dutch startups - YES!Delft

Tiler: Building the future of wireless electric charging for bikes

Written by Solvita Mazeikaite on April 29, 2022. Posted in All Focus Areas, News. 1 Comment

“We want to contribute to making cities greener, yet cities are largely built around cars,” says Christiaan van Nispen, founder and CEO of YES!Delft startup Tiler. “We have identified the need for creating a better infrastructure for electric bikes and are working on a solution that would provide new charging opportunities.”

Electric bikes need the right charging infrastructure

Having been in the business of building sustainable solutions for over a decade now, Christiaan knows what it takes to develop technologies that need time to develop and mature. It was back in 2009 when he started his first company with the goal of making buildings more sustainable. “Back in that day, such technologies were still very new,” he remembers. And while he ended up selling his share of the company, it had taught him plenty on how to develop complex technological solutions and bring them to market.

His connection to the world of sustainability was perhaps most notably forged while working as Innovation Manager for a German company. On behalf of it, he went to the US to set up the company’s footprint of electric vehicle charging stations, which is also where he got to know more about electric vehicles in general.

“In a meeting that I had with Uber, they told me that light electric vehicles – electric bikes, in particular – will be a big thing in the future.” This was an important insight for Christiaan and what eventually got him thinking on how to build better infrastructure for this mode of transportation.

He started Tiler (at that time Fesla Charge) in April 2019 with the mission to offer a wireless charging solution for e-bikes and has been checking off one milestone after the next since then. While he was the sole founder at the start, he was later joined by founder Olivier Coops as COO. Joris Koudijs joined the MT as CTO in 2021. The startup has also raised more than 1 million euros from UNIIQ, Delft Enterprises and PVS investments, among others, which has helped it develop its technology fast and enter the market in the Netherlands.

“Our solution is technologically challenging so we started with a pilot almost immediately,” Christiaan says. They partnered up with Ahoy to see how the technology would work and if it would meet the client’s expectations.

“It was a learning process on what it is like to build a hardware solution,” he says. “Perhaps the main lesson we learned is that it always takes a bit longer than anticipated. The first minimum viable product (MVP) for Ahoy was planned for September 2019, but instead it took until July 2020.” It was certainly not an easy endeavor to take on.

The team also learned about how to make their solution as easy to use as possible, as well as durable and sturdy. Today, Tiler’s product is essentially a block integrated in a smart kickstand, which could also be used in other light electric vehicles. “The whole idea behind our solution is that users would have a seamless experience throughout – you come, you park, you go.”

On the path to making cities greener

While Christiaan started Tiler with the simple mission to create the necessary infrastructure for electric bikes to thrive in cities, they now have a team of six that are working tirelessly to make this possible. Yet, not without the support of fellow entrepreneurs and market experts.

Just recently, Tiler joined the Accelerator program at YES!Delft is looking to use that experience on several different fronts. “We have already been able to learn from other companies and gain insights into how to manage a hardware company,” Christiaan says. “We want to learn more about how to manage our supply chain as well as how to raise follow-on funding as a deep tech company.”

To date, the startup has delivered six validation pilots of its products, known as Tiles, with a corresponding smartstand. In March 2022, they launched their commercial solution with a bike rental company at an NH hotel with very promising results. There is another batch of 20 Tiles coming up in May to conduct more promising pilots. It is a time-consuming endeavour so the team will take the coming months to find their market fit with existing customers. “We want to make sure that the customers we currently have are happy and order from us again.”

Further down the line, they will look into ways to scale up slowly while continuously iterating their product and will be looking for a larger round of follow-on funding starting in 2023.

If you ask Christiaan, the future for Tiler is an exciting one. There is a lot he and his team can achieve in making their solution ever better and smarter. “We will be looking into implementing strict safety procedures for our product,” he says. “We already get a lot of data from the batteries, but our goal for the future would be to collect even more of that data and leverage it in a smart way.”

