Meet the 22 most innovative companies from North Holland

The Chamber of Commerce’s Innovation Top 100 program, which showcases the potential of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Netherlands, has unveiled the 18th edition, highlighting a significant presence of North Holland province and the agrifood sector.

The Kamer van Koophandel (KvK) is the Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands. It is an independent administrative body that informs, advises and supports businesses and manages the Commercial Register.

In this ranking, North Holland emerges as the most prominent province, boasting 22 represented companies, closely followed by South Holland with 20 and North Brabant with 17.

The agri-food sector leads the innovation charge with 17 contributions, closely followed by the ICT and healthcare sectors, showcasing 16 innovations each.

Nearly two-thirds of the companies on the list employ a maximum of 10 people. There are 23 startups. The oldest company in the list is the Brabantse Knaapen Group from Son, which started in 1652.

Received over 300 entries

Panels of innovation experts made the selection from more than 300 entries for a listing in the annual Chamber of Commerce Innovation Top 100. 

 Each nomination was assessed based on its impact on the industry and society, originality, availability, realised turnover, and growth potential.  

There is deliberately no (monetary) prize attached to the Chamber of Commerce Innovation Top 100; the winner receives an award. 

On November 30, 2023, a jury led by Ruud Koornstra, a Dutch serial entrepreneur in sustainability, will announce the preciseranking of each company during the Chamber of Commerce Innovation Top 100 Event. 

It will then be revealed which company will take over the number 1 position from Delft SenseGlove and can call itself the most innovative SME company in the Netherlands for a year.

Having said that, here is the list of 22 North Holland-based startups that have made it into the list.

BeeGrateful

HQ: Amsterdam

BeeGrateful is dedicated to enhancing biodiversity in urbanised regions through partnerships with municipalities and industrial estates. The company does this by creating and deploying Streetlight Bee&Bees (bee hotels around lampposts) and Lantern Planters (planters around lampposts). These products together form small-scale biotopes for pollinators in urbanised areas.

Brainineers International BV

HQ: Amsterdam

Based out of Amsterdam, Braingineers is an emotion analytics company that uses neuroscience technology and deep learning to enhance business marketing. Through this, Brainsight makes it possible to measure consumer behaviour using AI. 

Bright Kitchen

HQ: Amsterdam

Bright Kitchen is a virtual franchise company that offers turnkey concepts for catering entrepreneurs who want to start a delivery restaurant. The company helps set up a brand and marketing strategy and provides operational support. 

Cool set

HQ: Amsterdam

Coolset is an automated sustainability platform for SMEs. The Dutch platform offers an integrated platform for the measurement, analysis, reduction, reporting, and certified compensation of organisations’ carbon footprint. It also allows users to track their carbon footprint, set reduction targets, and identify opportunities for improvement.

The Coding School

HQ: Harlem

The Coding School supports schools in implementing digital literacy, with the aim of reducing inequality of opportunity. The organisation aims to make every student proficient in digital literacy and equipped with skills that are relevant to their future careers. It is crucial, as it is expected that two-thirds of today’s primary school students will end up in jobs that do not yet exist and require knowledge of and with technology.

De Nieuwe Keuken BV

HQ: Amsterdam

Lekker Fred’s Pulled Mushrooms offers a fullyplant-based alternative to meat. These oyster mushroom strips come in three delicious flavours: Shawarma, Massala, and Mexicano. 

They are pre-sliced and seasoned, making preparing them by simply frying effortless. 

Furthermore, these products are vegan, gluten-free, and soy-free, locally produced in North Holland.

Eevery

HQ: Amsterdam

Eevery provides SMEs with a sustainability platform designed to promote sustainable practices. 

The platform functions through a set of questions that generate a roadmap highlighting the opportunities for enhancing sustainability within the company and how to implement these opportunities effectively and efficiently.

Eevery tracks the sustainability score of the company and the progress made following the application of its recommendations. 

FastFeetGrinded

HQ: Heerhugowaard

FastFeetGrinded has developed a unique shoe recycling installation that pulverises and separates all types of shoes. With this technology, they recycle all shoes into raw materials that are more than 90 per cent clean so that they can be used for new shoes. 

Female x Finance

HQ: Amsterdam

Female x Finance is a platform that guides and connects young female talent (Gen-Z) with the financial sector.

The platform provides inspiration and support to women aspiring to build a successful career in finance through various events, training programs, and network-building opportunities. 

Additionally, Female x Finance offers DE&I consultancy, branding, and recruitment services to financial companies with the goal of creating a diverse and inclusive work environment. 

Greenswapp

HQ: Amsterdam

GreenSwapp is an API for food platforms and supermarkets to track product and recipe-wise carbon footprint at scale using product metadata and machine learning. 

The Amsterdam startup allows its clients to track the impact of their entire inventory in seconds, identify high-impact products and suppliers to make better purchasing decisions and communicate the climate impacts of their food to their customers.

Hands off

HQ: Hilversum

Hands Off develops plant-based indulgence chocolate products. They have made 100 per cent plant-based cookies that emit no less than 54 per cent less CO2 than ‘normal’ chocolate chip cookies because they contain no animal products. 

Lgem|Synalgae

HQ: De Kwakel

Lgem|Synalgae provides automated and patented photobioreactor systems for growing algae at any scale, ranging from 5 litres to over 1,000,000 litres. Their two-phase solutions yield increased productivity, stable algae production, and reduced costs.

Mayoneur

HQ: Amsterdam

Mayoneur produces plant-based Halal mayo that’s gluten-free, lactose-free, GMO-free, and environmentally friendly.

Metabolic Software

HQ: Amsterdam

Metabolic Software creates solutions that enable organisations to evaluate their impact on the environment, as well as the impact of their products and services. 

Their flagship product, Metabolic Link, is a SaaS tool that helps companies quantify and track their impact on nature and biodiversity. 

With Metabolic Link, customers can process their organisation’s data and gain valuable insights 

into how to minimise their environmental impact.

Natural Plastics International

HQ: Heemskerk

Natural Plastics International has developed BioSeal Pavement, a 100 per cent biobased and patented product to prevent weed growth between element paving. Moreover, after breaking up the pavement, it can be used responsibly again as a foundation for the pavement. 

OWNIT

HQ: Amstelveen

OWNIT provides Virtual Reality (VR) training to improve interpersonal skills (soft skills). The VR training enables people to develop their behaviour at their convenience, in a secure environment, and with maximum focus. By using VR glasses, they can learn individually, which helps them effectively enhance their skills.

Pluxbox

HQ: Hilversum

Pluxbox created a no-code platform that enables users to develop business software for the web, phones, apps, and tablets. The platform combines front-end, back-end, and design in one suite.

Smyle

HQ: Amsterdam

Smyle has developed toothpaste in a tablet, completely plastic-free, using only natural, vegan ingredients, and without gluten. Customers also get a travel kit and a glass bottle to store the mints for free and can reorder them in compostable, reusable paper packages. 

Tex Tracer 

HQ: Amsterdam

Tex Tracer offers insights into the fashion supply chain to streamline supply and demand, all while championing sustainability.

Tiny Library

HQ: Bussum

Tiny Library is an online rental platform offering multi-category sustainable baby products from A-brand. Tiny Library says consumers can access the highest quality and ‘as good as new’ products while contributing to the circular economy.

WSK Medical

HQ: Amsterdam

WSK Medical focuses on developing AI solutions for head and neck/throat cancer detection and digital pathology (automated breast cancer grading, automated Tumour-Stroma Ratio, automated TILs detection, and more). The Dutch company has also developed Zeno AI, the first real-time AI solution for early throat cancer detection for ENT surgeons.