‘Ten years ago, entrepreneurship was still a dirty word’

Time is ticking. One and a half minutes. Just see if your pitch can generate enthusiasm among investors for your idea in such a short time. There is a lot at stake. Facing you in the hall are private investors – the so-called angel investors – who are prepared to invest heaps of money in an up-and-coming young enterprise.

Belgian entrepreneur Edward Belderbos fires away. “YouTube is full of short films showing how dangerous it is in the offshore industry,” he explains. “Components for oil installations or wind turbines being hoisted from a ship often swing precariously over the deck, just missing the deckhands. I’ve seen it with my own eyes when I worked in the offshore industry.”

With his company SeaState5, Belderbos was one of the twelve entrepreneurs who held a ‘power pitch’ in the building of YesDelft on 4 June during the final day of the Launchlab, a three-month-long crash course in entrepreneurship.

The young engineer is hoping to win a place in YesDelft with his idea to develop a new kind of safer hoisting mechanism for the offshore industry. Other pitches included a lifebuoy for drones landing in watercourses, a navigation system that allows pilots to avoid clouds and a medical device for making an emergency airway puncture – cricothyrotomy – to relieve obstruction to breathing.

Brainstorming

Every year, the incubator on the Technopolis business campus just behind the Reactor Institute Delft attracts around two hundred new start-ups, of which only fifteen to twenty are selected. The new entrepreneurs receive training, legal advice, meet investors and can brainstorm on their business models with colleagues and old hands from the business community.

Belderbos thinks it’s perfect. The young engineer studied mechanical engineering at KU Leuven. So why didn’t he join an entrepreneurial incubator in Belgium? “Because it would mean sitting between companies I have little to do with, such as software and trading companies,” he says. “In Belgium there aren’t any incubators specifically directed at technology. Whereas here I can talk to people actively involved in the industry, such as the people from VizionZ for example, who supply technology for wind turbines at sea, or the people from MGAubel, who produce all kinds of concrete. The whole atmosphere here is very different.”

Ten years ago in 2005 when YesDelft took up residence on Rotterdamseweg, it only attracted TU Delft alumni and students. Today, however, it’s a magnet for high-tech start-ups from far and wide.

Bird scarer

Another newcomer who captures the imagination is Steinar Henskes. A few years ago, the young entrepreneur in his twenties was still working in Haarlem on an industrial estate between electricians on a laser for scaring away birds. He relocated to Delft in 2013. Major airports including Schiphol and London use his invention.

The incubator has become one of the largest breeding grounds for high-tech entrepreneurs in Europe. Every year, the Swedish think tank UBI Global draws up a ranking of incubators with the most impact in Europe. Last year, YesDelft was ranked ninth. At number one was SETsquared, a partnership between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey.

Worldwide, YesDelft ranks twenty-sixth, sharing the spot with two other incubators. In its assessment, UBI Global includes such things as economic impact and how well the incubator coaches entrepreneurs.

During the tenth-anniversary celebration on 18 May, guest speaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte took stock. “More than one hundred and fifty companies have been created through the incubator, more than one thousand people work at YesDelft companies and more than one hundred and thirty-five million euros have been invested in them. A large proportion of the generation currently growing up will probably become entrepreneurs at some stage in their careers,” concluded the Prime Minister. “Organisations like YesDelft are sowing the seeds early.”

Ten years ago

The current euphoria about entrepreneurship is in stark contrast with the prevailing sentiments ten years ago. “Entrepreneurship was still a dirty word,” explains Marco Waas, the then dean of the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering. He was one of the founders of YesDelft.

Waas was given the task of providing greater impetus to valorisation: making scientific research viable. Part of this included the founding of YesDelft in 2005 by TU Delft’s Valorisation Centre and the Municipality of Delft.

“At the beginning of the academic year, I put it to the first-year students of mechanical engineering whether they aspired to a job with a start-up company. In 2005, practically nobody put up their hand. Everyone wanted to work for a large company or consultancy agency, or if need be as a researcher. Nobody was interested in entrepreneurship.”

“In those days, everyone thought that production would be relocated to China and that we would be selling our knowledge there. That was the dominant mood at the time. It’s a nail in the coffin for entrepreneurship and the economy. You have to manufacture things, as they continued to do in the United States. Many of the top hundred listed companies in the US were newcomers.”

