beautiful baby. We are beyond excited to see all the beautiful stories and people being happy together!”- Marsha Goei, Co-founder of Breeze.

In terms of competition, the only apps that get more downloads than Breeze, at the moment, are Tinder and Bumble. “The dating industry is an interesting industry where people have multiple apps on their phone”- Marsha Goei. A dating app is not a substitute product; therefore, users can have all of them at the same time, making it a highly competitive market. However, the concept of Breeze is so different that they get to speak with a whole different audience.

How has Breeze been funded?

Back in October 2020, they attracted some funding through a round of family and friends that loved the idea and believed in the concept. In 2021 they found two strategic angels that wanted to invest in them. They are currently in the process of closing their (pre)seed round, for which the goal is to gather more insights about the right marketing channels to use, how to scale abroad and to hire more key players in the team.

How has YES!Delft helped Breeze along the way?

As students, they followed all the events organized by YES!Delft, together with the courses and trips, and decided to apply for the program. Once they were accepted, they benefited of the support of YES!Delft’s community, their knowledge and network, as well as their guidance (from legal advice to finance and marketing).

“I’m kind of sad that we are not sharing the same building anymore… Yet, we always come back for the events!”- Masha Goei, Co-founder of Breeze

What’s next for Breeze?

Breeze has a lot of potential; therefore, their goal is to keep on growing. After closing their investment round, they have the time and resources to try out new things. Breeze wants to experiment with new marketing channels and new customer bases to learn what works best and implement that in new cities or countries.

“Experimentation has always been at the core of what we do. Everything leads to the product, which leads to organic growth.”- Marsha Goei, Co-founder of Breeze

Your dream can become a reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your start-up by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a start-up resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES!Talents page!

Mangostone: from a master thesis project to paying customers

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

The fashion industry, the 4th most polluting industry in the world, is known for the constant provision of new trends at extremely low prices. This led to a significant rise in the amount of clothing created and discarded in landfills.

Mert Ozturk, writing his master thesis in Supply Chain Management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, started working with Climpex, a textile collection company, to help them optimize their processes. The thesis project, which started in 2019, led to the founding Mangostone in February 2020, with Climpex being the first paying customer.

How did that happen?

Climpex had multiple containers on the streets where people could discard their unwanted garments. The challenge they faced was that they did not know what and how much there was in the containers, making it hard to decide which roads to take.

“Textile is quite difficult to predict compared to general waste streams. We saw there was a lot of room for optimization. For example, there were times where the containers would be only 10-12% full, and they would need to drive 100 km for that.”- Bas Hoogakker

As a solution, Mangostone thought of a “centre that was better in terms of technology, but also cheaper”. That’s when they knew they had to create a whole cloud software package that works on centre data or predictions (using advanced preventive algorithms) to better optimize the processes.

The focus of Mangostone

The target market of Mangostone is defined by the textile collectors (both commercial and charities) that sell the clothes to textile sorters. After the sorting, everything gets in the hands of textile processors. The clothes end up either in the stores that resell the garments, either on the market of 2nd or 3rd world countries or in companies that have better recycling techniques and can create new garments out of the old ones.

When they started working with Climpex, most of the company’s operations were defined by driving through different locations nationally and collecting the garments from people’s houses. The remaining was defined by the containers, which were only a couple of hundreds. Now, that number has been multiplied many times with the help of Mangostone. Their complex logistical operation was now much cheaper and easier to control.

Looking at the competition, Mangostone is not the only IT company that provides this type of product. They have a few big competitors, yet they focus mainly on the general city waste collection and not textiles. Their direct competitor in textiles does not use advanced software for waste collection, leaving room for Mangostone to educate them.

In terms of funding, Mangostone “pulled out a smart move” since they had the right set of skills within the team. They developed the software themselves and, the chip shortage gave them a new insight: “80% could be predicted without investing in the hardware”. That being said, they sold the software based on a subscription business model allowing them to cover the expenses and reinvest in the development process without needing external funding.

