High Tech Campus Eindhoven has long been known as the smartest square kilometer in Europe, and there’s a reason for that. Multiple reasons, actually, including that HTCE is home to so many fast-moving startups and scale-ups, including Axelera AI, Intrinsic ID and GrAI Matter Labs. Nearfield Instruments announced in July 2024 it had raised €135M, the largest semiconductor investment in Europe or the U.S. in the past five years. Carbyon announced in early September it had closed a Series A funding round of €15.3M. These are just a few of the nearly 300 companies on Campus, from global chip supplier NXP – a spin-off of Philips – to startups and scale-ups pioneering in AI and integrated photonics. In short, everything is here, an entire startup and scale-up ecosystem. And we’re just getting started. High Tech Campus is a place to start, scale and STAY. As your new company grows, the Campus is growing with you, with office space, technical facilities and support that allow you to scale easily. HTCE started out as the Philips NatLab, a closed research and development campus where the tech giant developed many consumer products, including the compact disc. Fast forward to 2024, and High Tech Campus is still fertile breeding ground for open innovation. Here, companies turn technology into business, with 109 startups and scale-ups taking up residence, or one-third of HTCE companies listed on the website directory.
Fabrizio Del Maffeo has always loved building things and making an impact, but he never expected to be an entrepreneur, let alone lead one of the region’s fastest-growing high-tech startups.
Today, this high-energy native of Italy is the CEO and co-founder of Axelera AI, a three-year-old company accelerating artificial intelligence in edge devices with its powerful, energy-efficient chips.
High Tech Campus is a place to start, scale and STAY. Our Campus is home to office space, technical facilities and support that allow you to scale easily. To make things easy, we created a comprehensive guide for you that bundles information about the entire startup and scale-up ecosystem. Download the PDF and tap into this buzzing community!
Explore the space for your company to grow
HTC 37 is the home of 3EALITY, HTCE’s newest innovation hub for start-ups and scale-ups focused on spatial computing and digital twin technologies. There are individual flex desk spaces as well as larger office space for growing startups. Residents at 3EALITY can take advantage of the meeting rooms and event space at the hub.
HTC 5 is where the AI Innovation Center for Applied AI start-ups is located. There is flex space for smaller teams, smaller office space and rooms available to accommodate each stage of growth. There are meeting rooms residents can book as well as the AI Innovation Center event space.
HTC 32 + HTC 41 are the scaleup buildings, perfect for companies who need their own space and want to welcome customers and other visitors to their offices. In the scaleup buildings, founders are surrounded by like-minded companies in the same stage of growth. There is flexibility in these buildings to accommodate growth.
HTC 12 has office space for early-stage startups. It’s perfect for startups with small teams who are just launching their companies.
HTC 27 offers office space and electrotechnical lab options for growing startups. There is a lot of flexible space, including a large community space, meeting rooms and event space HTC 27 residents can book.
HTC 29 is a startup building that offers office space, electrotechnical lab space, chemical lab and cleanrooms. It also has flexible space such as meetings rooms and event space.
Tech companies are born from just an idea. Next comes the technology. Then comes the testing and validation of the technology. At HTCE, we have the technical facilities and clean room space startups need to test their technology. You can find all the technical spaces on the HTCE website.
.png)
SBMC’s Pilot Production Facility bridges innovative research and practical application of smart biomaterials. The new facility opening in 2025 includes four cleanrooms operated at GMP-C (ISO-6 or ISO-7 conditions) and covering 400 square meters, a shared quality control lab, office space and storage areas.
Vention brings your ideas to life by developing products through our modular platform, Wockel®, from early prototypes to full-scale production. Whether you’re a startup launching a new concept or a scaleup refining your next product, Wockel® accelerates the development process, increasing efficience and reducing time and costs.
The Signify EMC and Wireless Connectivity Lab is ISO17025 accredited and focuses on lighting, medical, semiconductor and IoT/RF products and systems. As part of the Signify Innovation team, it fully understands the challenges startups go through during product development and release.
Enginio: leveraging decades of design and manufacturing expertise to develop feasible solutions and accelerating innovation. Enginio works with startups with complex prototyping needs to develop mechatronic prototypes and production on any scale.
Eurofins Reliability Lab offers services ranging from environmental simulation and Highly Accelerated Lifetime Testing (HALT) to mechanical testing and permeability testing, ideal for the pre-qualification phase of startups.
Eurofins Material Analysis Lab specializes in materials analysis and reliability investigation of high tech materials and products. Eurofins’ expertise includes chemical analysis and physical inspection of materials and objects, chemical compatibility and contamination control.