There are ambitious goals ahead of Tiler and its team, and to make that even more tangible, they say: “We want to have 100,000 tiles by 2027 and be in 100 cities by 2040.” And so the targets have been set, may the hard work continue.

Are you inspired by this entrepreneurial journey and interested in giving your startup a boost? Then join one of the programs we offer at YES!Delft; Validation lab or Accelerator Program. If you would like to work at a startup in our ecosystem, check out the vacancies on our homepage!

Nature’s Principles: Driving sustainable lactic acid production – and contributing to the circularity of Europe’s economy

Written by Mina Nacheva on March 31, 2022. Posted in All Focus Areas, News.

“We are an impact company and want to contribute to the European goals for becoming more sustainable and circular. We want to have a positive impact on the economy.” Jules Rombouts is CTO of Nature’s Principles, a startup from the YES!Delft ecosystem, and together with fellow CEO Jan Pieter van Tilburg, he’s working hard on a technology that would revolutionize the way new chemicals are produced. The goal? To develop and implement fermentation-based production technologies that would replace oil-based chemicals and create improvement in terms of emitted CO2, water and arable land usage.

Market validation and the potential of sustainable lactic acid

For Jules, it all started in May 2019 when he and his previous co-founder joined YES!Delft’s Validation Lab to test the main assumptions of their technology. “We did a lot of customer interviews to understand the potential of the market. Our technology is an innovative one and is able to make lactic acid, among other chemicals in the future, from biomass.”

The technology behind Nature’s Principles is indeed unique in that it uses biomass, or in this case sugar beet, to produce lactic acid with a much lower carbon footprint. Sugar beet, compared to sugar cane, which is what traditional technologies are currently based on, requires less water for irrigation as well as less land usage.

“Our goal is to increase the use of bio-based resources in order to create carbon-neutral chemicals in the long run,” Jules says.

For Jan Pieter, in turn, getting to know Jules and the idea behind Nature’s Principles was a welcome next step in his career. Having worked for years for an oil major in Brazil, he was determined to move away from the industry. “I wanted to make a positive impact on the world,” he says.

“I was looking for technology with the potential to get involved in and I liked the drive behind Jules’ idea. We decided to team up for three months as a trial, at the end of which we realized that we wanted to continue working together.”

The rest is history.

Since Jan Pieter officially joined Nature’s Principles, the team has been scaling up their efforts to choose the right applications for their technology as well as the first customers to help them make the first move into the market.

“The technology has many applications,” Jan Pieter says. “Lactic acid is a good antibacterial so it can be used in food preservatives, and it is also a potent descaling agent, making it suitable for cleaning products. The biggest market is bioplastics, but that will take more time to develop. That’s our end game.”

About 60% of conventional plastics can be replaced by polylactic acids (PLA), he says, yet producing PLA plastics is still far from being a price competitive alternative for all possible uses. This is something Nature’s Principles are determined to change – and they are well on their way to do so.

A growing team and an expanding technology

Just a few months ago, the team announced securing their first investors and a total amount of 500,000 euros. The funds are being used to expand the team and test a larger scale production in a pilot project in Balk, Friesland. As part of it, the startup will convert European sugar beets into lactic acid, validating its patented fermentation process at a 1,000x larger scale.

“Our current team of seven will be working to make this pilot a success and we will be looking to grow to at least 10 people by the end of this year,” Jan Pieter says. This will be necessary if they are to meet the ambitious goals they have set themselves for the future.

The next step following the pilot in Balk would be to build a commercial plant for their technology, “probably in the Netherlands and definitely in Europe.” Both Jules and Jan Pieter are strongly committed to contributing to the European economy and its transition towards circularity, so local production is something that is very important to them.

While they have now launched their technology with a focus on creating lactic acid in a more sustainable manner, there are other biochemicals that can be produced and that hold great potential, too. They will be part of the team’s expansion strategy in the future.

For now, Jan Pieter and Jules are looking to continue validating their technology, build key partnerships and encourage other entrepreneurs to step up and develop more sustainable technologies.

