Aerocount and Zereau from Nijmegen are two of the 100 companies that make up the KVK Innovation Top 100 of 2024. This year there are 15 winners, a top three in each of the five categories. We will announce the winners during the KVK Innovation Top 100 Event on Saturday 16 November in Ahoy Rotterdam.
The main jury will choose the overall winner. In addition, a jury panel will determine the top 3 in each category together with the public. Everyone can vote and thus help determine the winner of each category. You can vote via this link.
We are excited to announce a 4-week program designed by Mercator Launch to guide you towards developing a strong Value Proposition. The final deliverable is a validated Business Model Canvas. This program is perfect for entrepreneurial individuals with an innovative idea and a strong commitment to bringing it to life.
Throughout the program, we will cover key themes such as Product, Deal, Value Proposition, and Business Model. Participants are also invited to join the Pitch Training led by Davis Beckett on December 10th at Noviotech Campus.
The track includes weekly 2-hour workshops every Wednesday at Mercator Launch, along with time dedicated to working on your own business and receiving coaching. The expected time commitment for participants is approximately 4 hours per week, with the opportunity to invest more if desired.
While this track is a great fit for those taking their first steps into entrepreneurship, we’ve also seen that it provides great value for early-stage entrepreneurs who may have hit a roadblock. We help them return to the basics, using proven methods to strengthen their ideas.
This round is limited to 20 participants, so don’t miss out!
The call is now open: https://mercatorlaunch.nl/improve-programme/
Every three and a half minutes an error can creep into your business records. Business accounting is prone to human error: wrong types of declarations, duplicate invoices, and incorrect VAT codes, to name but a few pitfalls. With their intelligent algorithms, founders Dirk Westra van Holthe, Mischa Masthoff and partner Thomas Offerman of wijcontrolerenjedata.nl (In English: ‘we check your data’) help companies to detect such errors at an early stage. Eliminate unnecessary accounting risks by catching errors in time.
Before starting wijcontrolerenjedata.nl, Mischa and Dirk worked in (financial) administration. They saw departments relying entirely on sophisticated models and dashboards. But if there are mistakes in the data, you can’t rely on the insights either. They also saw that administrative sloppiness led to unnecessary costs, peak workloads and wrongly management information. They saw an opportunity.
“Financial records are often riddled with errors. If you are lucky, these errors are caught and put on a list of things to fix. But often, the process stops there. The errors just sit there”, says Mischa. The same errors will creep back into your records the following month. Wijcontrolerenjedata.nl scans records for errors and risks and helps organizations find, fix and prevent mistakes.
Multifunctional platform
Mischa and Dirk see customers using their platform in a variety of ways, for a one-off analysis or a few analyses a year. They also have customers who use the platform to continuously check their financial administration. For example, to check for duplicate invoices in the system and avoid double payments.
How does the wijcontrolerenjedata.nl platform work? Mischa and Dirk: “We start by retrieving customer data via a secure, fully GDPR-compliant connection. We can connect to their source system or data warehouse or export the data from the system. Our algorithms then detect errors and risks in your records. We can run it daily, weekly, or annually. Any time, really.”
They continue: “After the analysis, all errors and risks appear in a drop-down list. Through a workflow, we record each error or risk and who did what, and when to fix the error or risk. Ultimately, all of this helps us to make structural improvements in the financial administration. If you continuously check for errors, you will discover patterns, that will help you avoid these errors in the future.”
Predictive model with own AI model
At wijcontrolerenjedata.nl, they’ve been working with AI since before tools like ChatGPT were introduced. “It was cool to be able to demonstrate that we’ve been working with AI for a long time”, says Dirk. “We see that many current language models are too generic. Take a booking text, for example. You have 80 characters to tell your story. That’s a lot of abbreviations. Many AI tools can’t handle that very well.”
That is why wijcontrolerenjedata.nl is working hard to improve its own AI model. They train their model with booking texts (with the explicit permission of the customers concerned, of course). Mischa: “We have manually labelled over 100,000 booking texts to train our model, including words, dates, locations, and much more.”
Their efforts are already yielding great results. For example, they use the results of their language model to calculate time periods. Dirk explains: “Suppose you have two invoices. The first invoice says: ‘Activities De Vries week 1 to week 4’. The second invoice says: ‘Activities De Vries week 3 to week 5.’ You would pay twice for part of the work, namely weeks 3 and 4. Your current accounting software will never find this error. Getting the software to understand the content of an entry text is extremely complex.”