Philips Instrumentation Services provides startups and scale-ups with the specific measuring instruments they need. Philips Instrumentation Services calibrates and repairs oscilloscopes, maintains microscopes and advises companies on how to best use their electrical instrumentation.
Welcome to 3T: your partner for customer specific electronics & embedded systems. With a team of 100+ engineers, 3T delivers high-performance solutions for advanced applications, from medical devices to semiconductor equipment, smart building control, and more. 3T offers co-development, qualified supply services, and support for product innovation.
You need technology before you can turn it into a business. At HTCE, there are several knowledge institutes developing technologies and working with startups and scale-ups to develop applications and products with massive potential for impact.
TNO is an independent, not-for-profit applied science research organization on a mission to create impactful innovations for the sustainable well-being and prosperity of society. The 90-year-old organization has a robust technology transfer program to take technological innovations to the market. HTC-based TNO spin-offs include Carbyon, Nearfield Instruments, AIKON Health, Keiron and LionVolt.
With more than 5,500 employees from more than 95 nationalities, imec is the world's largest independent research center in nanoelectronics and digital technology. Besides research into advanced semiconductor technology and integrated photonics, imec's work includes artificial intelligence and data processing, sensor solutions for smart healthcare or sustainable mobility, technology for renewable energy, solutions for smart cities and 5G communications.
.png)
Holst Centre is a research and innovation partner specializing in health technologies and flexible and wireless electronics, powered by the shared expertise of imec and TNO. Clients benefit from a unique research and innovation centre for microelectronics. According to the Holst Centre website, “it’s all about creating technology that adds to the quality of life.” Axelera AI is an example of a Holst Centre spin-off company based at HTC.
The High Tech Campus startup ecosystem grew organically over the years but as new technologies emerged, we created innovation hubs where startups, scale-ups and other related companies focus on specific technology verticals.
AI Innovation Center is an open innovation facility founded by High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Philips, Signify, ASML and NXP. The mission of the hub is to industrialize Artificial Intelligence technologies in the Brainport Eindhoven region. The AI Innovation Center brings together technology companies, platform and service providers, research and educational institutes and other ecosystem partners in a shared facility. Partners work together on challenges, share knowledge and accelerate AI applications in an open innovation environment. The AI Innovation Center hosts events for the Applied AI community, including the monthly startup Lunch & Learn events.
3EALITY (HTC 37), HTCE’s newest innovation hub, completed renovations and welcomed new tenants in 2024. 3EALITY fosters an ecosystem of innovators working on spatial computing and immersive technologies. At 3EALITY, the community of innovators works on applications and business models, supports partners and residents in showcasing business solutions and educates the market by organizing events and initiating educational programs with universities. Office spaces and technical facilities are centered in and around a large community area and co-working spaces, encouraging collaboration.
The High Tech Campus is way more than just a nice park with office buildings. Campus life is optimized thanks to a wide variety of facilities. We have multiple restaurants, shops, social services, sports and technical facilities. Most of the facilities are located at the Strip, the breathing heart of the High Tech Campus, with as highlights a top-notch Conference Center and a Sports and Wellness Center.
Our social facilities are brought together on The Strip. You can find your choice of restaurants and food trucks, our Conference Centre, a range of shops and services, and the Campus Wellness Center.
The High Tech Campus Eindhoven Conference Center hosts 300 events per year. The facility includes a 300-seat auditorium with the latest AV and projection equipment as well as smaller meeting rooms on two levels.
Right next to the High Tech Campus in the Philips Sports Forest, there are four outdoor padel courts from Peakz Padel. Come challenge your friends and colleagues to a game before or after work!
We've set ourselves an ambitious goal: to become the most sustainable campus in Europe. Sustainability is baked into the way we do business every day, from using herds of sheep to mow grass to building and maintaining buildings with low environmental impact.
The most important meetings and decisions don't happen in buildings or over video chat - they take place on the move. There are countless physical, mental and professional benefits to walking meetings. We support this movement by developing 4 WorkWalk routes with visual signing!
Fit some movement and activity into your workday at our indoor Campus Wellness Center, powered by HighFive. Campus Wellness Center provides you the possibility to work on your overall vitality and offers fun and effective workouts for each and every training level.
In 2018, Hans De Neve sat down at a table at HighTechXL in HTC 27 to pitch the carbon capture technology he invented while working at TNO. Today, Carbyon is still on Campus and expanding into new office space in HTC 32. The team just raised 15.3 million euros to build its carbon capture technology, including capital from Campus resident Innovation Industries. We sat with Hans to learn more about Carbyon's story, what they've achieved, and the societal challenge that drives their progress.
Meet inPhocal, the deep tech scale-up developing advanced high-precision laser beam technology at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven. Their ambitions are to eliminate waste in the marking industry, and, eventually, to enter the semiconductor business in laser cutting.