“We want to encourage people to start businesses that make an impact, especially bioengineering businesses,” Jules says. “We need more people that want to make a difference.”

Flux Medical Systems: Alleviating the pains of administrative work for healthcare professionals

Written by Mina Nacheva on March 8, 2022. Posted in All Focus Areas, News. 1 Comment

If you ever thought the workday of a healthcare professional was a busy and hectic one, you were, well, absolutely right. Add to that the fact that there are ever-higher numbers of patients for fewer healthcare professionals available and the workload continues to grow. One main challenge for workers in the sector is the amount of administration that comes with each new case or patient. Flux Medical Systems, a startup from the YES!Delft ecosystem was created to lessen this administrative strain and let healthcare professionals focus on what really matters – spending as much time as possible with their patients.

Less time spent on admin, more time spent with patients

Maja van Dijk, a co-founder of Flux, knows just how time-consuming administrative work can be in the healthcare sector. As a physical therapist herself – and the owner of a clinic – she is no stranger to long workdays. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she decided to take matters into her own hands and create a solution to this problem.

“As healthcare professionals, we are already busy and we also have to do all the administrative work,” she says. “Quite often, I’ve had to finalize my paperwork on weekends.”

This is not what Maja and many of her fellow colleagues want to be spending their time on. “Admin should never take away from doctors’ time to treat patients,” she is convinced. “With Flux, we want to alleviate the pains of administrative work for healthcare professionals.”

Launched at the end of 2019, Flux has seen a number of milestones in just over two years. Together with her co-founders Thomas Schiet, a mathematician, and Jan Ferdinand Henseler, a medical doctor, Maja developed a solution that she could already test in her own day-to-day work.

“Since I’ve been using Flux in my own work, I have had 30% more time,” she says. “Each professional can choose how to spend this extra time, but for me, it is about spending it with patients.”

The first step that Maja and her team took was to create a solution that can automate the revenue cycle, as bookkeeping and financial administration is a rather time-consuming endeavor for healthcare professionals and small clinics. Then they continued on to optimizing other processes, too.

“Our goal is for businesses in the healthcare sector to gain insights into their work through process optimization,” Veerle de Brouwer, Customer Engagement, Sales & Marketing Developer at Flux, explains further. “Next to lowering the manual effort that goes into administrative tasks, our solution can also facilitate the exchange of information so professionals can securely access patient information and grow their business in the way they want to.”

At the moment, Flux is targeting mainly physiotherapy and dental hygiene professionals but has plans to expand to hospitals and perhaps even the pharma industry as well. The product is already fully compatible with the tools the Dutch healthcare system works with, so scaling it will only be a matter of time.

On to new milestones and further growth

Because of the need to make the healthcare system more efficient – and quickly so – Maja and her team have not wasted time rolling out their solution. They currently have several paid pilot projects underway, the benefits of which are two-fold. On the one hand, they provide initial revenues to the company, while on the other, they are a great way for the team to learn and improve their product.

“Pilots are great for collecting feedback and designing a solution that really works for healthcare professionals,” Maja says.

Next to these initial revenues, Flux has also been funded by family and friends and a loan from InnovationQuarter. The team is also in discussions with other parties, so they sure have big plans ahead of them.

While they want to establish themselves in the Netherlands first, they are already looking into the possibilities of expanding abroad. “Our commercialization plan is ready and once our solution has been embraced by the Dutch market, we will look to other countries with similar healthcare systems, such as Denmark, Germany, France, and the UK,” Veerle says. The platform is even available in multiple languages so when the time comes, it wouldn’t take long to roll it out.

Of course, having progressed so quickly hasn’t been without the help of experts and fellow entrepreneurs from the YES!Delft community. Having been through a number of YES!Delft’s programs, including AI/Blockchain Validation Lab, the Accelerator, and the SocialTech program, the team of Flux has learned a lot about what it’s like to run an innovative business.

“Perhaps the most important learning was to never stop validating,” Maja says. “We’ve learned to keep an open mind, accept new ideas and talk to our customers on a regular basis.”

