Eni, one of the supermajor energy companies worldwide, and Unknown Group, a global venture capital and business development firm that helps founders venture beyond known, share the ambition of creating sustainable impact by supporting a just energy transition.
This shared ambition added to the myriad of opportunities in Angola – a country with tremendous potential for the energy transition – brought to life the Sustainable Impact Challenge. This challenge is meant to fuel founders from around the world and locally from Angola, to successfully bring their innovations in water management, environmental protection, and off-grid energy to the market. Relevant solutions for this challenge are able to provide electricity and clean fuel to the rural communities, tackle waste management and eliminate chemicals to minimize the negative impact.
With its launch today, Jurgen Nieuwenhuijsen, COO & Partner at Unknown Group, is ready to bring operational excellence to this program: “We are excited to support Eni in their daring drive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. With this program, we support like-minded founders to successfully bring their innovations to the market together with ENI”.
Acting as a gateway partner to Africa, Eni is providing collaboration opportunities in the region for the most promising startups and scaleups. To ensure founders are aware of the great business opportunities, Eni will provide all the necessary tools and insights towards a future adoption of their solutions and a just energy transition.
Eni is seeking the brightest minds for innovative startups and scaleups to launch sustainable solutions in Angola. The Sustainable Impact Challenge is for local and global ventures to bring their solutions to Africa and make a lasting impact to empower local communities and their development. To apply, visit the Sustainable Impact Challenge webpage.
The Hague, September 7. Today Unknown Workforce Technologies, Unknown Group’s Venture Engine® dedicated to making physical work safer and healthier is delighted to announce a partnership with EIT Manufacturing, an innovation community supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
Both partner organizations are aligned on adding unique value to European products, processes and services and inspiring the creation of globally competitive and sustainable manufacturing. Furthermore, they share a common belief that innovative startup solutions are the key to unlocking Europe’s potential as an impact-driven manufacturing powerhouse of the future.
EIT Manufacturing, through its Co-location Center Central (CLC Central), and Unknown Workforce Technologies will work together to provide innovation and business creation opportunities in Europe for deserving startups from around the world. By leveraging Unknown’s global network in 110+ countries and proprietary scouting intelligence platform, this partnership will have a finger on the pulse of manufacturing innovations globally and be in the best position to aid innovative solutions in scaling to the EU.
Focus areas include flexible and low environmental footprint manufacturing systems, digital collaborative solutions for teams, human-machine co-working and technologies such as VR/AR, Predictive Maintenance, Exoskeletons, Smart Wearables, Advanced Robotics and physical protection.
Furthermore, both organizations bring to the table considerable networks of startup solutions, industry-leading corporates, academic and scientific experts and investors to help startups to land pilots and collaborations.
Jochem Cuppen, Partner at Unknown and Director of Unknown Workforce Technologies said: “We are very happy to be partnering up with a leading manufacturing network like EIT Manufacturing. We both have big ambitions for the future of the manufacturing industry in Europe and are aligned on the belief that startup-corporate collaborations are the best way to achieve them”.
Wolfgang Kniejski, Senior Business Creation Manager at EIT Manufacturing CLC Central said: “Our cooperation with the Unknown Group contributes significantly towards bringing European manufacturing stakeholders together in innovation ecosystems that add unique value to competitive and sustainable manufacturing”.
As a first step, in November 2021, both Unknown Workforce Technologies and EIT Manufacturing will co-host a dealmaking event for 8 promising European startups with leading corporates, governments and investors. Further details will be provided closer to the event.
About Unknown Group
Unknown is an early-stage venture capital and business development firm, supporting founders and industry leaders to successfully bring innovations to the market: a “Venture Engine®”. With a fresh approach delivering venture success, lining up the industry and creating a pool of solutions ready to be adopted by the market.
With the Unknown Workforce Technologies Venture Engine®, Unknown has created a portfolio of companies committed to make physical work safer and healthier – with this portfolio they reach over 1.5 million workers. Together with industry leaders, Unknown selects the best ventures worldwide and brings them forward – investing and actively supporting them to bring their solutions to market with a vast network of leading corporates.
For Press Enquiries:
Rayhaan Imam
About EIT Manufacturing
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) strengthens Europe’s ability to innovate by powering solutions to pressing global challenges and by nurturing entrepreneurial talent to create sustainable growth and skilled jobs in Europe. The EIT is an EU body which is an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The Institute supports the development of dynamic pan-European partnerships – EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities – among leading companies, research labs and universities.