Read the article on inPhocal's tech, their story, and the plans for their future in the Brainport region.
Adding to the mix of ingredients necessary for successful startups and scale-ups, there are two organizations located at HTCE that help founders build their companies from the ground up, each with a different focus and proven program. There are also several investors on High Tech Campus, putting promising startups in close proximity to potential sources of funding.
HighTechXL is the Netherlands’ only deep-tech venture builder. It began as a high tech hardware accelerator in 2013 but pivoted to building deep-tech ventures in 2018. Scale-ups Carbyon, inPhocal and Incooling are all HTXL alumni ventures with transformative technology originally sourced at TNO and CERN and which they have developed their own intellectual property.
LUMO Labs is venture builder and investment fund focused on emerging digital technologies. LUMO has invested in 23 impact startups such as Autoscriber, Whispp and Alphabeats, also a HighTechXL alumnus. They announced a new €100M fund with which LUMO Labs will invest in 30-35 additional impact-driven digital technology startups.
Innovation Industries announced a €500M investment fund in May 2024, also investing in deep-tech startups and scale-ups. While Innovation Industries invests in companies in the Benelux and Germany, they see the promising startups at HTCE. Innovation Industries has invested in Carbyon, Axelera AI, LionVolt, SMART Photonics, EFFECT Photonics, Nearfield Instruments and Luxexcel (now Meta).
DeepTechXL is a €110M investment fund for deep-tech startups. Founded by Guus Frericks, who also co-founded HighTechXL, the fund has invested in nine deep-tech startups since closing the fund, including HTCE residents Alphabeats, inPhocal, Gilbert, Keiron and Senergetics.
Rabobank finances startups with its Rabobank Innovation Loan, even if there are no paying customers or cash flow. Rabobank makes loans between €25,000 and €150,000 with the first two years at interest-only payments. Rabobank funds developments that contribute to sustainability, digitalization or vitality. Michiel Ziekman leads the program and has open office hours on Wednesday at HTC 9.
At High Tech Campus, the marketing, communications and events team is here to support startups and scale-ups grow and thrive in our rich ecosystem. The MarCom team helps promote startup and scale-up company events through our events page on our website. You can add your own event through the event page portal. We also post events on our “narrowcast” screens throughout HTC buildings and on the coffee machines. We also promote job openings on our jobs page on the HTC website. Companies can list vacancies through the job portal.
Contact our team via email to inquire about communications opportunities: marcom@hightechcampus.com
High Tech Campus is a place to start, scale and STAY. To make joining the ecosystem at HTCE easy, we created a comprehensive guide for you that bundles information about the entire startup and scale-up ecosystem. Download the PDF and tap into this buzzing community!
In the 2024 Global Innovation Index report, Eindhoven is sits at the #3 position, just below Cambridge (UK) and San Francisco and just above Oxford (UK) and Boston-Cambridge (USA). In the past five years, there were 7,893 patent applications. The leading scientific institution is Philips. For a high tech or deep tech startup, protecting intellectual property is crucial to growth, and there are several patent offices at HTCE.
.png)
The Netherlands Patent Office RVO helps entrepreneurs and inventors with questions relating to Intellectual Property. Startups who want to know more about protecting their innovations, IP rights, licenses or collaborations can go to RVO for advice free of charge.
LIOC Patents & Trademarks is an international patent, trademark and design firm. They conducts searches, handle prosecution matters, offer intellectual property watch and dispute mediation services, and provide support in legal proceedings concerning patents, trademarks and designs.
.png)
V.O. Patents & Trademarks offers patent and trademark protection as well as market and engineering intelligence in terms of IP. V.O. provides guidance and support in defining and refining a startup’s goals and strategies.
Magnuss & Weiss helps startups and scale-ups navigate legal risks. They specialize in technology contracts, IP/IT, legal risk management, data protection and compliance as well as startup assistance, short-term legal support and legal training courses.
Expat Spouses Initiative (HTC 27) connects internationals, especially spouses of international knowledge workers, to local professional opportunities, including startups and scale-ups. ESI specializes in bridging the gap between businesses who need talented, skilled employees and highly skilled international talent ready to enter the Dutch labor market.
Fontys Consultancy at HTCE (HTC 27) provides project support for startups and scale-ups at High Tech Campus. They work with startups and scale-ups on consultancy assignments, including sales plans, process optimization, market research and risk analysis.
Are you curious what the possibilities are to settle your flex desk, office or technical space here, and join the vibrant startup and scale-up community of High Tech Campus Eindhoven? You can plan an Introduction Call with one of our Business Development team members to inquire about the possibilities.
