UtrechtInc partners with ICAT (Innovation Center for Advanced Therapies) to offer full support to Life Sciences & MedTech innovators, all the way from ideation to early commercialisation!

Our strategic partnership with ICAT, creates a modular support system for startups working on next-generation medical technology and advanced therapeutics. With support from the Provincie Utrecht, our enhanced program offers an even stronger platform for life sciences & medical technology startups, helping founders bring innovative therapies to patients faster and smarter.

Located in Utrecht Science Park in Zeist, ICAT’s Open Innovation Facility welcomes startups at all stages of development, from ideas to established ventures, with access to state-of-the-art  infrastructure and field experts. This offer complements UtrechtInc’s dedicated mentorship, extensive business network expertise and guidance on market readiness, tech validation, corporate partners, matchmaking events, dedicated mentorship and an extensive business network.

What value does ICAT add to the UtrechtInc offering?

A fully equipped lab space in an open shared innovation environment; State-of-the art equipment for:

• Tissue engineering & biomaterials

• Histology & microscopy

• Cell and tissue analysis

• Viral vectors

• Cell expansion platforms

• 3D printing & Bioprinting platforms

🧠 Access to a team of experts: Regulatory, GMP compliance, Health Tech Assessment & Economics, QA, QC and Business Development.

Whether you’re building the next breakthrough in medical technology or advanced therapeutics, this collaboration helps you validate, scale and connect.

🔔 Call for Applications – Make It Matter Voucher Programme 🔔

Researchers at Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht are invited to apply for the Make It Matter Voucher Programme, initiated by Utrecht Holdings.

This voucher supports early-stage technology validation and is designed to bridge the gap between academic discovery and commercial application. The programme enables researchers to validate commercial potential, increase Technology Readiness Level (TRL), and strengthen intellectual property (IP).

Key points:

• €25,000 voucher for 12-month proof-of-concept projects
• For early-stage technologies (not regular research projects)
• Success-based repayment: only repay if commercialisation is achieved
• Open to UU and UMCU employees with novel IP and commercial potential

📅 Application deadline: 12 March

Interested in turning your research into real-world impact?

Get in touch with the Make It Matter team or visit the website for more information.

Meet our new Marketing & Community Intern: Nishtha

We are happy to welcome Nishtha as our new Marketing and Community Intern. Currently studying New Media and Digital Culture at Utrecht University, she joins the team to support our community initiatives while expanding her marketing skills.

Nishtha is motivated by the process of turning complex problems into functional solutions. She says: “I have a lot of respect and appreciation for people who work on building solutions for real world problems! There is something so beautiful to come out of all the chaos and to witness those journeys would be an honour and a lesson”.

During her internship, she looks forward to exploring different roles within the startup ecosystem and learning firsthand how founders navigate the journey from idea to impact.

Outside of work, you will find her rolling on the floor over a stand-up, tearing up over drama and geeking out about Karl Marx (or just history, really), all while cooking some great vegan fusion!

We’re happy to have her on board!

Meet our new Startup Scout: Saif

We think that the best startups are built where technology meets human connection and that´s where we found our new Startup Scout, Saif Abdoelrazak.
Saif joins us with a background in Artificial Intelligence. After spending time at Bit developing AI prototypes for public organizations, he’s shifting his focus to the very beginning of the founder journey: scouting and supporting early-stage talents here at UtrechtInc.

What makes Saif a fit for our community isn’t just his technical expertise; it’s his ability to bring people together. You can also find him hosting storytelling nights at de Nijverheid, organizing potlucks for friends, engaging in long, deep coffee conversations and soaking up live music and creative communities.
Saif is here to listen, connect, and help founders turn “what if” into “what’s next.”

We are happy to have you in the incubator. 💛

Congratulations to Lumox and the founders, Irati Beltrán Hernández and Sebas Pronk, on finalizing a license agreement with Utrecht Holdings for two foundational patents developed at Utrecht University. This agreement secures the exclusive rights to the core technology originating from Sabrina Oliveira’s research group, marking a critical step in transitioning this science from the lab to the clinic.