It has surely been an exciting journey for Maja, Veerle, and the rest of the team so far, and by the sound of their ambitious plans, they have plenty more to look forward to in the future.

Venturi Aviation: Building the future of electric commercial air travel

Written by Mina Nacheva on January 21, 2022. Posted in All Focus Areas, News. 1 Comment

The energy transition is upon us and while it may still be in its early days, it is bound to happen. For Jan-Willem Heinen, that’s a no-brainer. And as an industrial engineer and entrepreneur, he is determined to leave his positive mark on the environment.

With several entrepreneurial endeavors already behind him, Jan-Willem has been working on sustainable solutions for years now, yet it is perhaps the latest venture, co-founded with fellow entrepreneur and former aviation engineer Joost Dieben, that is set to make some real big impact. Together, they co-founded Venturi Aviation – with the ambitious goal to create the first electric commuter plane.

And to avoid keeping their audience in the dark for too long, earlier this month they announced their plans and the concept of their first aircraft: Echelon 01. Last Thursday, they finally unveiled their all-electric, 44-passenger aircraft.

An electric commuter aircraft – now more tangible than ever

The reveal of the Echelon One concept was a moment Jan-Willem, Joost and industry stakeholders had been looking forward to for some time. While small electric aircraft have been in development over the past years, none of them were actual passenger planes. The move of Venturi is a step forward not only in helping decarbonize aviation but also in setting a new technological standard in the industry.

Surely, this is not an overnight project, so Venturi aims to complete its first aircraft by 2029. “Our aircraft will drive the 100% sustainable transformation of today’s regional air travel industry. In its wake, Echelon 01 will also significantly reduce flight operating cost, maintenance cost and noise pollution,” Jan-Willem says.

As Jan Willem grew up in an entrepreneurial family – his father founded his own company aimed at commercializing and integrating e-mobility solutions, it was only a matter of time for Jan-Willem and his co-fonder to embrace sustainability and create something of his own.

After graduating from the TU Eindhoven in Industrial Design (BSc) and Innovation Management (MSc), he founded ViriCiti – a company that developed a monitoring system for fully electric buses. It became a European leader in its market and was eventually acquired by American electric vehicle infrastructure company ChargePoint.

Alongside this first venture, he founded a second one, too. Maxem, initially a SaaS energy management system, later made a pivot to a hardware and cloud solutions company that enables customers to install e-mobility and sustainable energy at scale. It was around that time that Joost joined the team and the two got to planning even bigger and better things.

“I felt like with Maxem I also had only limited success and I wanted to have more impact. And what makes more impact than creating an electric aircraft,” Jan-Willem says. With Joost’s background in aviation engineering, it didn’t take long for them to lay the foundation of Venturi Aviation.

Embarking on a long and capital-intensive journey

Designing and developing a new type of aircraft, especially based on some of the latest technology out there, is inspiring but it cannot possibly come without its fair share of challenges.

“With Venturi, our initial plan was to create a commuter plane that could transport 50 people and have a range of 1,000km,” Jan-Willem says. “That was the estimate we made in August 2020.” Yet, because they are in the early stages of a long-term project, the two co-founders knew they needed to make very accurate estimates.

“Batteries are heavy, but the aircraft needs to be light. We soon realized that the range of 1000km was impossible to make even with the technology of the near future, so we started to cut it down.”

In the midst of this, Jan-Willem and Joost got in touch with Dutch Airliners and the input they gathered set them on the path they are now. With the expectation being that the number of people travelling by air will grow in the future, airliners main requirement for such a future aircraft was to hold the highest possible number of passengers.

“A shorter flight range was not a concern for them,” Jan-Willem says, “as the batteries for a frequently operating electric aircraft would need to be replaced every 1.5-2 years, and the technology will be gradually improving in the meantime. The range will come.”

At the moment, the Echelon 01 is being designed to transport 44 people at a distance of up to 550km.