EIT Manufacturing is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. It is one of eight innovation communities within EIT. The others are EIT Climate-KIC, EIT Digital, EIT Food, EIT Health, EIT InnoEnergy, EIT Raw Materials, and EIT Urban Mobility. EIT Manufacturing’s main goal is to bring European stakeholders focused on manufacturing together in innovation ecosystems that add unique value to European products, processes and services and inspire the creation of globally competitive and sustainable manufacturing. EIT Manufacturing brings together more than 65 organisations (universities, research institutes and business).
For Press Enquiries:
Christina Bertholdt
christina.bertholdt@eitmanufacturing.eu
As a Venture Engine, Unknown creates networks of industry leaders alongside a pool of validated solutions and founders. A crucial third element to the Venture Engine is a strong belief in public-private partnership.
Public procurement and participation in knowledge infrastructure creation can provide opportunities for ventures and industry leaders to strategically scale their solutions and increase their impact. Also, new ventures can benefit from policies at the national, European, and global level that aim to support ecosystem development.
With over a decade of experience venturing in the ecosystems of 110+ countries with Get in the Ring, we leverage our expertise with startups and founders to unlock innovation ecosystems globally – from Singapore to Kosovo, Groningen to Mozambique and Rotterdam to Oman. To further strengthen our attention towards the Public Domain, we are delighted to announce two senior-level appointments: Dr. Hein Roelfsema and Alessio Caracci.
As our new Director for Public Domain, Dr. Hein Roelfsema brings to the table 30 years of experience in entrepreneurship. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Dutch Centers for Entrepreneurship as well as the Managing Director for The Netherlands at the Global Entrepreneurship Network. For the last three decades, he has been an Associate Professor for International Entrepreneurship at Utrecht University. Elaborating on his vision for Unknown’s initiatives in the public domain, Dr. Roelfsema said: “At Unknown Group, our Venture Engine should contribute to solving global challenges. To be effective in doing so, we need to connect to local and national ecosystems as well as the policy initiatives that shape them”.
Alessio Caracci joins Unknown Group as Manager of Public Domain. He brings with him seven years of experience in innovation funding strategies, especially at EU level. Alessio has supported multiple innovative startups across a variety of industries, securing and managing grants from the European Commission. He has previously been the Innovation Quality Manager and COO of Alien Technology Transfer, one of the leading public funding advisory firms in Europe. When asked about what value his appointment will bring to startups, Caracci said: “Our goal is to provide founders with new tools to fuel their growth by playing in the public funding domain the same role we successfully play for so many leading corporations”.
Unknown Group CEO, Hendrik Halbe said ”The global challenges we want to solve at Unknown requires public-private collaboration. Scale-ups in our Venture Engine need to collaborate with the public domain also, to access networks and funding opportunities. The appointments of Hein – with his three-decades of expertise in academic entrepreneurship – and Alessio – who is uniquely positioned to give us an edge with European Commission subsidies – is a statement to our ambitions in the public domain”.
For Press Enquiries:
Rayhaan Imam
The Hague, April 14. Unknown Group is delighted to announce the appointment of Frank de Meijer as Brazilian Market Partner. As an active presence in the Brazilian venturing ecosystem and a Partner for 18 years at EY Brazil, de Meijer will be leading Unknown’s expansion into the LATAM (Latin American) market.
In his new role, de Meijer will be working closely with local and international founders to successfully bring their solution to scale in the LATAM market. He will also work with Brazilian industry leaders to leverage the innovation power of the best ventures in the world to create bottom line results.
Speaking on his new role, de Meijer says: “Venturing with founders is not new in the Brazilian market. Various industries already do work with inhouse or joined Innovation Labs and Hubs, where ventures work together with Industry leaders. However, with the Venture Engine, Unknown can bring a much broader ecosystem to the Brazilian market, as being an international player with a global footprint. Brazilian companies can become more global when being connected with international ventures, and adopt international innovative ideas and solutions.”
Unknown Group CEO, Hendrik Halbe said: “We’re very happy to have Frank on board. He brings with him 18 years of experience in the Brazilian market. Frank’s network and experience forms a new gateway for Unknown into the LATAM market. At Unknown, our ambition is to fuel founders worldwide to answer their calling and venture beyond known. I’m confident that Frank is the right person to lead us into Brazil”.
About Unknown Group
Unknown is an early-stage venture capital and business development firm, supporting founders and industry leaders to successfully bring innovations to the market: a “Venture Engine®”. With a fresh approach delivering venture success, lining up the industry and creating a pool of solutions ready to be adopted by the market.
Unknown is a merger between VenturesOne group and Unknown Group. Unknown’s experience in global startup scouting and corporate venturing, combined with the investment expertise of VenturesOne, strengthens the ambition to increase the success rate of innovations that address pressing local and global challenges.