“We did work for 2 years for free, that’s basically the main investment: our time.”- Bas Hoogakker

The impact of YES!Delft

Initially, Mangostone was not sure they needed help from YES!Delft, or at least they did not know they needed it. However, once they spoke with the start-ups that are now scale-ups, they learnt about their experiences and saw how enthusiastic they were about working with YES!Delft.

“From week 1 or 2 we saw that it was worth the money. We learnt a lot about soft skills- both personal and team development, how to be a bit abstract with the ideas and actually address the elephant in the room. Also, the lunches were great”- Bas Hoogakker

Mangostone also benefited from the network of YES!Delft, their advisors, and working with other start-ups that were eager to win. Since they were one of the only start-ups with paying customers, they shared their knowledge with the others and got valuable information in exchange too.

Mangostone kept in touch with their mentor from YES!Delft, and have been advised to stick to the niche they are in for at least 1-2 years before expanding towards another direction. For now, they selected some target markets for the extension, which are The Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, and potentially Denmark. Their goal is to get more customers and build a name and a well-rounded system for the collection of textiles which can facilitate the sorting processes.

Your dream can become a reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your start-up by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a start-up resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES!Talents page!

Respyre: from lab to real-life environment

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

Urbanization and climate change need the development of new solutions to sustain and improve the quality of life in our cities. ‘Green cities’ benefit the biodiversity, climate, wellbeing, and air quality, assuring the improvement of the inhabitants’ lives.

Respyre is an aspiring pioneering company that has joined YES!Delft in spring 2022 with the ambition to contribute to the concept of green cities. Respyre has created an innovative, patent-pending, bio-receptive concrete solution that allows moss to grow after hardening. Their solution can be conveniently applied to existing structures while also being efficiently incorporated into new constructions. This makes their product a quick, simple, low-cost alternative to façade covering that can also benefit the urban environment.

From research to a business idea

Respyre looked at the research conducted by TU Delft on why mosses grow on different surfaces next to the railways with the scope of assessing whether it harms them. The conclusion was that the moss does not eat the concrete, yet if the railway’s operators want to prevent them from growing, they should use concrete that does not contain certain characteristics. That was the moment when Mark de Kruijff turned the idea into a business concept. Auke Bleij, his friend, got very excited about the sounds of it and decided to join the company shortly after that.

Auke explained that “many unused vertical surfaces can easily be turned into air filtering or water retaining surfaces”. He saw the potential of this idea and described this experience as being one of the few when he was “intrinsically motivated to keep on working”.

Respyre’s current target market is represented by the infrastructure operators, real estate, and the government (municipalities). Defining the target market helped them launch different paid pilot projects. One of the most exciting pilot projects was with the Municipality of Amsterdam, where they were asked to cover two bridges. Amsterdam has a lot of bridges that are constantly covered in graffiti, and by collaborating with Respyre, they could create “a natural shield”.

“What we try to do is to reach enthusiastic municipalities and empower them as pioneers of the product: meaning that they have the product and use it the way they find fit.”- Auke Bleij

Looking at where Respyre is to be positioned in the market, their biggest competition only focuses on brick and mortar. “That’s also where we want to compete as well. We want to make this as good as brick and mortar.” Their products are not supposed to be “an alternative for vertical greening, but an alternative for façade covering”.

According to Auke, “The Netherlands is a great country for start-ups” since there is a high interest in investing in unique ideas. Within the next couple of months, Respyre aims to gather between € 300-500k. This investment is meant to create “market-ready products”, with the goal of not only having a nice concept but a predefined supply chain and production site, among others. At the moment, they aim to do that by getting affordable loans for social investments and paid pilots with companies who trust the product or want to contribute to the concept’s success.

In a later stage, after 12-18 months, Respyre will then start looking at large rounds of investments (a couple of millions). These investments are expected to happen through private investors, crowdfunding, but also RaboBank, Angels Investors and Innovation Fund of Holland.

In this process, YES!Delft has played an essential factor in the growth of Respyre. The company was offered the general picture of what they have to think about as a business as well as the tools that they need to start building it. Apart from that, they could use their community and network, which has also made it easier to talk to investors.

“You have an Excel sheet for everything, and you can easily get your questions answered”- Auke Bleij

The next steps for the upcoming 6-12 months of Respyre is to pay a lot of attention to the pilot projects and everything besides that such as keeping the company going, getting funding, expanding the team, maintaining the website, and formulating different strategies.

