Deep tech
Approach
Deep divePartner
NXTGEN Hightech, Health~HollandDate
April 16, 2026Reading time
5 minutesOur society faces major challenges: healthcare costs are rising, the demand for sustainable food production is growing, and the development of new medicines needs to be faster and cheaper. At the same time, we are looking for ways to use fewer animal experiments and to handle resources more efficiently. New technology can help address these issues.
LTR: Yvonne Greeuw, Ingrid Relou, Carmen van Vilsteren
Lab-on-Chip can accelerate innovation across multiple sectors. Those who can generate reliable data more quickly can make decisions faster in research, development, and manufacturing. This shortens development times, reduces costs, and makes it easier to bring new technologies to market.
For the Netherlands, this offers opportunities. The technology aligns with various strong sectors, such as Life Sciences & Health, Agrifood, and the Bio-based economy. Because Lab-on-Chip is applicable in all these areas, knowledge, facilities, and investments can be shared more often. This creates an ecosystem where new ideas can develop more quickly into applications.
Moreover, the Netherlands has a strong ecosystem around Lab-on-Chip. In regions such as Twente, Leiden, Eindhoven, and Wageningen, universities, research institutes, and companies collaborate on new applications.
To eliminate these bottlenecks, NXTGEN Hightech, Health~Holland, and Invest-NL are collaborating. NXTGEN Hightech unites startups, scaleups, research institutions, and hospitals to accelerate the journey from development to application. Health~Holland promotes public-private collaboration within the Life Sciences & Health sector, partly through the PPS subsidy scheme (PPS-I).
Invest-NL helps bridge the funding gap by providing capital and financing solutions that match the risk profile of Deep tech innovations. Together, these parties are working on better conditions for the ecosystem: more collaboration, improved access to shared facilities, and a more realistic pathway to market entry.
With this deep dive we aimed to better understand what the Dutch Lab-on-Chip landscape looks like: where the opportunities are, where the challenges lie, and what role Invest-NL can play to advance this technology
Yvonne GreeuwSenior Investment Manager
The foundation for further growth is in place. Through targeted collaboration, improved infrastructure, and appropriate funding, Lab-on-Chip can accelerate its development from promising technology to widespread application. The next step is to bring innovations from prototype to practice more quickly, ensuring that solutions actually reach companies, healthcare providers, and patients.
In this way, a technology that fits on a tiny chip can develop into a major driver for new solutions in healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable industry.
Yvonne Greeuw
sr. investment manager
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