For Press Enquiries:
Rayhaan Imam
Jeroen joins Unknown as an expert in international business development, having set up startup accelerator programs from Australia to USA and South Africa to Italy. In his new role, he will be leading Unknown’s commercial activities and international expansion.
The Hague, March 22. Unknown Group is delighted to announce the appointment of Jeroen van den Bosch as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). Speaking on his new role, van den Bosch adds: “I am passionate about the impact young ventures make on industries and societies. I have seen that for bringing solutions to scale fast, a collaboration with the industry is not only crucial, but also mutually beneficial. However, the complexity of bringing such collaborations to bottom-line results, asks for a powerful toolbox, which I believe the Unknown Group’s Venture Engine is. I’m therefore very excited to join this ambitious team and venture into the Unknown together!”
Unknown Group CEO, Hendrik Halbe said ”We’re delighted to welcome Jeroen to the Unknown Group family. I’ve been closely following his career since his first venture and I’m looking forward to seeing him lead our Commercial Team. We have big ambitions and I’m convinced that Jeroen’s expertise in helping ventures and industry leaders bring their collaborations to scale, will play a crucial role in taking us there. ”
As CCO, Jeroen joins the Leadership Team of Unknown Group. His announcement comes after two recent leadership appointments – SciSports founder, Giels Brouwer as CTO and former EY Partner, Madelon Bangma, as CFO.
Last week, it was announced that Jeroen’s predecessor as CCO, Jochem Cuppen will be leading the next growth stage of the Unknown Workforce Technologies venture engine and will be focusing his efforts on setting up a € 100 million fund to scale technologies that make the future of work safer and healthier.
For Press Enquiries:
Rayhaan Imam
Building venture engines around global challenges that need to be solved in the next 10 years together with industry leaders is central to Unknown Group. Jochem Cuppen, Partner at Unknown Group is leading the next stage of development of our venture engine, Unknown Workforce Technologies.
Why is this topic of strategic importance to Unknown? Jochem explains: “The health and safety of workers in physical jobs is a global challenge. We see space to create tangible impact for workforces around the world. Our vision is to make workers the athletes of tomorrow. We’re bringing together a network of top leaders in a domain – industry players and innovative solutions – that can make physical work safer and healthier.”
By scaling technologies that make work healthier, Unknown Workforce Technologies venture engine will realize safer work conditions for employees, consequently improving their quality of life. Companies today have a responsibility to their workforces to invest in solutions that positively impact their health.
When quizzed about their accomplishments in the last year, Jochem answers: “Our main focus has been to build and activate our co-creation and co-investment community. The Workforce Technologies venture engine has facilitated 25+ collaborations. For example, we brokered a match between a market leading technology manufacturer with a data analytics company to measure and validate the positive effects of their devices on users and further strengthen their proposition”. He continues: “Another time, we connected a leading Japanese tech giant with a direct solution to a major pain point – improving warehousing and logistics via wearable technology for their smart factories. It is an exciting time to be in the Workforce Technologies domain and we’re glad to be in the thick of things”.
In the last year, the Unknown Workforce Technologies venture engine has grown to consist of 32 corporate partners and 35 innovative workforce solutions that are validated by a selection of 40 industry experts. By creating networks of industry leaders alongside a pool of validated solutions and their founders, the venture engine empowers the founders in the Unknown Group network.
Another feather in the cap of the venture engine is the Get in the Ring Workforce Augmentation Competition, which was launched to identify the most innovative workforce augmentation solutions globally. With events in Singapore, Toulouse, Hyderabad and Eindhoven, the competition was host to numerous potentially game changing solutions. Speaking on the added value of these events, Jochem remarks: “At our event in Eindhoven, we facilitated the connection between a participating venture and two market leaders in the construction and automotive industries. They were quite amazed by this venture’s anti-vibration technology and are keen to adopt it for their workforces. Forging these strategic collaborations is key to the development of the venture engine. ”
What’s next for the Unknown Workforce Technologies venture engine? Jochem concludes: “Over the last year we have proven our value-add to our partners. Joining our venture engine gives industry leaders unprecedented access to intelligence, discovering possibilities and acting on collaboration opportunities to help scale technologies that make work healthier. If your organization is interested in joining us and gaining a competitive advantage, get in touch with me on LinkedIn or drop me an email at jochem@unknowngroup.com“.
The Hague, February 5: Unknown Group is delighted to announce the appointment of Giels Brouwer as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Brouwer joins Unknown Group as a seasoned entrepreneur and specialist in product development, machine learning and data intelligence. He previously founded leading sport performance analytics scaleups, SciSports and BallJames, where he will continue to remain active as a shareholder and advisor to the board.