“The pilots help validate the business model and the problem-solution fit and, at the same time, it helps us understand our products better.”- Auke Bleij

Your dream can become a reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your startup by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a startup resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES!Talents page!

Kitepower: leaving the world a better place

Written by Ioana Bruma on . Posted in All Focus Areas, News. 1 Comment

In 2016, a young and motivated engineer, Johannes Peschel, together with his university professor and mentor, Roland Schmehl, founded Kitepower. Kitepower is a pioneering start-up in Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) that generates innovative and cost-effective alternatives to traditional wind turbines. 

It is well-known that wind energy has several advantages, being one of the world’s fastest-growing energy sources. Yet, it comes with different challenges. One of them has been overcome by Kitepower, who developed a product that is remote and does not need good land-based wind sites. Kitepower Falcon uses a ground station, a kite to produce electricity and a robot that flies with the kite and controls it.

What is the story behind Kitepower?

Before the company’s launch, Johannes was a full-time computer science student passionate about kite landboarding. One day during that period, in the centre of Berlin, one unfortunate story turned out to be an amazing business idea that could impact others positively. Johannes broke his arm practising kite landboarding. Some would think, ‘how can you get a business idea by breaking your arm?’. Well, Johannes decided to think further than what seemed to be a very painful event. 

“When I broke my arm landboarding, I experienced the power of the wind: it can blow you up but also drop you down quickly. After that, I said to myself, ‘maybe we can do something better with that energy’.”- Johannes Peschel

After this event, Johannes researched the topic and found out that TU Delft was already working on it. Before he knew it, he moved to The Netherlands and embarked on a journey to make this idea happen. Kitepower started by providing renewable solutions for temporary power to the end-users of the electricity in remote places.

One of the company’s biggest accomplishments is their recent Aruba project that took place in the context of a military exercise with the Dutch Ministry of Defence. Kitepower, as a partner, aimed to develop and test an innovative energy system to support its decarbonisation efforts. When this became a reality, Johannes was thrilled.

“When we first started the company, I had to arrange a photoshopped image of a kite flying on an island, and now that is irrevocably the reality!”- Johannes, in an interview with Green Tech Alliance

Kitepower built credibility by proving that its technology works. That’s how from a start-up, the company became a scale-up. At this stage, when looking at the competition, Kitepower is proud that it managed to surpass companies that are in the business for 13 years, simply because they have a “very simple and easy product”. 

“There are companies that have more funds available and could be that they are more technically developed due to these resources; however, we were the first ones deploying the system on an island, imagine where we could be if we had more financial resources.”- Johannes

So far, Kitepower has achieved its goals through motivation and hard work. However, things would not have happened without financial support. They have been funded via grants (e.g., fast track innovation, European funds), investors, launching customers, and now impact funds. From the European Union, they have received amazing feedback for executing the project with excellence. 

How has YES!Delft helped along the way?

Kitepower profited from training on how to make a company successful, getting the help of experts in different fields, a wide network, and of course, help with funding from YES!Funded. Another important factor was the credibility from the public that came by being associated with YES!Delft.

“YES!Delft came in handy because they had experts for everything, and whenever we would have a problem, we would call and get assistance.”- Johannes

As for the future, Kitepower aims to get people involved in the crowdfunding campaign and then use the resources to make its products available for everyone through festivals and events. They want to show people that their technology works and is safe and reliable with a positive, sustainable impact. If you are interested in joining the crowdfunding campaign, you can find more information here.

“Our vision was always to do this for the people and have them profiting from it.”- Johannes

One thing is for sure: when you have a vision and when you put in the hard work, things do become reality. Believing in your dream and taking action will bring you the right results. For now, Johannes worked on another dream where he “photoshopped the picture of Aruba with more and bigger kites above it”.

Your dream can become reality too. As long as you want to make a change, don’t miss the opportunity to boost your startup by joining the YES!Delft Validation Lab or Accelerator Program. However, if working for a startup resonates more with your ambition, we got you! Check out the vacancies on our YES!Talents page!

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