From lab to global impact: these startups are going to make it
The Academic Startup Competition helps Dutch startups move from science to international markets.
Published on June 4, 2025
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Isn't it wonderful when science makes the world a better place? The Academic Startup Competition (ASC) helps to get groundbreaking ideas from the lab to the real world. Ten finalists pitched their ideas during the grand finale of the ASC in Eindhoven. One of the finalists was MimeCure, a startup developing a treatment for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Worldwide, 300 million people suffer from this progressive and chronic lung disease. It is the third most common cause of death worldwide. COPD causes a patient's lung tissue to be broken down a little further and further. This makes it increasingly difficult to breathe. Some treatments relieve the symptoms, but curing the disease is not possible yet. That is what MimeCure wants to change.
Ten winners
ASC's goal is to help entrepreneurs turn scientific knowledge into impactful innovation. It must become easier for entrepreneurs to make contact with scientists. This requires a culture change. So, an essential part of the competition is to connect people on a national and international scale. The jury didn't crown only one startup, but all finalists are winners. They got to join ScaleNL on a trip to the United States last month to connect with entrepreneurs and investors.
One of the participants was the CEO of MimeCure, Luke van der Koog. The trip to America was a special experience for him: "We had workshops, visited large pharmaceutical companies, and got in touch with investment companies. We gained contacts with investors and with a large pharmaceutical company that is also working on a drug for COPD."
The Academic Startup Competition
The Academic Startup Competition (ASC) is a national program designed to accelerate the growth and international impact of academic startups. Participating startups come from Dutch universities, University Medical Centers, and research institutions. The program began in January with 40 participants. Several rounds of coaching, workshops, and pitch days followed, after which 10 startups dropped out each round. Ultimately, 10 finalists remained. The ASC is an initiative of Techleap, the Netherlands Universities (UNL), the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers (NFU), and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Change (EZK).
Develop and scale up technology
MimeCure is developing a therapy that encourages the lungs to self-heal and repair. COPD patients have lower levels of a specific protein in their lung tissue, which affects the effectiveness of stem cells. That hinders recovery. MimeCure wants to administer the missing protein through an inhaler. “The tests we have conducted so far show that lungs can repair themselves again with this administered protein,” says the CEO. Currently, the testing is still taking place on a laboratory scale. This will be further scaled up in the coming years to conduct clinical trials by 2028. To that end, the company is now looking for investors.
Inspire each other
“This competition is special because entrepreneurs from all kinds of sectors are participating, which provides valuable feedback,” said Van der Koog. The most important lesson he learned: “Making the story of his startup accessible to a wider audience and inspiring people with it.”
In addition to MimeCure's story, there were more interesting pitches during the grand finale. An overview of the finalists:
- ATA Mute B.V. is developing an ultra-thin film that can reduce noise from vacuum cleaners, dryers, and other appliances by up to 90%.
- Carapace Biopolymers is developing a biodegradable seed coating as an alternative to the plastic layers currently on many agricultural seeds.
- CIWI provides water treatment without the use of chemicals. This makes water purification less dependent on specific substances, thereby improving access to clean drinking water.
- FlowBeams makes it possible to inject a liquid, such as vaccinations or insulin, without needles. This reduces the risk of infections, causes no harm, and generates less waste.
- IMChip makes chips from a material that behaves similarly to the human brain. This ensures that AI in the future will use much less energy than it does today.
- MimeCure is developing a regenerative treatment for COPD.
- MycoFarming® uses fungi to purify water, such as by removing nitrogen and pesticides from water before it flows from farmland into streams and rivers.
- QT Sense is developing a device to measure in real time inside a cell how it responds to drugs, for example.
- VirXcel is developing a nasal spray to prevent infections, such as the common cold, in their early stages. This is a godsend for people with weak immune systems for whom a cold or flu can be life-threatening.
- YSVOGELYSVOGEL is making a device to accurately place stents in the heart at the junction of two arteries, something that, to date, fails in half the cases.
More appreciation and funding for valorization
During the grand finale, a panel discussion on valorization and impact took place, featuring Caspar van der Berg (President of the Universities of the Netherlands), Hamed Sadeghian (Founder of Nearfield Instruments), Mirjam van Praag (President of AWTI), and Constantijn van Oranje (Special Envoy of Techleap). They discussed setting up startups based on academic research. Caspar van den Berg (Universities of the Netherlands) emphasized that valorization is formally a core task of universities, in addition to education and research. Currently, teaching and research are financed with public money, but universities do not receive a budget for valorization. While that is precisely where our future earnings model will take shape, Van den Berg argues. That is why Van Praag also argues for a greater budget for valorization and impact at universities, even as the general budgets at universities are being cut.
© Jara van den Bosch
Letting go and trust
Entrepreneur Hamed Sadeghian (Nearfield Instruments) has a different take on valorization. According to him, universities should not cling so frenetically to intellectual property (IP). “Let it go and trust a startup's team,” he says. That does not mean that the knowledge institution disappears from the picture altogether; supporting these young companies remains important, Sadeghian stressed. He called for market-based agreements on the shares that a knowledge institution gets within a company.
Sadeghian would like to see universities focus more on large, scalable companies rather than numerous small spin-offs that rarely grow. Constantijn van Oranje agrees. “As a university, you would rather have a small piece of a big pie than a big piece of something that ultimately never really gets off the ground.” He also called for greater standardization of legal processes to expedite IP negotiations.
The panel agreed: more appreciation and funding are needed for valorization to make a real impact. Hamed Sadeghian closed with a call to entrepreneurs: "Think big, think long term. You sometimes lose a battle, but win the war."
