Dutch hyperloop startup Hardt banks €1.25M from football player Gregory van der Wiel, amongst others

Hardt, the Dutch start-up that wants to develop a Hyperloop, a high-speed vacuum tube train, has raised €1.25M in a new financing round. With the investment, the startup hopes to bring the Hyperloop into reality. The Hyperloop is a technology designed to make it possible to travel through a vacuum tube at speeds of more than 1,000 kilometers per hour.  Amongst the news investors are Gregory van der Wiel, former Ajax and Paris SG football player, Paul van Keep, co-founder of software company Exact, and sustainable energy fund Enfuro Ventures.

Tim Houter, co-founder and CEO at Hardt, is happy with the fresh funding, but also knows that there is still much work to be done: “Our goal is to build the world’s first high-speed hyperloop test facility in the Netherlands. We can’t do that on our own. So we are calling on top talents, potential investors, and the business community to join us.”

Support from parliament

The startup has the support of the House of Representatives (the Dutch parliament) for constructing of the first test facility in the province of Flevoland. In the first year of its existence, the TU Delft spin-off Hardt was backed by construction company BAM, the Dutch Railways (NS), and regional investment fund UNIIQ as investors.

Tim Houter, the CEO at Hardt: “It is gratifying to see a diverse group of investors placing their trust in us. Thanks in part to their investment, we will be able to let passengers and goods travel through tubes with very low air resistance at speeds of more than 1,000 kilometres per hour in the future. That makes travelling more energy-efficient than travel by air or rail, for instance. With a hyperloop network, Paris can be reached from Amsterdam in only 38 minutes in the future.”

The world’s first hyperloop test facility

If successful, the Netherlands will have the world’s first hyperloop test facility. According to a study carried out by the Dutch Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), building such a facility expectedly generates around 400 jobs. This test facility is an important first milestone in hyperloop’s chances to succeed.

“The digital distance between people is progressively decreasing while the physical distance is progressively increasing. But what if distance and time no longer matter? What if you could live and work wherever, whenever and with anyone you want to? These are the questions that inspire us at Hardt,” says Houter.