Innovative winners of first round BL.INC announced

Thursday, June 11, the virtual closing event of the first round of incubation and acceleration program BL.INC took place. During the Grand Finale, the judges pronounced startup Faeïg the winner. AgroWizard walked away with the most votes from the public.

BL.INC is the accelerator for entrepreneurs who want to innovate in the field of healthy and safe food, future farming or biocircular economy. "With BL.INC we want to help startups in the agri-food sector to create a promising business model," says project leader Elle Janssen of Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo.

The first round of BL.INC started in early March with the six Limburg startups Aigro, AgroWizard, Faeïg, My-Pro, NutriWorkx and the Test & Taste Center. All startups are active in the three themes of Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo and want to contribute with their innovation to a green and sustainable world. Recently, we looked back on the successes of this first round in an interview with project leader Elle Janssen.

Pitches

During the finals, the startups pitched their progress to a jury consisting of chairman Ralph Coenen (director Vitacress Real), Mariëlle Geelen (director HAS University of Applied Sciences Venlo), Anneke van de Kamp (member Topteam Horticulture & Starting Materials) and Ivo Ploegsma (owner FoodWorkx). The jury judged the startups on entrepreneurship and economic feasibility of the ideas. The public winner was announced by Hubert Mackus, representative for Agriculture, Landscape and Mobility of the province of Limburg.

The jury winner

Jury winner Faeïg is developing a fully biodegradable stick that replaces the old-fashioned tea bag. The stick can be used in both hot and cold water. The jury felt that this startup had made huge strides during the BL.INC program, praised the durability of the stick and saw a very good starting point for this new patented product in the market.

The public winner

AgroWizard won the audience award. This AgTech joint venture of Limburg SMEs Genzai, Boomkwekerij Fleuren and Bluehub helps agricultural entrepreneurs make better decisions through precision farming technologies. The first product is the TreeWizard: a stem thickness meter that fully automatically measures the stem thickness of avenue and fruit trees on a plot.

Round two

BL.INC is a collaboration of the North Limburg region, Rabobank, LIOF and Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. In July the 2nd round will start, this time for scale-ups! Are you interested in participating? For more information please visit www.brightlands.com.