Impact

The tide had to turn. Courses were introduced like ‘Turning technology into business’ and the minors in entrepreneurship. The ‘Writing a business plan’ course already existed, but no credit points were allocated to participating students. That too has changed.

Marco Waas and former Rector Magnificus Jacob Fokkema travelled to MIT in the US, the Mecca for high-tech start-ups. While there, they discovered that strong networks existed for entrepreneurs and that many wealthy individuals – angel investors – were prepared to invest in bold ideas. “In the Netherlands, the prevailing idea was that starting entrepreneurs had to get their businesses off the ground by their own means. After all, that is how it was thought they did it in the US. But it was actually quite different. Behind the scenes, entrepreneurs in the US could count on a great deal of support.”

“In Delft, similar networks had to be set up. And we succeeded in doing this with YesDelft. The incubator has turned out how I had hoped. It now even has a nationwide impact. Major companies like Eneco, the Port of Rotterdam Authority and Akzo Nobel collaborate with YesDelft and invest in start-ups.”

Taken over and starting again

If you were to ask anyone randomly at the incubator what the highlights of ten years of YesDelft were, the chances are that the name Epyon would be mentioned. This company, which makes rapid charging systems for electric cars, was one of the first start-ups. In 2011, Epyon was taken over by the Swedish-Swiss energy giant ABB. But why is this a highlight? Because according to Wouter Robers, one of the founders of Epyon, it’s a kind of apotheosis. “There are a couple of things that can happen when you have a very successful start-up. You can become just as big as Facebook – which is not very likely, you can go public with an IPO or you can be taken over.” The takeover is therefore a successful completion of an entrepreneurial adventure. Robers and co-founder of Epyon, Wouter Smit, have recently started a new company: Peeeks Power. After all, working at a multinational is no fun at all! They are now working on a technology that should make it possible for big energy guzzlers to use electricity at times when the price is low.

Swimming pools, air-conditioned offices and ice rinks all have in common that they consume a lot of energy for their temperature regulation, but that they can also temporarily afford to be without energy, as long as the temperature of the water, ice or air remains with certain limits.

“We’re working primarily on software,” explains Robers. “We test the system in our office with an aquarium and a tropical fish. As long as the fish doesn’t die, everything is fine.”

The two entrepreneurs learned a tremendous amount with Epyon. So why have they now moved back to YesDelft? “Since leaving here, the network of the incubator has grown enormously,” says Robers. “And the proximity of TU Delft is also important. It’s full of young talented people who we can attract.”

After the summer, Delta will begin on a series about the companies of YESDelft.

Figures

At least 1,047 jobs have been created by YesDelft companies. “An underestimation of the impact,” believes Pieter Guldemond, Managing Director of YesDelft. “Because we only have data from 89 of the 159 companies that started here. A decade ago, YesDelft was no more than an idea. In the meantime, it has become an economic motor. Our start-ups are active in more than eighty countries.” Guldemond is struck by the fact that more and more large companies are eager to make contact with the incubator. “Large companies aren’t very agile and struggle to be innovative and therefore seek collaboration with start-ups. A good example of this is the collaboration between Nerdalize and the energy company Eneco.” Nerdalize uses the residual heat from computer servers to help heat houses and it’s currently being tested by Eneco customers. “The New York Times recently wrote a long article about Nerdalize,” continues Guldemond. “Our impact is really becoming increasingly international.”

Expansion

In July 2010, YesDelft moved to its current location on the Technopolis business campus. The building at Rotterdamseweg 145 was bursting at its seams. Additional rented space at Rotterdamseweg 380 was also full and extra space was rented on Leeghwaterstraat. More office space was available at the current location, the Bandridge building, and it included better amenities such as a fab-lab, an advanced workshop with a 3D printer and practical areas for prototypes. Now, five years later, it’s time to expand further. In an adjacent building, thirty-five hundred square metres of office space and twelve hundred square metres of laboratory space is coming available. The intention is to house facilities here for high-tech start-ups in biotechnology. The first tenants are expected to move into the building in March 2016.

Lucrative business

Unfortunately, an investment index for YesDelft start-ups doesn’t exist. Which is a shame, because it would be worth putting some money into it. If you had spread your investment evenly over the first twenty YesDelft companies back in 2005, you would have increased your money thirteenfold today.