Graduation Day -19 June

🎉 Save the Date! 🎉
You are all invited to celebrate the graduation of our Science & Life-Science Validation Program Fall ´24, Tech Validation Program Spring ´25 and Student Validation Program Spring ´25 with us on June 19 at 4PM at the UtrechtInc office. 🎓

We’re bringing together our graduating startups and our amazing community to mark this special milestone. Get ready for startup pitches, showcasing their journeys at UtrechtInc, and of course, enjoy some cold drinks! 🥂

Whether you’re a fellow startup enthusiast, a member of our community, or a friend, we’d love for you to be there. ✨

📍 Venue: UtrechtInc Office in Utrecht Science Park
🗓️ Date: June 19
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM

Let us know you’re coming and RSVP on the LinkedIn event.
Stay tuned! 😉

RSVP

How is AI transforming healthcare? • Oct 28

📆 Join us on Oct 28 in Utrecht for an evening where we’ll look at the opportunities and challenges of using AI in the healthcare, bringing practical insights and academic expertise to the conversation.

💡 Our speakers:
Maria Galanty is a PhD candidate at the qurAI group (University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC), within the Intensive Care Lab, under the supervision of Clarisa Sánchez. Her doctoral research is part of the UvA Research Priority Agenda AI for Health Decision-Making, a cross-disciplinary collaboration spanning the Faculties of Medicine, Science, Humanities, and Law.

Welmoed Tjepkema is a data scientist at the AI for Health team of the University Medical Centre of Utrecht with a background in biomedical engineering.

What to expect:
– How AI is being applied in modern healthcare
– Why data quality and expert annotation matter
– How better dataset documentation can uncover and mitigate medical bias
– Wrap up with an open discussion

🧠 AI in Healthcare: The Power of Data and the Challenge of Bias
📍 UtrechtInc
📅 Date: Oct 28
🕕 Time: 17:30-19:30

Sign up today and tune in the conversation! 🔗

Sign up

 

Utrecht AI Drinks

NEXT AI EVENT: 5 November 2025

Dear AI Enthusiast,

Utrecht stands out as a hub of innovation and opportunity. Home to the largest Science Park in the Netherlands, the city recently celebrated 900 years of its rich history, boasts hundreds of promising startups, and features iconic landmarks like the beautifully restored Dom Tower. On top of that, Utrecht leads the way in sustainable mobility, with residents owning an average of 1.3 bicycles each, reflecting a city built for forward-thinking movement.

These facts only scratch the surface. Together, we can add new chapters to Utrecht’s story by unlocking the potential of AI right here. The possibilities for growth and innovation in this region are immense when we collaborate. I hope you will join us in making it happen.

UtrechtInc  invites you to Utrecht AI Drinks on Wednesday, 5 November from 4 PM. This event is a great opportunity to connect with academics, experts and founders working at the forefront of AI and AI-driven innovation.

Looking ahead, UtrechtInc will host Utrecht AI Drinks every two months. Mark your calendar for the upcoming session on January 7.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Please sign up here.

Sign-Up

Toasti talk: Philips Innovation Award • Nov 25

📆 Join us on Nov 25 at Playground for a lunch hour talk with Luc Vegter, Head Ambassador of the Philips Innovation Award! We’ll dive into the world of this prestigious student entrepreneurship award, looking at the trajectory, the benefits for participants, and the vast network it provides, while having a lekker toasti prepared by the capable hands of UtrechtInc team.

💡 Our speaker: Luc Vegter is the Head Ambassador for the Philips Innovation Award, an independent non-profit organization that supports student entrepreneurship in the Netherlands.

What to expect:

🔸What the Philips Innovation Award is and its mission
🔸The trajectory for student startups and how to participate
🔸The personal feedback, coaching, and networking opportunities for participants
🔸Wrap up with an open discussion

Event details:

📍 UtrechtInc
📅 Date: Nov 25
🕕 Time: 12:00-13:00

Sign up today and grab a toastie while you tune in the conversation! 🔗

Sign up

The Testing Ground - November 27

🎉  The Testing Ground: Shape the Future of Student Startups 🎉
Want a sneak peek into the next wave of innovation?  Join us at UtrechtInc on November 27 for “The Testing Ground”!