Running such a long-term business sure requires a strong vision. For the team, this translates to: Electrifying aviation and decreasing the industry’s burden on the environment.

Of course, “it also requires planning, patience, cash and a great team,” as Jan-Willem puts it. It is a capital-intensive endeavor, and it also needs the right people backing it. “Our main challenge is getting people to believe this is possible.”

To date, Jan-Willem and Joost have put a lot of their own finances to get the project going and they were later joined by several angel investors. At the start of 2022, they aim to close an investment round of 3.75 million euros that will allow them to move on to the next stage of the development: conceptual design. With that, they will also look to expand – and possibly double – their team.

“Delivering an electric aircraft is hard,” Jan-Willem says, “but we are driven by the goal that we will make a polluting industry so much better.”

Unpluq: The startup that makes your smartphone less of a distraction

Written by Mina Nacheva on January 17, 2022. Posted in All Focus Areas, News. 1 Comment

Technology is all around and so much so, in fact, that most of us are dependent on the internet or our mobile devices to stay connected with the world around us. On the one hand, that’s great – it brings all of us closer together in ways that were previously unthought of. On the other, though, it can also be a source of major distraction. This is what Tim Smits and Jorn Rigter, co-founders of YES!Delft startup Unpluq, realized while at university and they took it upon themselves to create a solution.

A personal frustration turns into a business

Tim and Jorn have always thought that it would be cool to start something together. “While studying Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft, we noticed that we were easily distracted by all the apps we had on our smartphones. And that’s a problem that a lot of other students have nowadays, too,” Tim says. The two of them, thus, saw this as an opportunity to create a new type of solution that would make smartphones less of a distraction.

And so, their entrepreneurial journey began.

“We first took part in a six-month program at the university called Build Your Startup and during that time, we interviewed a lot of people on how they interacted with their smartphones and if they found them to be a distraction.” Needless to say, a lot of them did.

The true value of the Build Your Startup program was to help Tim and Jorn validate their idea and understand the depth of the problem they were trying to solve. “Of course, there were already existing solutions to minimize distraction, like setting reminders and limitations on the phone itself,” Tim says. Yet, what they wanted to achieve was a more lasting solution; something that would keep the smartphone and its user away from distraction in a more tangible way.

So, what they came up with was a physical key that would remove distracting apps from the user’s smartphone. In other words, plug in this physical key and you have access to your distracting apps. Take it out and your phone is stripped down to just its “normal” functions.

Important to understand about the concept of Unpluq is that everyone can define for themselves what distracting apps really are. While the team offers a preselection and a list of tips, it is up to each user to decide what these apps are – or should be. That way everyone can judge for themselves what they consider to be taking away from their productive time.

Validating, pivoting and looking towards new markets

At the end of the program, Tim and Jorn launched a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of raising 10,000 euros. They describe it as their “first validation moment”, especially as they reached their target. Most of their customers are millennials and Generation Z users and while most physical keys have been sold within the Netherlands, Unpluq has also had interest from abroad.

Since then, though, their business model has taken a new turn. “While we started out with a hardware solution, we have since moved mostly to software,” Tim says. “Hardware tends to limit growth, software is more scalable. We willmay introduce a mixed model soonlater on, where the Unpluq app is the basis and the hardware product is an add-on that users can choose to buy.”

In order for the software solution to work as well as the physical key, Tim and Jorn have identified, what they call, “distraction barriers” as a key feature. Since all apps – distracting or not – would now be one the user’s phone, there need to be barriers to getting into the distracting apps too easily. By introducing distraction barriers, Unpluq would require users to shake their phone until a meter is filled or scan a QR codemove to have their apps unlocked, to name a few.

“Our physical key was what made us unique and now so are our distraction barriers. They are not the same as simply blocking apps,” Tim says.

To date, the team has raised close to 1400,000 euros and are currently raising another round on leapfunder. After that they are aiming for a larger round of investment, which would help them expand to the US – their next big market, as they see it. That would also allow them to hire their first full-time employee and further grow their team.