Under his direction, both SciSports and BallJames pioneered a data-driven approach to scout football players, which was adopted by the world’s leading football clubs such as Olympique Lyon, Leeds United and Ajax. In recent years, SciSports have built a fully-automated solution that quantifies the quality, potential and value of every professional football player in the world. In 2017 SciSports received the award for Most Innovative Football Company in the World by the HYPE Foundation.
As CTO, Brouwer joins Edward de Jager (Chairman), Hendrik Halbe (CEO), Madelon Bangma (CFO), Hans Peddemors (Chief Investment), Jurgen Nieuwenhuijsen (COO), Jochem Cuppen (CCO) and Andy Mosmans (CMO) in Unknown Group’s leadership team. As an early-stage venture capital and business development firm, Unknown supports founders and industry leaders to successfully bring innovations to market.
Speaking on his ambitions as CTO, Brouwer said: “My biggest passion is to flag and identify hidden gems. This is what drove me to start SciSports and grow it into the global market leader. I am eager to leverage all this experience by building a state-of-the-art scouting engine in the startup industry with Unknown Group. We will grow our tech team that will drive innovation and create scalable products within the Unknown Group and our portfolio ventures.”
“Unlocking the world’s talent to solve the challenges of the next ten years. That’s what drives us at Unknown Group. That talent is not only found in places like Silicon Valley. With Giels strengthening the team we take another huge step in our ability to find talented founders in all corners of the world.” said Unknown Group’s COO, Jurgen Nieuwenhuijsen.
Brouwers appointment as CTO comes in the same week as the merger announcement between Unknown Group and VenturesOne. Giels Brouwer concludes: ”I have known Unknown Group since their first Get in the Ring event on which we participated as SciSports back in 2012. Over the years, I’ve stayed in touch with the leadership team of the company. The recent merger with VenturesOne gives Unknown the extra edge to go beyond known and I am delighted to join these bright minds on this exciting adventure.”
For media enquiries:
Rayhaan Imam
(+31) 633 477 292
February 3, The Hague. Today, VenturesOne Group and Unknown Group have officially announced the completion of their merger. The newly merged company will be known as Unknown Group, located in The Hague and Singapore.
Unknown is an early-stage venture capital and business development firm, supporting founders and industry leaders to successfully bring innovations to the market: a “Venture Engine®”. Unknown’s experience in global startup scouting and corporate venturing, combined with the investment expertise of VenturesOne, strengthens the ambition to increase the success rate of innovations that address pressing local and global challenges.
VenturesOne has built a diversified portfolio and investment structure and scaled companies from seed investment to IPO. With offices in The Hague and Singapore, their investment portfolio includes programmatic advertising market leader- JustPremium, mechanical exoskeleton pioneer – Skelex, natural skincare and cosmetics manufacturer – Naif, and leading provider of data analysis from satellite and aerial imagery – Geospatial Insight, amongst other shareholdings in Food, Education and Insurtech. “We go beyond known with the founders of impactful ventures. Venturing shoulder to shoulder, with skin in the game, empowering them along their journey with a global scaling network and entrepreneurial expertise.” – Edward de Jager, Chairman of Unknown Group
Established in 2008, Unknown Group has developed a global network in innovation and entrepreneurship. Unknown partnered with more than 200 corporate and governmental organizations to scale open innovation and corporate venturing activities, such as DSM, Fujitsu and NATO. Unknown’s global startup competition, “Get in the Ring”, provides access to startups and talented founders in more than 220 cities, offering a global platform for thousands of founders every year to test, validate and scale their solutions. Previous Get in the Ring winners include Indonesia’s IoT fishfeeding machine maker eFishery, Israel’s grasshopper producer for the food industry Hargol FoodTech and South Korea’s braille smartwatch maker Dot Incorporate each of which has subsequently secured significant investments. The winner of the competition in 2013, EyeVerify, was acquired by Ant Financial three years later for USD 100 million.
Unknown Group’s portfolio includes the Global School for Entrepreneurship – an accredited University of Applied Sciences with a 4 year full-time bachelor program on entrepreneurship, and Cupola XS – a knowledge and innovation centre for SME companies in the renovated prison dome of Haarlem, the Netherlands.
Hendrik Halbe (CEO Unknown Group) during opening of Get in the Ring office at Apollo 14, The Hague in 2019. Photo credit: Holland Park Media
“Unknown stands for supporting ventures that are intoxicated by the possibilities of global impact, but are real about forging an organic and sustainable growth path” – Hendrik Halbe, CEO Unknown Group
NOTE FOR EDITORS
For more information about Unknown Group and the merger with VenturesOne please contact Rayhaan Imam via rayhaan@unknowngroup.com and +31 (0)63347 7292