Startup matchmaking gets a Brainpool of its own in Eindhoven

“DPD is one of the best networking events,” founder Dilip Kumar told the audience. “But finding the right co-founder is still too time-consuming and inefficient.”

The Eindhoven startup ecosystem thrives on serendipity. Founders bump into engineers at meetups, developers meet designers over beers, and startup dreams often begin during events like Gerard & Anton’s Demos, Pitches & Drinks (DPD). But according to entrepreneur Dilip Kumar, there is still one stubborn bottleneck slowing many startups down: finding the right people at the very earliest stage.

That challenge became the starting point for BrainPool, the platform Kumar pitched during the latest edition of Demos, Pitches & Drinks in Eindhoven. His idea is simple, but taps directly into one of the most persistent frustrations inside startup communities everywhere: how do you find a co-founder, early employee, or specialist partner before you even have a real company?

Kumar knows the problem from experience. After moving to the Netherlands seven years ago, he worked with several medical device startups and became deeply embedded in the regional entrepreneurial scene. Over time, he noticed the same conversation repeating itself across networking events and WhatsApp groups. “There is one problem that was quite common to most of these entrepreneurs,” he explained during his pitch. “How to find your co-founders or teammates when you are super early in your startup journey.”

Beyond random networking

The startup world already has countless networking opportunities. Eindhoven alone offers a dense ecosystem of meetups, accelerator programs, investor sessions, and informal gatherings. Yet Kumar argues that most of these interactions still rely heavily on chance. “You see people posting the same questions in WhatsApp groups, looking for connections,” he said. “But it is a bit time-consuming and not super efficient.”

That inefficiency is precisely what Brainpool tries to address. The platform functions as a matchmaking environment for startup teams. Users log in with their LinkedIn account, create a profile detailing their skills, ambitions, desired roles, and availability, and are then matched through a scoring system.

Kumar was careful to downplay the current AI hype surrounding matchmaking platforms. “It’s not AI, not LLM,” he joked. “It’s just a simple algorithm.” That simplicity may actually be part of the appeal. Rather than promising magical automation, Brainpool focuses on practical compatibility between people looking to build something together.

The platform allows users not only to present themselves individually but also to create project pages once an idea starts becoming more concrete. Founders can describe their vision, define multiple roles they are trying to fill, and begin conversations directly through an integrated chat feature.

A familiar startup pain point

The problem Brainpool tackles is larger than Eindhoven alone. Across Europe, early-stage startups frequently struggle not with ideas, but with team formation. Technical founders search for commercial talent. Business-oriented entrepreneurs look for developers. Scientists need operators who can turn research into scalable companies.

In ecosystems built around deep tech, that challenge becomes even sharper. Startups emerging from universities or research institutes often require highly specialized expertise across engineering, product development, regulation, fundraising, and business development.

Kumar clearly sees Brainpool as infrastructure for that broader ecosystem. “The goal is to enable the ecosystem to grow startups or to build startups faster,” he said. That ambition explains why he specifically called for partnerships with organizations connected to Eindhoven’s innovation networks, mentioning communities such as HighTechXL and other deep-tech startup hubs.

For now, Brainpool itself remains an early-stage venture. Kumar openly admitted he is still looking for commercial support. “I’m a developer, I’m not a sales guy,” he told the audience with a smile. “So I’m looking for somebody who can help with the business side of this tool.”

That honesty fitted well within the atmosphere of Demos, Pitches & Drinks, where many presenters are still refining both their product and their story in real time.

Building ecosystems by building teams

What makes BrainPool interesting is not just the platform itself, but the underlying assumption: that startup ecosystems succeed or fail based on how quickly the right people can find each other.

In places like Eindhoven, where talent density is high but time is scarce, reducing friction in those early connections could have an outsized effect. A missed co-founder match may mean a startup never gets built at all.

Kumar’s pitch therefore touched on something deeper than recruitment software. BrainPool is essentially trying to digitize one of the most unpredictable elements of entrepreneurship: chemistry between people.

And perhaps that is why the concept resonated in a room full of founders, engineers, investors, and innovators. Almost everyone in the audience had probably experienced the same challenge at some point: having an idea, but not yet the team to make it real.