Photo Shutterstock This is what brought Jaspar Roos of the investor Plug and Play to Wageningen on 31 March to visit Startlife, which advises Wageningen startups. Two months ago, Roos became senior business development manager for Benelux.
Plug and Play (PNP) is both an investor and a broker, linking startups to multinationals and thereby ensuring that knowledge-intensive companies get fast access to markets and financing. The American company operates in nearly 40 countries around the world, and recently launched in the Netherlands.
Multinationals such as Unilever, Danone en DSM used to build large R&D centres for developing their new products, but such centres proved slow and did not always deliver what the large companies were looking for. Nowadays, these centres support young companies that develop new technology and products. They are also keen to keep up to date on the development of innovative startups, and then invest in those which show high potential.
Database
Plug and Play asks multinationals what challenges they face in their product development, and then looks for startups that can tackle those challenges. While Startlife focuses on the initial growth phase, Plug and Play is more concerned with the follow-up phase involving international expansion. Roos hopes to collaborate with Startlife on this as well. ‘We complement each other well, and together we can speed up growth even more.’
At this point, Plug and Play has selected and evaluated 40,000 startups out of its global database, which it can link with the needs of about 550 clients, including banks, car manufacturers, tech giants and food producers. Such links can lead to additional financing for the startup or a joint project with a big company that enables the startup to scale up. Roos: ‘Say AkzoNobel wants to buy the product. With a client like that, your company’s distribution and financing are sorted in one go.’
Agrifood
Now that the company is in the Netherlands, the successful Dutch agrifood sector has come to its attention. Reason for Roos to drop in at Startlife, at the heart of Food Valley on the Wageningen campus. Roos can call on more than 200 analysts whose work includes identifying strong Netherlands-based startups, particularly in the areas of financial services, agrifood and animal health. Roos: ‘Our CEO Saeed Amidi said recently in Financiële Dagblad (a Dutch newspaper, ed.) that he wanted to invest in 10 to 15 Dutch startups, aside from any links forged with financiers and multinationals. We shall see whether there are any Wageningen startups among them.’
The vast majority of PNPs clients face challenges related to sustainability, says Roos. ‘A sustainable seaweed burger could be of interest to McDonald’s, and Coca Cola has got to do something about plastic waste. Sustainability is going to be one of the biggest growth markets for PNP.’