Meet the bright minds behind our student startups as they put their groundbreaking ideas and pressing challenges in front of you. This is your chance to be among the first to experience their ventures and provide invaluable feedback that will directly shape their future success. Your insights can make a real difference!

  • 🗓️ Date: Thursday 27 November from 15:00 – onwards
  • 📍 Location: UtrechtInc

Program:

  • 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Introduction by UtrechtInc & lightning-fast 2-minute pitches from our student startups. Get ready for a burst of innovation!
  • 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM: The Testing Ground! Wander through our space and interact directly with the startups. They’ll be eager for your feedback, whether it’s on their core idea, website, pitch, or even a job vacancy.
  • From 4:45 PM: Unwind and connect with the student entrepreneurs and fellow attendees over drinks. Share your thoughts and network with Utrecht’s future business leaders!

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to witness innovation in its early stages and contribute to the journey of these aspiring entrepreneurs. No sign-up needed – just come by and make your mark!

You’ll have the chance to:

  • Meet ambitious student startups from our current validation program.
  • Hear concise 2-minute pitches introducing their ideas and the problems they’re tackling.
  • Participate in interactive “testing” sessions. This is where you come in!
  • Engage with the startups, experience their concepts firsthand, and provide valuable feedback on everything from their core idea and website to their pitch and even potential job openings.
  • Help these young founders validate their key assumptions and gain crucial insights from real-world perspectives.
  • Network with the student entrepreneurs and other attendees over informal drinks following the testing session.

This is a fantastic opportunity for students, innovators, and anyone curious about the startup world to connect with emerging talent and contribute to the growth of new ventures in Utrecht. Your feedback is invaluable in shaping the future of these student-led initiatives.

No registration required – just bring your friends and drop by.

Female Ventures

✨ Join us for an inspiring evening that celebrates women who turned obstacles into thriving businesses and careers!

Female Ventures Utrecht presents: EmpowerHER From Setback to Success. How women turn obstacles into thriving businesses and careers.

Join Female Ventures for an inspiring evening that celebrates women who turned adversity into opportunity. Every journey has its share of challenges, but what if those challenges could be your greatest source of strength?

Hear from three remarkable speakers who transformed personal and professional struggles into thriving ventures, from overcoming illness, to navigating between corporate life and entrepreneurship, to building deep-tech startups from scratch.

Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a student seeking a job opportunity, a freelancer looking to grow, or a professional ready for your next leap, this event will leave you inspired, empowered, and connected to a community of women who lift each other up.

The event is kindly hosted by UtrechtInc.

Why join us?

  • Discover how challenges can become a powerful foundation for your next big step.
  • Learn how breakthrough ideas that can turn uncertainty into action.
  • Gain fresh ideas and inspiration from real stories of resilience and success.
  • Build your own resilience toolkit to overcome obstacles with confidence.
  • Leave feeling motivated to shape your own path with clarity, courage, and purpose.
  • Connect with like-minded women pursuing their journeys as entrepreneurs, freelancers, and corporate professionals

Speakers/Panelists:

Ashley Musselman — Founder & Freelance Product Marketing Leader
After overcoming professional obstacles, Ashley turned her experience in global product marketing for brands like Snapchat and Amazon into her own freelance product marketing company. She now helps complex tech products reach the right customers through clear strategy, go-to-market execution, and cross-functional alignment. Her story about transforming uncertainty into resilience and turning career challenges into a thriving venture.

Amit Friskolnik — Founder, MIMO Cookies
After overcoming personal obstacles, Amit turned her passion for baking and sustainability into MIMO Cookies, a purpose-driven brand crafting planet-friendly treats now available in Albert Heijn and other major retailers across the Netherlands. Her story is one of determination, creativity and turning personal challenge into sweet success.

