Golden Egg Check

⚡ 🎯 Get ready for a very Slushy edition of our StartupRoulette! 🫠 This round is a part of Slush 2024 (November 20-21 in Helsinki) and will help you to be introduced to great (inter)national investors that you haven't met before. The speeddates will take place digitally on 15 November, a few days before Slush, giving you the opportunity to get to know the most relevant investors beforehand. Our team helps you identify potential investors that are best suited for your stage, funding need, business model, market domain etc. If the match is good, you can follow up with them in-person in Helsinki for a coffee (or karaoke duet)! In addition, please do not forget to grab a 🍸 with Golden Egg Checks Thomas Mensink en Anna Dyachenko, who are also present in Helsinki during Slush, as well as our portfolio companies orq.ai, Roseman Labs, Deeploy, Sirius, iki.ai, Cariqa and OASYS NOW. So….do you want to get in touch with relevant investors that are active in your domain? Do not wait any longer and give your swing to the StartupRoulette by filling out this form to give us the information we need for the matchmaking: https://lnkd.in/engUyPVv

Do you want to test your product, concept or application during open events like the 10th (!) edition of #Sail or the 50th (!!) edition of the #Marathon, in the city of Amsterdam celebrating its 750th (!!!) birthday? Of course you do! 🤟 But HOW? 🤔 The answer is: join the In Residence 2025 program for Open Events of Innovatiepartners.nl! As part of their efforts to make the city more sustainable, City of Amsterdam is on the lookout for solutions that can be tested during open events. Through collaboration with partners the City aims to find innovative solutions for sustainability and circularity challenges facing both events and the city as a whole. This year, In Residence launches 6 challenges (and a Wildcard!) of which these are two: ⚡ Energy With the supply of fossil fuels slowly running out, there is a strong need for new forms of energy. Who offers solutions to store and transport this energy and to help make the energy system smarter and more sustainable? ♻️ Circulair Materials Amsterdam must be completely circular by 2050, with a total elimination of the concept of waste and a bright future for renewable and reusable materials. Who is smart enough to bring innovations that help Amsterdam become circular? The selected applicants will work together with city officials and event organizers, receive professional guidance and a budget for testing. 👉Apply before November 17th https://lnkd.in/eTkcdSKV  Marvin Pupping (Slinger) Roel Bleumer (Volta Energy) Marieke de Boer (IMPACD Boats)

See you at our event? On Friday 8 November we are hosting another Golden Egg Check Capital community event in Utrecht! You don't want to miss this! After an amazing event last year, we are organizing another informal community event. We target an intimate crowd of 120 (portfolio) founders, (international) VCs and angel investors. We aim for a diverse group of amazing people that want to learn from peers. Expect an amazing keynote speaker that will share his journey from scratch to hundreds of millions of euros over his online marketplace with 3 years to bankruptcy. Also expect fireside chats with founders & VCs, networking drinks and a walking dinner 👌 We have a limited amount of tickets and selection applies. Sign up to be on our waiting list now: https://lu.ma/0xuq0eu3 We give priority to our portfolio founders, co-investors and LPs. We are grateful with our sponsors Google Cloud (Maaike Terwindt) and Bluebird (Machiel Kunst) and [this could still be you] 🙏 Gilles Meijer Anna Dyachenko Iryna P. Edoardo Sangiorgi Ytsen van der Meer