For example, in the data that wijcontrolerenjedata.nl manually tagged, they found 1,848 different ways of noting a date. Asterisks, dashes, they saw it all. And what about made-up words like ‘augseptoctober’? Once your language model understands a date, you can automatically compare time periods. “It is a hugely valuable application for many analyses.”
Improving is learning
On 27 May 2024, during the Business Angel Network Nijmegen (BANN), wijcontrolerenjedata.nl was one of the start-ups that pitched their story. “In preparation for BANN, we improved our ‘story’ a lot”, explains Mischa. “For entrepreneurs, it’s common to have blind spots in your story; some things make sense to you but not to an outsider. That’s why we went back to the core: what exactly do we do, and how do we help our customers? Through Briskr, who organised everything perfectly, we got in touch with various experts and investors. And BANN gave us a lot of valuable feedback. Our product is good, but there is still room for improvement in our sales strategy. Although no investment was made, we decided to improve our sales strategy ourselves. This insight alone made the BANN process invaluable!”
Time for action!
What is most important to Dirk and Mischa? To have a cool company with nice customers! And they are right on track. But the men also want to stress the need to focus on awareness: “We’re in a niche that a lot of people don’t know about yet. We have found that an error creeps into financial records every three and a half minutes. It’s like a leaky faucet. To err is human, but things get out of hand once you leave them and do nothing about them. So, get your financial records checked. Today, rather than tomorrow. The implications are bigger than you might think.”
StartUp Nijmegen is de zoektocht naar innovatieve, toonaangevende en unieke startende ondernemingen uit Nijmegen weer gestart. Jouw hulp kunnen ze hierbij hard gebruiken! Nomineer daarom jezelf of een ander voor de StartUpper van het Jaar 2024. De winnaar gaat ervandoor met deze trotse titel en €2500,- om vrij te besteden binnen de onderneming.
We willen startend ondernemerschap in de regio stimuleren en vieren. Met de StartUpper van het Jaar verkiezingen zetten we samen hardwerkende startende ondernemers in een welverdiende spotlight.
Dus: doe mee en nomineer jezelf of een ander die:
- Maximaal 5 jaar bij de KvK staat ingeschreven;
- Toonaangevende activiteiten onderneemt;
- Gedreven en gemotiveerd is;
- Omzet maakt.
Inschrijven kan hier! (https://forms.gle/PnYjer7Dbxqxv4e49 )Dit zal niet langer dan 5 minuten duren. Uiteindelijk worden alle inschrijvingen beoordeeld door onze jury. Zij zullen een top 3 maken waaruit op de finale avond de winnaar bekend zal worden gemaakt!
De finale avond vindt plaats op 7 november in brouwerij Florijn. De uitnodiging hiervoor ontvang je nog van ons.
Laten we samen inspireren, activeren en nomineren!
Medical self-tests have become indispensable in recent years. How are these products manufactured? The process is not without challenges. Companies are often very good at detecting diseases but tend to struggle with the production process of these tests. “This is where we come in”, says Bondus founder Bas-Jan Hoogenberg.
Both Bas-Jan and his co-founder Sven Eijpe had experience in manufacturing medical products before starting Bondus. “The process is very demanding. You can only work with safe materials that don’t interfere with the test. In addition, a medical self-test must be leak-proof: the test fluid must not escape from the product, to ensure proper functioning, which makes it difficult to mass-produce medical self-tests.”
Bonding
The Bondus solution? As the name suggests, it’s a new way of bonding materials. “We have developed a process to connect materials on a very small scale. You essentially glue plastics together. Between these plastic layers there is a network of channels through which fluids, such as blood, can flow.”
According to Bas-Jan, the Bondus technology is best compared to a circuit board. “On a circuit board there are copper tracks that conduct electricity through the chip. We don’t work with copper tracks, but with fluid channels. Our technology makes everything possible: mixing fluids or having them flow past a sensor to extract data.”
Faster to market
Bondus’ technology has a significant advantage: it enables customers to get to market faster. “Medical companies are mainly focused on their core technology: detecting disease. This is, of course, a crucial part of a test! But if you don’t consider production, you won’t be scalable. And no company is happy with insufficient production capacity.”
Bondus steps in with the processes that follow the disease detection part. “With technology and advice. How do you make the right choices in your design process to ensure that you can produce millions of tests later?”
Niche market
The world of medical self-testing is a niche market, and a difficult one to win over. “You would expect our customers to want to make as few changes as possible, because they are already using reliable methods. In general, it is difficult to get the medical industry to innovate. That’s why I’m so surprised at how open our customers are to new technologies. At the end of the day, it makes sense: people in this part of the market are working on a new generation of products. They are used to trying new things, and Bondus’ technology is part of that.”