Unpluq is also looking to branch out to new customer segments and approach employers with their solutions. “We want to start selling to companies that want to offer our tool as an option to their employees. It is very relevant in the time of remote working when it’s easier to get distracted.”

Tim and Jorn currently have a team of interns who help them in a number of different aspects of the startup’s development. The two co-founders have also benefited from the expert network of YES!Delft and even have fellow entrepreneurs from the community as their advisors. “Having such a strong support network has been very valuable for us starting out,” Tim says.

And it’s only up from here. Going forward, the team will be working towards the iPhone version of Unpluq and further developing their software, diversifying their customer portfolio in the Netherlands and raising funds to expand internationally.

Are you inspired by this entrepreneurial journey and interested to give your startup a boost? Then join one of the programs we offer at YES!Delft; Validation lab or Accelerator Program. If you would like to work at a startup in our ecosystem, check out the vacancies on our homepage!

Aquablu: Eliminating single-use plastics, one water bottle at a time

Written by Mina Nacheva on November 30, 2021. Posted in All Focus Areas, MedTech, News.

Almost 1 million plastic bottles are sold every minute. In one year, that number goes as high as 480 billion. This is what a report found back in 2019 and those numbers are likely to keep increasing in the future. Finding alternatives to single-use plastics, and in particular water bottles, has thus become a priority embraced by governments as well as businesses.

Aquablu, a Dutch startup from the YES!Delft ecosystem, is one of those companies working towards a more plastic-free future. With their smart water purifying technology, the team have set themselves the ambitious goal to eliminate 1 billion bottles by 2030.

But how did it all start?

A few years back, co-founder Marnix Stokvis was on a trip to South Africa when he got the idea for what is now known as Aquablu. “I was in Cape Town, surfing, when I encountered the plastic problem South Africa was facing,” he says. “Plastic pollution was very evident there, and especially so in the water. It got me thinking about water accessibility and what could be done to minimize the use of plastic bottles.”

Marnix reached out to his friend and soon to be fellow co-founder Marc van Zuylen and the two turned his initial idea into a business concept. They founded Aquablu at the end of 2016 and started developing their first water purification system. Yet, their ambition went way beyond a single product.

“We came together around one core mission and that was to enable a plastic-free world,” Marc says.

In working towards that mission, Marc and Marnix knew that their solution would also be an ambitious one. They set off to develop a smart purification system that would not only provide clean drinking water, but also feed its users a wide range of data about the quality of the water and the technical status of the system, among others. In the spirit of personalization, it also makes it possible for users to quantify their positive impact on the environment by knowing just how much water they have purified with their Aquablu system.

The smart technology behind the solution plays another important role, too. The fact that their technology can monitor how much water is being purified with their systems enables them to make very specific promises.

“Together with the Made Blue Foundation, an entrepreneurial charity in the Netherlands, we offer the Liter for Liter promise. That means for every liter of water that is purified with our systems, a liter of clean drinking water is donated to places where it is a scarcity,” Marnix says.

Purifying water – at home and abroad

And while Aquablu has a global mission, the team has made the conscious choice to start at home before they expand far and wide. “Our initial idea was to sell internationally – and we did that. We delivered our system to 13 different countries,” Marc says. But with time, he and Marnix kept talking to people around them and realized that even in the Netherlands, where there is access to clean drinking tap water, many still buy single-use plastic bottles. “We decided to tackle the issue at home first.”

Since then, they have tweaked their business approach and are mostly focusing on the local B2B market with their Aquablu Refill solution, which transforms “ordinary tap water into purified mineral water.” Large offices and commercial buildings have been among their key customers. As of recently, they are also running a pilot project with supermarket chain Jumbo.

“We currently have our system at a Jumbo supermarket in Amsterdam, where customers can either refill their own bottle or buy an Aquablu bottle with purified water,” Marnix says. The goal for the future is to expand their offering to more supermarkets and become a feasible alternative to bottled water.

