Last week, the HortiScience Innovation Center (HIC) officially opened the HIC Venture Studio in Bleiswijk — a venture studio dedicated entirely to horticulture. The goal is clear: to attract more startups into the horticultural sector. This new initiative, located inside an actual greenhouse, provides a physical meeting space where innovation and collaboration can flourish. It's part of the broader HortiScience Innovation Center, which launched earlier in spring 2024.
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During the festive opening, it became clear how science and entrepreneurship are coming together in this studio to help make the greenhouse horticulture sector more resilient and future-ready.
A venture studio acts as a kind of startup incubator where new companies are built systematically from the ground up. Ideas are developed, tested, and shaped into fully fledged businesses that share expertise, resources, and facilities. This model has already proven successful in other industries as a way to accelerate innovation, startups emerging from such studios tend to grow faster and deliver higher returns.
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Loet Rummenie, director of HIC, explains: "What makes this venture studio unique is that entrepreneurs retain ownership of their own companies while also becoming co-participants in every new venture. This gives them a direct incentive to share knowledge, networks, and expertise, while benefiting from shared infrastructure and professional support. In this way, we make sure innovations reach the market faster and have a greater impact on the horticultural sector."
The HIC Venture Studio focuses on six key themes that reflect the major transitions currently shaping greenhouse horticulture: energy, resilient cultivation systems, circularity, autonomous growing, automation, and future-proof working. These themes serve as the guiding framework for the innovations and startups that will emerge within the studio.
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The establishment of the HIC Venture Studio has been made possible through the support of regional partners, including the Metropolitan Region Rotterdam The Hague (MRDH) and the Municipality of Lansingerland.
Lennert Onvlee from MRDH emphasizes the importance of collaboration: "The HIC Venture Studio strengthens our region's innovation capacity. By connecting entrepreneurs, research institutes, governments, and businesses, we can speed up the development and implementation of sustainable solutions for greenhouse horticulture. This initiative creates new opportunities for growth, employment, and international visibility, exactly what our region needs right now." MRDH supports the project as part of its broader agenda to foster a strong and competitive economic environment.
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Rummenie emphasizes that collaboration is at the heart of the venture studio: "We can only build these startups successfully if we combine our knowledge and networks. That's why we're very pleased to have our first two partners on board: Catalyze Group, which helps attract funding and grants, and EP&C, which supports the development of strong intellectual property (IP) strategies for the new companies."
For more information:
HortiScience Innovation Center
[email protected]
www.hiceu.com
