The much anticipated Startup Village in Amsterdam Science Park has officially opened its doors. This visionary tech-startup initiative is created by the Amsterdam Science Park and incubator ACE Venture lab together with UvA Holding. The village consists of cool container-based offices designed by Julius Taminiau Architects, and the first companies have now officially moved in.
Expansion plans
Throughout the month of October the first companies already started to move in, but as per November 2nd the Village is truly up and running. Although the Grand Opening won’t be until Spring 2017, we can say the Startup Village is now officially open for business. In the next few months the village will expand further as several labs and community and event spaces will be added. The plan is that by early 2017 there will be around 25 startups housed in the colourful container community. In this joint initiative incubator ACE Venture Lab provides coaching and mentoring to its tenants, while Amsterdam Science Park provides facilities as well as a network. ACE Venture Lab and Amsterdam Science Park also provide the startups access to a business network, ranging from fellow-entrepreneurs all the way to massive multinationals.
Closely Connected to science
“There are plenty of startup spaces in Amsterdam, but none of them are so closely connected to the university and to science” ACE Venture Lab’s manager Erik Boer explains. “Startup Village is more than a place for young entrepreneurs, it is also an incubator and most of all a laboratory for renewing concept in all kinds of areas: from artificial intelligence to green chemistry and from physics to biodiversity. The container-roofs even have the potential to turn it into a lab with real time measurements and experiments in cooperation with the Amsterdam Green Campus”.
Easy access to knowledge
Amsterdam Science Park’s CEO Leo Le Duc is also excited about the possibilities: “Startup Village offers students a low barrier entry to starting up their own company at a location where they have easy access to the knowledge of the renowned scientific institutions at the Amsterdam Science Park, such as CWI, AMOLF, Nikhef and the University of Amsterdam. We look forward to all the clever ideas and great startups that will come from here”.
Much more to come
Some of the first companies to have moved in are Metrica Sports and Aiir Innovations. Metrica Sports have developed performance software for athletes that is already being used by Villareal in La Liga. Aiir Innovations is developing an algorithm through artificial intelligence with which airlines can improve necessary maintenance on their engine blades. Silicon Canals will soon take a closer look at what these startups do. “And there will be quite a few more initiatives and startups to come” Boer adds. “For instance we will start an innovation lab together with IT Innovator Info Support and we will create an Eventspace with Datacenter Equinix”. In addition, Innovation Exchange Amsterdam has announced it will open more scientific incubators in Amsterdam in the near future. As cool as the Startup Village looks already, as far as the initiators are concerned they are only just getting started.