While already having its own revenue flow, the startup is still dependent on external funding – so far made available by family and an investor – in order to scale its R&D and production. Once they are well established in the Netherlands, the team will look to expand to the rest of Benelux, Germany and then further into Europe.

“In up to three years, we are aiming at total domination in Europe,” Marc and Marnix laugh but they sure mean it. “After Europe, we will expand towards either the US or Asia. It depends where the need is greater and where we find reliable partners first.”

The plan ahead of the two co-founders and their team is big but after all, their goal is to eliminate 1 billion bottles by 2030. Ambitious as they are, “we think we can even exceed it.”

Are you inspired by this story and would you like to boost your business and become part of the YES!Delft ecosystem as well? Sign up for our accelerator program!

If you would like to work for a startup like Aquablu check out our vacancies and become visible to more than 300 startups in the YES!Delft ecosystem.

Gyromotics: The go-to prosthesis for active people

Written by Mina Nacheva on November 25, 2021. Posted in All Focus Areas, MedTech, News. 1 Comment

For people who use prosthetic feet, a comfortable fit and a wide range of functionality are key. From walking and going about everyday life, to running and doing sports, a prosthesis would ideally accommodate various activities requiring various intensity. And as this is not the norm in the market just yet, Gyromotics – a startup from the YES!Delft ecosystem – has made it their mission to change that.

A personal story leads to a business

The beginnings of Gyromotics come from a personal story. Guido Hendriks, one of the two co-founders, has first-hand experience with finding just the right prosthetic feet. His son, Olivier, now 18 years old, was born with a congenital limb deficiency and has been using prostheses ever since he was a child.

“It wasn’t until Olivier was about 6 years old that we got him on small blades instead of his everyday prostheses,” Guido remembers. “That’s when we understood how restricted he had been by his prostheses at the time. Adults tend to underestimate that.”

All Olivier wanted as a child was to be able to play on the playground and run with the other kids. As soon as he got on running blades, he was able to move a lot more – and faster – and started playing football.

“He played football until he was around 12, at which point he was scouted for the Dutch running team,” Guido says. “It was obvious that he was moving quite fast. My wife and I always wanted him to be able to run – and that’s exactly what he is doing now.”

As one of his latest achievements, Olivier won a silver medal at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo in the 400m sprint.

Striving to create the most functional prosthesis out there

Over the years, Guido has done extensive research on what prostheses are available on the market. His conclusion: there are no prosthetic feet yet, which people can use both for day-to-day activities and sports. That is what he and his co-founder Jaap Roggeveen set out to change.

“To be able to have only one type of prosthesis for multiple activities and different shoes at the same time, it would need to adjust at the ankle. Our users are in control and decide what shoes they wear during the day and how they use them. Gyromotics’ users change from work to sports with the heel just off the floor to high heels at a party – all with the same foot,” Guido explains. “Our solution is the only prosthesis on the market that allows you to stand on the toes of your shoes and so combines a daily foot and a running blade in one product.”

What makes Gyromotics’s prosthesis smart is exactly the fact that it provides the user flexibility to be able to perform different activities with the same foot, such as walking and running. Also, the bottom is made up of two halves that are separated to offer more stability in case the person steps sideways.

“Since we started, we have proven the concept and in the last year, we have been working on improving the design and the looks based on customer feedback. In the near future, we will start working with two big companies that make sockets for prosthetic feet and we’ll become part of their standardized assortment.”

At the moment, Gyromotics is only offering feet for adults. Yet, since it all started with the goal to make it easier for young children to move around, they are soon going to expand their offering.

“We recently won a project with SportInnovator, the programme for sport innovation and research by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport,” Guido says. “As part of it, and together with the TU Delft and Team Para Atletiek, we will develop a prosthesis for kids. That way we can finally come a full circle.”

Along the way, they have been getting help from the experts and community of YES!Delft and that is something Guido considers very valuable. It has not only increased their credibility with potential investors and partners, but it has taught them how to run a company as a small team. This is knowledge that will surely propel Gyromotics on their way to success.