Ready for another round?! 🎯 On November 14th, we are organizing the next edition of StartupRoulette, a speeddating event for startups and investors as part of the TTT Team Up Day in Utrecht. This event is dedicated to deep tech startups and spinoffs in the TTT program - the Thematic Technology Transfer from technical universities and research institutes in the Netherlands. It will showcase around 70 Dutch spin-offs in six themes: MedTech, Smart Industry, Circular Technology, AI, Regenerative Medicine, and Water Technology, carefully selected by TTT. To ensure that the startups are connected to the most relevant investors at the event, we will be hosting an in-person edition of StartupRoulette. Each startup will have up to three meaningful, carefully selected speeddates with investors, each is 1-on-1 and 20 minutes long. This is network building to the max! To help the startups prepare for meeting with investors, Thomas Mensink will host an online investor readiness workshop to share insights and tips on how to successfully raise venture capital. If you are part of the program but have not yet signed up, please email anna@goldeneggcheck.com before October 28th. If you are an investor, interested in one of the themes and would like to speeddate with the startups let us know or, if you're new, please sign up here: https://lnkd.in/d8PEkXxj. We may or may not have a free ticket for you 😊 📆 November 14th, 2024 🕐 12:00 - 20:00 📍 DeFabrique, Westkanaaldijk 7, Utrecht

It was incredibly busy at the booth of our portfolio company orq.ai during World Summit AI last week in Amsterdam. Co-founder Sohrab Hosseini still managed to quickly walk around in what is also called the epicenter of AI innovation. What trends caught his eye? 🔻 1️⃣ The hype is settling  “Honeymoon is really over for AI now. The hype around AI is settling down. It’s time for the ‘How’ and more and more founders are realizing that. They are heading from demos and prototypes towards production. That is sometimes harder than they expected and quite a challenge.” 🔻 2️⃣ It’s ok if AI starts small  “I noticed it during the leadership breakfast we organized for our C- or VP-level decision makers, about bringing LLM-powered products from prototype to production. It is becoming increasingly clear that you should start small with AI applications instead of immediately promising to transform the entire organization. That realization provides some peace of mind, and allows leaders to design step-by-step transformations.” 🔻 3️⃣ AI now conquers the physical world “You see more and more bridging from online to the physical world. In addition to chat bots and other online applications of AI, there is increasing attention for the interface between software and the physical world. Think of robotics and wearables such as smart glasses. Great, because then AI really adds value and also enriches the physical world.” Anthony Diaz Ties Verberne

Congrats to our portfolio companies Coolgradient and Haaven for being two of the hottest startups in Amsterdam in 2024!

Latest insights in the Dutch startup and venture capital ecosystem:  📉 Number of investments in startups down  📈 but outlook for 2024 still positive! In the third quarter of 2024, a total amount of approximately 424 million euros was invested in Dutch startups, almost the same as the amount in the same quarter in 2023 (+0.3%). Although the amount of investments has decreased slightly compared to the second quarter of 2024 (-0.7%), the total investment amount for 2024 so far exceeds 1.9 billion euros, which is already higher than the total for the whole of 2023. However, the number of deals this year is still significantly behind last year.   These are the main insights from the Quarterly Startup Report, a quarterly data analysis by Golden Egg Check together with Dealroom.co, KPMG NL Emerging Giants, the Regionale Ontwikkelingsmaatschappijen (ROM’s), Nederlandse Vereniging van Participatiemaatschappijen (NVP), Techleap, Invest-NL and Dutch Startup Association (dSa). Some other striking results in this quarter analysis: ⬇️ fewer deals in early stage  💰 a few significant investments, only Nearfield Instruments (€135M) raised a €100 million+ round  🤖 lower amount of funding for AI companies than anticipated "The third quarter is always a bit quieter due to the summer, but we have to be careful that the decrease in the number of deals does not become structural," says Thomas Mensink, CEO of Golden Egg Check. "For the third quarter in a row there is a downward trend. The invested amount is also in the top three of lowest per quarter in the past four years. Although we also see this development in countries around us, I had hoped that the way up had been found again by now." Thomas shared his insights on the funding activities in Q3 of 2024 on BNR Nieuwsradio this morning 📻 https://lnkd.in/eNRR9SZB (34:44) Read all about startup funding in Q3 in the press release: https://lnkd.in/eSXPhG55 What do you expect from Q4? Any big announcements from your side? 🤫 Iryna P. Friso Schmid Nina Chaloum Dealroom.co Myrthe Hooijman Dr. Job Andreoli Johan Schaap Orla Browne Izzy Sayers Mustafa Torun Arjan van den Born Romy Menten Felix Zwart Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau Lucien Burm