Anitha — CTO & Co-founder, Deep-Tech Startup Senergetics
After many unsuccessful attempts to switch her career from academia to entrepreneurship, Anitha transformed her struggles into a thriving career in deep-tech innovation. As CTO, she now leads efforts in photonics and sustainability, proving persistence pays off. Her story is one of perseverance, reinvention and transforming setbacks into groundbreaking success.

In collaboration/Partnership with: The event is kindly hosted by UtrechtInc.

Agenda:

17:00 – 17:20 | Arrival, drinks & snacks, networking

17:20 – 17:30 | Introduction

17:30 – 18:30 | Panel discussion

18:30 – 18:45 | Audience Q&A

18:45 – 19:45 | Closing & networking

  •  Date: 9 December
  •  Time: 17:00–20:00
  •  Location: UtrechtInc, Vening Meinesz building C, Princetonlaan 6, 3584 CB Utrecht
  •  Drinks & snacks included

Note: We’d like to inform you that during our physical events some pictures and/or video may be taken and therefore may contain your image. Please notify us at the start of an event if you prefer not to be pictured/recorded and we will seat you accordingly.

Sign up here 

Graduation Day • December 11

🎉 Save the date: our new startups are graduating! 🎉

You are all invited to celebrate the graduation day of three of our programs on December 11 at 4PM at the UtrechtInc office. 🎓
We’re bringing together our graduating startups and our amazing community.

The startups graduating are from:

🟠 Science Validation Program – Spring 2025

🔸 Fiskemed – Founded by Jan Bogerd
Develops drugs to create sterility in farmed fish, offering a sustainable solution to genetic introgression and precocious male puberty.

🔸 TeamMeUp – Founded by Ioanna Lykourentzou & Pedro Santoro Zambon
Develops an online platform for automated matchmaking, enhancing connections in the games industry.

🔸 Xcellerate – Founded by Benjamin Smits & Vincent de Boer
Enhances cellular therapeutic development by delivering scalable, real-time metabolic analysis. Their approach allows generation of absolute metabolic characterization, increasing efficiency, accuracy, and reproducibility of key metabolic indicators to predict therapeutic effectiveness.

🔸Doing Responsible AI at scale – Founded by Yuval Temam
The solution is a tool that takes policy guidelines and validates the GenAI and its Large Language Model (LLM) against benchmarks.

🟠 Tech Validation Program – Fall 2025

🔸 Benchtop – Founded by Lahari Ganti
Bridging the gap between children’s imagination and digital storytelling by using AI to transform drawings into complete animated stories with sound and narration for families and schools.

🔸 Upvoice – Founded by Rik Arkema
Identifying issues through pulse surveys, then brings employees together anonymously online to identify root causes and solutions. As people build on each other’s ideas, real solutions emerge from those living the problems daily.

🔸 myLSCare – Founded by Eva Gonzalez
A companion app for people with Lichen Sclerosus. Co-created with patients and specialists, it supports treatment adherence, symptom tracking, and education.

🔸 Nestpod – Founded by Naomi Griekspoor and Birgitta de Gruijter
A community-driven brand creating calm lactation pods for breastfeeding and pumping across workplaces and public spaces. QR access today, and a planned AI-guided app where mothers connect, find pods, get support, and insights.

🔸 ChargeBrain – Founded by Carsten de Vries and co-founder
Helping EV Charge Point Operators use data to optimize their operations and drive growth. They turn fragmented data into a strategic asset to unlock fleet intelligence for scalable EV operations.

🔸 FandomID – Founded by Fabio Tambosi and co-founder
Rewiring digital fragmentation into unified fandom.

🟠 Student Validation Program – Fall 2025

🔸 Semantly – Founded by Ruben de Koning
Semantly provides instant, reliable answers from your internal documents by searching across all sources and returning exact, relevant text excerpts via a simple chat interface.

🔸 The Erlenmeyer Collective – Founded by Tim Sturre, Anna Charitonos, Alessia Aresi, Marta Pinto and Arianna Mori
They provide an online platform for young, ambitious scientific communicators to gain experience with writing, visualizing, or otherwise creating accessible popular-scientific content.