Are you inspired by this story and would you like to boost your business and become part of the YES!Delft ecosystem as well? Sign up for our accelerator program!

If you would like to work for a startup like Gyromotics check out our vacancies and become visible to more than 300 startups in the YES!Delft ecosystem.

PATS Drones: The innovative technology that helps monitor and control flying pests in greenhouses

Written by Mina Nacheva on November 2, 2021. Posted in All Focus Areas, Aviation, News.

Flying pests in greenhouses are surely one of the main challenges that growers face in their day-to-day work. Moths, in particular, pose a few difficulties: They are active at night, they can lay hundreds of caterpillars in a short period of time, and they rarely fall for conventional traps. Having the right tools to control such pests is, therefore, crucial. With their innovative technology, PATS Drones, a startup from the YES!Delft ecosystem, can not only monitor insects in crops, but also help eradicate them.

Automating the pest monitoring process

Interestingly enough, the idea for PATS did not originate from horticulture. It all started with a personal annoyance – mosquitos buzzing around the heads of Sjoerd Tijmons and Kevin van Hecke, two of the founders, in the middle of the night. That got them thinking of ways to control – if not eradicate – flying pests. With their backgrounds in autonomous flying vehicles, they figured they could turn to drone technology to help intersect flying insects.

It was this simple idea that later laid the foundation of PATS. While the mosquitos were eventually left alone, it did get Sjoerd and his brother Bram to think about the potential of small drones in controlling flying insects. Together with Kevin, they turned to horticulture as a market with large potential for such technology.

“Pests can be fierce,” says Bram, “and the use of insecticides in greenhouses are becoming stricter and stricter regulated. With our smart drone solutions, we help growers monitor and control the pest population in their greenhouses while limiting the use of chemicals.”

The startup is currently focusing on moths, an insect that can create quite some damage to crops. Because moths can reproduce quickly, it is crucial that growers have the tools to detect them as soon as possible. The PATS-C system that the team has developed is essentially a “real-time scouting solution for pests”. It enables early detection and tracking of harmful populations, without the need for growers to do any manual work.

All that is needed is for the system to be mounted on the greenhouse leg, from where its camera can capture images of the moth population. As moths are active at night, that’s when the detection takes place and, in the morning, growers get a dashboard overview of the presence of the insects. This makes it possible to identify the moths early on, so growers can take action in time.

“With our technology, we can detect moth presence weeks before conventional tools, and early detection is crucial for effective pest management,” Bram says. “By automating this process, we help growers save both time and costs. PATS-C also helps them understand the trends in their greenhouse, and predict – with a high level of precision – the lifecycle the moths are in.”

New partnerships and next steps

Acknowledging the potential of the startup’s solution are the tens of growers that are currently using the early detection and pest population tracking system. In September, PATS also signed an agreement with Royal Brinkman, one of the largest suppliers for horticulture in the Netherlands, to provide them with their PATS-C system.

“Royal Brinkman are a great partner to have and learn from,” Bram says. “They sell PATS-C as part of their crop protection portfolio. Together, we help growers in tracking pests early and accurately, so that Royal Brinkman can advise them proactively on taking countermeasures.”

As of more recently, the startup has also been positioning its PATS-X solution on the market. It enables fully automated and effective insect control with the help of very small drones , and without the use of insecticides. “We now have our autonomous system ready, and we will be rolling it out in early 2022.”

Going forward, the team of now 8 will be looking to grow with specialists in the fields of sales, marketing and development, among others. In addition to launching their drone systems, they also want to further scale their monitoring solution in the market.

“We are going to focus on this geographic area for now to show that we are ready to go global,” Bram says. “To do so, we will gradually be adding more insects to our solutions to gain market relevance. One insect type is good, two is much better and with three we would already be very relevant to most growers.”

Bram and his team surely have their plan ready. From now on, it’s a matter of more hard work, making the right connections and scaling.

Would you like to read more about PATS and their technology? Read this article from TU Delft Campus and watch this video!

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