Team

Over 30 years experience in the electronics industry in consumer electronics, semiconductors, telecommunication, software and computer architecture. Served at Philips Research, Philips Telecommunications Division, Manager IC design group, CTO, Managing Director at Philips Semiconductors, President Philips Semiconductors North America, CEO Digital Video Group. In 2000 he followed a long-term ambition to be entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and co–founded, mentored, was interim CEO of or invested in start up companies and was involved in one IPO and several M&A activities. His dream is to help start–up companies in The Netherlands and help create a smart money venture capital environment. Msc/PhD from Delft University (TUD) and serves on the Board of XCeive, Techwell and Adesto.

Worked for almost 20 years in the financial industry with ABN Amro Bank. Nicolaas has experience in the areas of corporate banking, structured finance, corporate finance, IT strategy and venture capital. From 2005 – 2009 he was member of the Technopartner Seed Advisory Committee and he is currently member of the SenterNovem Groeifaciliteit Advisory Committee and the Eureka Advisory Committee. Nicolaas holds a business economics Msc degree from the University of Amsterdam.

Loek Nijman has broad experience in research and he has been active in various functions from researcher to senior vice president in fields such as solid state physics, integrated circuit technology, parallel computing, robotics, natural language processing, speech recognition and medical image processing. His dream is to produce value and growth while creating jobs for people. Gradually his interest in venturing has grown and so he has been the founder of the speech recognition business in Philips and stood at the birth of the Philips Technology Incubator and some of its ventures. He also negotiated the deal of Philips Research with New Venture Partners. Recently he founded the healthcare incubator.

Dr. Ir. Theo Claasen heeft meer dan 35 jaar ervaring in digitale signaalbewerking en micro–elektronica. Hij heeft vanaf de start in 1985 leiding gegeven aan het IC design centrum van het Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium en is in 1997 CTO van Philips Semiconductors geworden. Hij heeft meegewerkt aan de verzelfstandiging van deze divisie (in 2006) waarbij NXP werd gecreëerd en is tot zijn pensioen lid geweest van de raad van bestuur van NXP. Daarbij heeft hij de verantwoordelijkheid gehad voor de strategie en voor diverse acquisities en de verkoop van verschillende bedrijfsonderdelen. Op dit moment is hij actief in micro–electronica firma´s als adviseur voor strategische aangelegenheden. Door zijn deelname aan het Point One Investment Fund hoopt hij zijn uitgebreide expertise ter beschikking te kunnen stellen aan veelbelovende jonge ondernemers en daarmee zowel economisch succes als werkgelegenheid in de bedrijfstak van micro–elektronica te brengen. Dr. Claasen is Fellow van de IEEE.

Dr. Hans Sassenburg received a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) in 1986 and a PhD degree in economics from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) in 2006. He worked as an independent consultant until 1996, when he co-founded a consulting and training firm. This company specialized in software process improvement and software architecture and was sold in 2000. In 2001 he moved to Switzerland, where he founded a new consulting and training firm SE–CURE AG (www.se–cure.ch). In addition, he has been a visiting scientist at the Software Engineering Institute since January of 2005. He is further involved as a venture partner and business coach in early-staged investments in technology growth companies. He is a widely published and well–known speaker on software management topics.

Dr. Erik Volkerink is Chief Scientist at Verigy Memory Test Solutions and Consulting Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of Stanford University. He contributes to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). Previously, he worked with HP, Agilent, and various smaller companies in the Netherlands. He is president of the Dutch School Silicon Valley which he founded in 2000. He holds a Ph.D. in Semiconductor Design & Test from Stanford University and a Master´s from the University of Twente. He studied Marketing and Venture Capital at The Wharton School of Business.

Casper Koomen is founder of Combustic, an Industrial Design company focusing on product concept development for consumer, mobile, web and other product areas. Casper has a MsC degree from Delft University of Technology in Industrial Design. He works with various companies and technology institutions where he focuses on product design and business creation.