Together with 4impact capital the Golden Egg Check Capital fund gives a powerful boost to AI software startup Coolgradient! 💪 💫 This Amsterdam-based startup, founded by René Gompel and Jasper de Vries in 2023, has built a software solution to optimize complex cooling and power infrastructure operations in data centers. Coolgradient makes data centers intelligent by converting existing data into actionable recommendations and improved visibility, delivering increased reliability and improved sustainability by reducing data center infrastructure energy by up to 40%. René: “In addition to 4Impacts investment there was room for some more support. We decided to call Golden Egg Checks Thomas Mensink for advice. It was a matter of time before he brought serial entrepreneurs Jalal Bouhdada and Han de Groot as top angels. They support us financially and add a great amount of extensive data center experience and knowledge, as well as interesting network opportunities. Golden Egg Check played a key role in connecting the parties.” Han de Groot: “We are wasting TWh of energy on data centers operating inefficiently. I believe that data centers must become both more sustainable and more intelligent. By utilizing existing sensor data, the Coolgradient platform leverages AI models to optimize critical areas like energy and water usage, hardware lifespan, and reliability.” With the support of 4Impact capital, Golden Egg Check Capital and the two angels, René and Jasper secure their future. “We will launch a better and stronger platform, on which hundreds of clients can trust. And we will strengthen our current position in the United States, where we already set foot on solid ground thanks to the ScaleNL accelerator program.”

Very proud to announce: the Berlin-based startup Cariqa is the latest addition to the Golden Egg Check Capital fund! 🎉 Yesterday Cariqa announced their €1M Pre-Seed round from a range of investors from US, Europe and Asia such as Anthemis Group, Vento, Hatcher+, Techstars, Plug and Play Tech Center and Golden Egg Check Capital. 🚘 With Cariqa, EV drivers access prices directly from charge point operators without markup. Charge point operators can set prices dynamically on the platform and rest assured those prices will be passed on to the customer directly. With the new investment Cariqa is ready to take on the inefficiencies in the EV charging world. ⚡ “Our mission is to contribute to the transition to sustainable mobility by creating a fairer and more efficient charging market. We aim to help charge point operators maximize their utilization rates and revenues while ensuring drivers pay a fair and transparent price,” said Cariqa CEO Issam Tidjani in this interview on EU-Startups: https://lnkd.in/eNhvPYbh Issam's fundraising advice to other founders: “As first-time founders, fundraising has been a steep learning curve. Our biggest takeaway is that building strong relationships with investors before the actual fundraising process creates better conditions later on." Is he already thinking about the next round? "We're now full-focus in building mode, but soon we'll be having chats with VCs to keep them up-to-date about our progress and take them through our vision.” Thomas Mensink (Golden Egg Check): “We are very excited to be part of Cariqa’s journey. We've been in touch with Tamara Ciullo, Issam Tidjani and the rest of the team now for some time after they joined one of our editions of StartupRoulette. We're very impressed by them, their vision and progress. We see a lot of potential in payments for the EV market, and we believe Cariqa’s team is up for the challenge. Very pleased to have you in our GEC family!”  Anna Dyachenko Gilles Meijer Edoardo Sangiorgi Ytsen van der Meer https://lnkd.in/erWw-7NU Jeremy Brown Tim Grace Alireza Masrour Mario La Pergola

Today we announce our latest investment in Berlin-based Cariqa! “Our mission is to contribute to the transition to sustainable mobility by creating a fairer and more efficient charging market. We aim to help charge point operators maximize their utilization rates and revenues while ensuring drivers pay a fair and transparent price,” said Issam Tidjani, CEO of Cariqa. We see a lot of potential in payments for the EV market, and we believe Cariqa’s team is up for the challenge. Very pleased to have you in our GEC family!