XTC Netherlands Regional Competition Recap
Winners of the XTC Netherlands & Belgium Regional Competition – Incooling, Outlander Materials and LipoCoat – will go on to compete for a chance to pitch at the Extreme Tech Challenge 2022 Global Finals presented by Tech Crunch on June 14 in San Francisco.
—
Eindhoven, Netherlands
March 28, 2022
And the winner is … Eindhoven’s deep-tech startup ecosystem and the Netherlands as a whole.
LUMO Labs organized and hosted the Extreme Tech Challenge Netherlands & Belgium first regional finals at the Conference Center at High Tech Campus on 24 March.
XTC is the world’s largest pitch competition for startups addressing the world’s most serious challenges. Startups in 10 categories focus on achieving 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals while developing diverse teams. Many of the teams pitching yesterday had female founders and members representing countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
A total of 53 startups applied for the regional competition. That was narrowed down to 10 startups pitching in the live/virtual juried competition for a regional prize of €20K and a chance to go on to the global finals in June.
Without further ado … 
The winner was Incooling, a startup created at venture builder HighTechXL in 2018. Incooling technology – based on a combination of CERN cooling technology and proprietary development – uses two-phase physics, liquid going to a gas, to remove heat and, by extension, make more efficient energy-hungry server farms.Helena Samodurova gave the pitch, then was joined on stage by Incooling CEO Rudie Verweij. Verweij explained the technology was similar to refrigeration or a heat pump. “The difference is, we have a chip that’s constantly chasing a heat load. So, you constantly have to adapt and be on the edge of the phase change. It’s a really interesting balancing game and a lot of the technology went into … reading the server, knowing what the servers is going to do, understanding the semiconductor side.”
”It was definitely not the first time we were on stage pitching – such pre-Covid events were a given, and we were trained well. And although things are returning to how they were, there was this nervousness in the air – and everyone felt it. All the rush and excitement … it was just like we were doing it for the first time, again,” said Samodurova.
Runner-up Rotterdam-based Outlander Materials received €5000. Outlander’s team created “unplastic,” packaging, which CEO Lori Goff developed from the byproducts of beer brewing. The Outlander Materials product decomposes in six to eight weeks and has half the environmental impact of single-use plastic, Goff said. Goff delivered the pitch, and CFO Francois Schockaert was on stage to answer questions from the panel of judges.
Extreme Tech Challenge and the jury were so impressed with pitches, they added a third prize. 
LipoCoat received a ticket to the global finals. LipoCoat is a high-tech coating applied to medical equipment such as stints to prevent infection. Marie Weijler gave the pitch for the Twente University spinoff. Fabian Stein said the coating mimics human cells and is biodegradable. “If you have nothing else in the fridge, you can drink it.” Applications include coating implants, catheters, contact lenses and breast implants.
XTC personnel in Palo Alto are re-evaluating global pitches now and will give a second look at the Eindhoven event’s fourth-place to tenth-place startups for possible inclusion in the cohort of global finalists, said Victoria Slivkoff, XTC executive managing director.
For 2022, Extreme Tech Challenge’s finals will have 100 startups coming from regional challenges and from open applications, Slivkoff said. The Dutch/Belgium winners receive bootcamp training, active matching with potential investors in XTC’s global database and a chance to pitch on stage at the XTC Global Finals in San Francisco in June.
“XTC Regional Finals was a great event with strong pitches. It’s also awesome to see five out of the 10 startup finalists with female founders, and the three winning pitches all came from female founders!” said LUMO Labs founding partner Andy Lürling. “We wish the regional winners good luck at the global finals.”
Other teams pitching included LUMO Labs portfolio company Autoscriber, inPhocal, Aircision, Vertico, Infitiv, PolyPerception and Veridis.
For an inaugural event, the pitches were exceptionally strong, mainly because some of the startups – such as Incooling and Aircision – have been together for years and have pitched in competitions all over the world.
The jury included Julia Zhou, Saskia Leenstra, Gert-Jan Vaessen, Maud Zaal, Nicolas Autret, Dagmar van Ravenswaay Claasen, Rob van der Werf and students from International School Eindhoven and Stedelijk College Eindhoven.
Eva da Valk was the emcee for the event. She virtually interviewed Techleap’s special startup envoy Constantijn van Oranje and Extreme Tech Challenge co-founder Bill Tai. She also led a panel discussion with Victoria Slivkoff, Michael Kimmijser, Microsoft, and Gert-Jan Vaessen, BOM.
XTC regional partners include NXP, ASML, High Tech Campus Eindhoven, BOM, HighTechXL, Corda Campus, Mercator Launch, imec.istart, Microsoft and Golden Egg Check. LUMO Labs, BOM, ASML and NXP funded the prizes for the winning teams.
About LUMO Labs
Based at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, LUMO Labs creates opportunities for impact-driven software and smart hardware startups. The current LUMO Fund II is an impact-driven multi-stage capital fund (pre-seed up to and including series A). It includes a two-year venture builder program to support its portfolio companies in gaining financial success as well as social traction and impact.
LUMO Labs funds startups that align with at least one of the three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Sustainable Cities & Communities, Good Health & Well-Being and Quality Education. Its investment focus includes Artificial Intelligence/Data, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Robotics and Drones and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality.
LUMO Labs advocates self-determination and traceable ownership of data and transparency and traceability of technologies.
About Extreme Tech Challenge
Extreme Tech Challenge is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit corporation whose mission is to empower startups creating new tech innovations to address global challenges. It is the world’s largest ecosystem and competition for purpose-driven technology inspired by the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Extreme Tech Challenge™ competition is supported by leading corporations, venture capital investors, foundations, policymakers, universities and tech conferences to give exceptional startups the potential for global visibility, the opportunity to raise capital, the ability to network with global leaders, and access to world-class mentorship to help them pioneer technological breakthroughs that address our most extreme global challenges. A complete list of XTC partners and how to join can be found at www.extremetechchallenge.org.
Follow Extreme Tech Challenge on Social Media
Subscribe to the XTC newsletter
For more information:
LUMO Labs / LUMO Fund II Seed Capital
Andy Lürling, andy@lumolabs.io, +31 6 1847 9999