🔸 AEGIR – Founded by Nicholas van den Berge and Warner Bartlema
They store excess green electricity when supply is high and release it when demand is high, providing a grid balancing service.

🔸 HeyCute – Founded by Aran Vakili and Yves Jamin
HeyCute is a platform for physical dating events; users sign up, pick an event, fill in their preferences, and are matched to a number of other participants.

Get ready for startup pitches, showcasing their journeys at UtrechtInc, and of course, drinks! 🥂
Whether you’re a fellow founder, a member of our community, or a friend, we’d love for you to be there. ✨

📍 Venue: UtrechtInc (Utrecht Science Park)
🗓️ Date: Thursday, December 11
⏰ Time: 4:00 PM

➡️ Let us know you’re coming!

 

 

Utrecht AI Drinks

NEXT AI EVENT: 7 January 2026

Dear AI Enthusiast,

Utrecht stands out as a hub of innovation and opportunity. Home to the largest Science Park in the Netherlands, the city recently celebrated 900 years of its rich history, boasts hundreds of promising startups, and features iconic landmarks like the beautifully restored Dom Tower. On top of that, Utrecht leads the way in sustainable mobility, with residents owning an average of 1.3 bicycles each, reflecting a city built for forward-thinking movement.

These facts only scratch the surface. Together, we can add new chapters to Utrecht’s story by unlocking the potential of AI right here. The possibilities for growth and innovation in this region are immense when we collaborate. I hope you will join us in making it happen.

UtrechtInc  invites you to Utrecht AI Drinks on January 7 from 4 PM. This event is a great opportunity to connect with academics, experts and founders working at the forefront of AI and AI-driven innovation.

Looking ahead, UtrechtInc will host Utrecht AI Drinks every two months.

📍 Where: UtrechtInc (Vening Meinesz building C, Princetonlaan 6, 3584 CB Utrecht)
📅 When: January 7 2026
⏰ Time: 16:00 – 18:00

We look forward to welcoming you.

Sign up here

Meet UtrechtInc

NEXT EVENT: 29 January 2026

Are you a researcher, scientist, medical professional or student in Utrecht and you want to learn what a startup incubator does and how we could help you set up your own business? Are you passionate about health, education, sustainability or AI? And are you considering starting a scalable business? Come to our monthly open event Meet UtrechtInc.

Sign up and you are invited to visit our startup incubator, get a tour, and learn what an incubator does and how it can help you on your startup journey. Join us for an afternoon of startup insights and inspiration.

Meet our team and get a sneak peek at the inner workings of our university incubator. Discuss your entrepreneurial aspirations and let’s see what your startup journey could be!  Please sign up below to join this event.

Agenda

  • 15:30 | Tour & introduction incubator, feedback on your business idea and ambitions
  • 16:30 | Open community drinks with in-house entrepreneurs and scientists

This event is also for

  • People who want to find out if there is a business potential in their research (academic spin-off)
  • People who want to get a taste of (part-time) entrepreneurship
  • People who have an existing startup but are looking for a great startup support community
  • People who are looking for a co-founder/entrepreneur who can help bring their research to market

Meet your co-founder XL (Eindhoven) • Sep 29

Meet Your Co-Founder XL is a live national matchmaking event to find a promising tech start-up to join or to find a co-founder that can strengthen your tech company.

During this event, you will get the opportunity to either pitch your tech start-up or present yourself to potentially find a talent match made in heaven.

For whom?

Are you a promising tech start-up with a leadership vacancy? Do you have a scientific background and an idea / technology that is ready for the next step? Or are you ready to strengthen an innovative start-up with your super powers? Ideally we introduce as many opportunities to you as possible. We are looking for:

Tech startups in all stages are welcome (from idea or research phase to scale-up phase).
Both potential co-founders with a track record (serial entrepreneurs) as well as first time entrepreneurs with either a tech or business background are welcome.
This event is NOT for: consultants, recruiters or other people not willing to put skin in the game.

Location: Evoluon, Eindhoven

When: 29 September 2025, 18:30 – 21:30

 

The application is now closed. Next edition will open its registration process soon. Stay in touch!

 

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