Start-up phase
Bondus was founded in 2020. “Back then, it was all about tinkering and experimenting with materials. Later, we moved to ZWINC, the start-up incubator in Zwolle. You can tell when your company is getting to a more serious point, and that’s when we decided to work on Bonus full-time. It was an exciting step, but ultimately the right one: suddenly your mind is free to concentrate on your business.”
Now it’s time for Bondus to grow. “The first thing on the agenda is to expand our team. You simply achieve more with a larger group of people. And that’s what we need. Of course, that requires money, so we went looking for investors. This search led us to the Business Angels Network Nijmegen (BANN) and Briskr.”
In the run-up to BANN, Bas-Jan attended a pitch training. “It helped a lot, because it makes you focus on what you do as a company. It also helped us with the valuation of our company. That’s how we made our plans for next year.” This ties in with a big dream for Bondus. “When you buy a laptop, it almost always has an Intel Inside sticker. That’s what we want. When you buy a medical self-test, we want it to say ‘Bondus Inside’. That’s our goal!”
The Master Buddy Program links starting entrepreneurs to a team of master students. They are the buddy whose principal mission is to make an entrepreneur happy. The program starts in September and is open for registration.
Collaboration for six months
The design of the Master Buddy Program is straight forward: an entrepreneur has a question and the Buddies act as a support to get to a solution. This can be about deceptively simple questions such as: ‘What is an appropriate strategy for my company?’, ‘What opportunities are there within my market?’ or ‘What do I really have to offer to my customers?’. But simple questions are not always the easiest to solve. The Master Buddies spar, provide support, ask critical questions, have an analytical view and help retrieve relevant information. They spend half a day a week on this. The students come from the master’s program Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) at Radboud University. The program is organized in collaboration with local partners such as Startup Nijmegen and Mercator Launch.
Growth opportunities
From November onwards, students will be asked by the curriculum to investigate the opportunities for scaling and how this can be achieved profitably. The program concludes with a pitch event in February where students defend their ideas before an expert jury. The coordination of the Master Buddy Program is in the hands of dr. ir. Nanne Migchels. Registrations, questions and queries can be directed at nanne.migchels@ru.nl. Deadline is September 1st, 2024.
Wil jij je bedrijf laten groeien? Meer zichtbaarheid en omzet voor jouw innovatieve product of dienst? Schrijf je dan nu in voor de 19e editie van de KVK Innovatie Top 100.
Wat is de KVK Innovatie Top 100?
Jaarlijks kiezen we de 100 meest innovatieve Nederlandse mkb’ers. KVK zet hen in de etalage om andere ondernemers te inspireren. Nieuw dit jaar is dat bedrijven in vijf categorieën worden ingedeeld, die elk door een onafhankelijke vakjury worden beoordeeld. Ook brengt het publiek dit jaar haar stem uit.
Wanneer wordt de winnaar bekend?
De uitreiking van de KVK Innovatie Top 100 is in november. Dit gratis evenement draait om wat nodig is voor de verdere groei van je bedrijf. Zoals het uitbreiden van je netwerk en het vinden van nieuwe partners of investeerders. Heb jij met succes een innovatief product of dienst op de markt gebracht? Schrijf je dan nu in voor de KVK Innovatie Top 100.
Meer over de wedstrijd
• Lees alles over de categorieën binnen de wedstrijd
• Veelgestelde vragen over de wedstrijd
• Laat je inspireren door deelnemers uit voorgaande jaren
The idea for Let’s Zoip was born during the COVID pandemic. It was an opportunity to go back online, according to co-founder Desiree van Maasakker. “Video calls became highly relevant again, and we saw that the market hadn’t evolved since Skype. It was time for a change!”
Let’s Zoip’s platform is more than a video conferencing program. It’s a tool for businesses and organisations to host virtual guided tours during video conferences without having people visit their location. Let’s Zoip wants to help people connect with others in as many ways as possible. It was a necessity during the lockdowns, but many companies still value the possibilities.
Desiree focused on retaining human interaction in a digital world. “You want to ensure that something like a video call doesn’t get impersonal because you’d miss your point. Compare it to a conversation in the real world: it’s nicer to sit beside someone than across from them. That’s why ‘Create Human Connections’ is our slogan.”
Through the world of education
Desiree isn’t a stranger to the world of online conference calls. She started her first business in 1999, an internet platform to connect people. It was kind of a precursor to social media. Desiree founded a couple more internet businesses: in web hosting, RSS feeds, and, more creatively, 3D animations. “I had a lot of knowledge and experience with online businesses. For me, the global pandemic felt like a chance to renew a market.”