Securing intellectual property is a vital prerequisite for the investment required to fund large-scale drug production, safety studies, and clinical trials. This successful negotiation ensures that Lumox has the necessary framework to attract the capital needed to bring new therapies to patients, specifically targeting head and neck cancer.

This partnership serves as a model for effective tech transfer:
Market Readiness: Lumox gains the exclusivity needed to de-risk future investment.
Academic Impact: Utrecht University ensures its research reaches the public while maintaining a stake in its success.
Clinical Path: Breakthrough science moves closer to becoming a tangible treatment for patients.

A thank you to the team at Utrecht Holdings, including Danielle Counotte and Director Tessa Scharringhausen, for their collaborative approach to this deal. We look forward to seeing Lumox accelerate their development and move closer to their first clinical trials. 🥂

➡️ Read more here

Exciting news for our community: we would like to welcome Bas Neggers as our newest mentor. 🧠

Bas brings experience at the intersection of Bio- and Medical Physics and Neuroscience. As a scientist-entrepreneur, he successfully led the UMC Utrecht spinoff Brain Science Tools BV from its ideation to its acquisition by MagVenture A/S from Denmark.

His work has been important in developing and marketing clinical applications for:
✔️ Advanced brain imaging
✔️ Neuromodulation
✔️ Translating complex research into scalable medical technology

Our startup founders have the opportunity to learn from someone who understands the journey from lab to market.

We’re freezing for a second to welcome our newest team members! ❄️ Please meet Saif Abdoelrazak and Nishtha Surana Baid. What a first day! ☃️☃️

❄️ Saif is our new Startup Scout. With his deep expertise in AI, he’ll be spreading the word and scouting the most promising founders to join the UtrechtInc community.

❄️ Nishtha is our new Marketing & Community Intern. She’s a creative and a proactive spirit who gets things done. Drawing on her studies in New Media and Digital Culture at Utrecht University she’ll be making sure our marketing and community engagement are always at their best.

We’ll be sharing more about their roles soon. Until then, welcome to the team! ☃️

What a fantastic three days at #HIS25! The HealthTech Investor Summit in Utrecht was one for the books, connecting Europe’s HealthTech ecosystem, from groundbreaking panels to high-energy pitches.

UtrechtInc was proud to be there. Our Managing Director, Jaap De Bruin, spoke on a panel session led by Health~Holland’s Laura Duran, about innovation ecosystems, joined by one of our startups, Alexander Habermeier from Guideways AI and Arjan van den Born (ROM Utrecht Region), Leonie Oosterwaal (Provincie Utrecht), Hans Hofstraat (Foundation Utrecht Science Park & Utrecht Life Sciences).

Also a massive shoutout to the other UtrechtInc startups who joined the pitch stages: Wido Heeman from SPCTR, Linksight, Surgical Reality, AMT Medical, and Moveshelf and Utrecht-based startups such as OctoVascular.

📆 See you next year 30 November – 2 December in Bruges!

Brainial: The tough road to AI-Powered tender dominance 💡

One of our alumni, Brainial are an AI-powered B2B SaaS startup founded in 2019 by Taco Hiddink and Fedor Klinkenberg (CEO) with the goal of becoming the dominant global platform for tender management.

Their software leverages AI to accelerate the time-consuming process of responding to bids and RFPs, automating the manual task of sifting through hundreds of documents.

Taco Hiddink and Fedor Klinkenberg went all-in on their startup. It wasn’t always an easy sell back home, but an international adventure is now on the horizon.

➡️ Read more about their journey

Huge congratulations to one of our startups, Yasu on securing €850k in funding! 💰 

Dutch AI startup Yasu, which develops autonomous agents to reduce cloud waste, has secured €850,000 in pre-seed funding.

Love their ‘prevention-first’ approach – fixing cloud waste during development is 10x cheaper than fixing it after the bill arrives. The round was led by Akka, with participation from Empower Impact and prior backing from Antler.