Dutch Award Recognises Rising Young Talent

From 28 Dutch technology company nominees Confocal.nl were named as one of ten winners of the Netherlands Academic Startup Competition organised by the Association of Universities (VSNU), the Netherlands Academy of Technology and Innovation (AcTI) and StartupDelta. The award enables them to pitch for future investment at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) and may go on a trip to Silicon Valley sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. There they will have the opportunity to learn how they can scale up their innovation faster and thus take the step from startup to scale-up.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Dutch State Secretary Mona Keijzer said “ Academic startups are extremely important for the Netherlands because of their often innovative breakthroughs that have an impact on society in all sorts of ways. The 10 winners show that Dutch universities and institutes play on the highest global stage.” This opinion is shared by Pieter Duisenberg, chairman of the Association of Universities (VSNU). He said “Academic startups build a bridge between science and society: they convert ground-breaking science in tangible innovations and that is very valuable. These 10 startups show that our efforts to promote entrepreneurship at the university are bearing fruit and I am proud of that. We want to continue to focus on this in the future.”

Accepting the award for Confocal.nl was Chief Operating Officer, Mariliis Tark-Dame. “It is fulfilling to receive this award recognising the efforts of our founders, Erik Manders & Peter Drent, who had the vision for the need for affordable, fresh technology in the competitive world of imaging in the health & life sciences sectors. After three years, we now have our second generation of product coming to the market backed by a team of young, motivated scientists who share our startup philosophy: to change the microscopy industry with a confocal microscope based on the re-scan invention: the Re-scan Confocal Microscope (RCM). RCM combines the super-resolution capability with higher sensitivity than most confocal microscopes. This award makes us feel proud and will help drive us forward to the next stages of our growth.”