Let’s Zoip’s starting point was a high school asking Desiree and her business partner Tom Peters, whether they offered their VR services online. The school was looking for ways to stay visible during the lockdowns and had upcoming open days. “We were working on a comparable plan for fairs. That high school’s idea made us immediately change course. That is how the online guided tours came to be. Education is a great market to work in. Imagine you’re in primary school and having to choose a high school without ever setting foot in the building. Then such an online tour can really help you get started! Solving that issue makes for rewarding work.”
Working hard during start-up
Desiree explains that they had to work hard during the start-up phase. Because besides the platform for digital guided tours for schools and businesses, Let’s Zoip didn’t want to drop their idea for fairs. They were building a tool enabling users to share and look at 3D models. They decided to work on both projects simultaneously.
When the platform was finished, the labour didn’t end. “We were helping dozens of schools host guided tours. It all went great until they all had open days through our platform simultaneously. Hundreds of people per school walked around the buildings digitally. Our servers were working overtime and were eventually overloaded. You cannot prepare for everything; sometimes, you just have to experience it. Now we can say that our platform can handle a lot, and we know its limits exactly.”
Never done
Since that enormous open day, Let’s Zoip has learned a lot. “We now have a market-ready product. But to be honest, in my eyes, the platform will never be finished. We provide software as a service (SaaS), and these products need constant updating. However, we have moved on from the growing pains. The next step might be even more important: making choices.”
Entrepreneurship is all about making choices, like excluding target groups. Let’s Zoip is now in the middle of this process. It was one of the biggest learning points from Briskr’s Business Angels Network Nijmegen (BANN). “We have a solid story but we lack a clear target audience. Which sector, which country? What kind of solution are we truly delivering?”
Two conclusions came from the preparations for BANN, says Desiree. “We already have a lot of traction in the education sector. Schools are happy with our solution and also see the opportunities. It is also a great market: you get to help children. The second focus is towards recruitment. It is a nationwide challenge for employers to find staff, and our software can be excellently combined with a vacancy. We see the opportunities here!”
“Before you are allowed to pitch at BANN, there is an introductory period. I think that’s an excellent idea: you get help from coaches via Briskr to prepare as well as you can. This way, you get everything into focus, which doesn’t hurt. It was also a nice confirmation for me as a spokesperson that I enjoyed being in front of a group and convince people!”
Op de mooiste trouwlocatie van Gelderland en de 3e mooiste van Nederland deden we opnieuw een poging om een goed ‘huwelijk’ tussen de aanwezige angels en de pitchende ondernemers te sluiten. Of dat gelukt is weten we nog niet.
Arjan Stuij van BANN partner Poelmann van den Broek leidde ons soepel door het plenaire programma. Sven Bakkes van LUMO Labs informeerde ons over de mogelijkheden, do’s en don’ts van het investeren in AI proposities. En ondanks de regen konden we fijn netwerken en heerlijk eten onder de stretchtent op de binnenplaats van het slot.
Pitches
De volgende ondernemers hebben gepitcht tijdens deze bijeenkomst:
- Milo Kleijnjan, Aidyn
- Mischa Masthoff, wijcontrolerenjedata.nl
- Bob Klein Lankhorst, HAL24K-Agri
- Yama Akbari, Medivox
Met groot verdriet delen wij het nieuws dat Martijn Kriens op 27 mei is overleden aan de gevolgen van zijn ziekte.
Martijn stond midden in het leven, altijd vol energie en passie voor zijn werk. De laatste jaren van zijn werkzame leven was hij enorm betrokken bij Briskr. Hij was niet alleen een toegewijde professional, maar ook iemand met een hart vol dromen en een hoofd vol ideeën die hij graag wilde verwezenlijken, zowel zakelijk als privé. Zijn gedrevenheid en enthousiasme waren inspirerend voor velen om hem heen.
Martijn zal herinnerd worden om de sprankeling in zijn ogen, zijn warme glimlach en onvermoeibare inzet voor alles wat hij deed. Om het goede glas wijn in zijn hand, zijn liefde voor zijn Saab cabrio, zijn bourgondische levenswijze. Om de paradijsvogel die hij was. We missen hem enorm.
Zie de kaart als een uitnodiging om aanwezig te zijn bij de afscheidsdienst van Martijn. En voel je vrij deze te delen met je collega’s die Martijn ook hebben gekend.
Klik op deze link voor de kaart.
Rust zacht, Martijn. Je leeft voort in onze herinneringen en in ons hart.
Bas, Floor, Linda, Marieke, Marion & Martijn S.