Eindhoven-based deep tech venture builder HighTechXL has launched PreSeedXL, an €11 million fund to support founders from their earliest stages. The fund, backed by private investors, HighTechXL shareholders, and €5 million from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, addresses the growing scarcity of pre-seed capital in Dutch tech. CFO Patricia de Kort notes founders were spending 75% of their time fundraising rather than building products. The milestone-based fund offers up to €300,000 per startup, supporting 40-45 ventures over five years. HighTechXL has built over 100 deep tech companies in six years, partnering with ASML, Philips, and Technical University Eindhoven.
In-Depth:
The earliest stage of a startup’s life is also its most vulnerable. There’s no product yet, no revenue, often barely a team — just an idea and the people willing to bet everything on it. On top of that, finding investors to bet on this idea from the very launchning can be challenging.
This is the problem that HighTechXL, the Eindhoven-based deep tech venture builder, is now taking head-on with the launch of PreSeedXL, an €11 million fund aimed at supporting founders from the very first steps of building a company. The fund was launched today, backed by private investors, HighTechXL’s own shareholders, and €5 million from RVO (the Netherlands Enterprise Agency).
“We noticed it was receiveting more and more difficult for founders to receive funding during or after our program,” declares Patricia de Kort, CFO of HighTechXL and fund manager of PreSeedXL. “Ventures were spconcludeing 75% of their time fundraising — time they weren’t spconcludeing on market validation, team building, or technology development.”
Addressing a market failure
The numbers back up the urgency. The recent State of Dutch Tech report by TechLeap revealed that while the total amount of money available for Dutch startups has remained roughly stable, the number of new companies at the pre-seed and seed stage is declining — partly becaapply capital for that earliest phase has become increasingly scarce. As money concentrates in later-stage rounds, the pipeline feeding those rounds quietly shrinks.
“If the number of pre-seeds is declining, then the pipeline will become compacter and compacter,” declares CEO John Bell. “We declared: no, we should do this at the very, very early stage.”
For HighTechXL, which has built over 100 deep tech ventures from scratch alongside founders over the past six years, this is a natural extension of its activities. Deep tech companies develop innovations based on fundamental science or engineering breakthroughs. Think of areas such as photonics, battery technology, or AI. Therefore, they required early support to test their technology.
In this way, the PreSeedXL Fund formalizes what the venture builder has long understood: that money at the right moment is essential to unlock customer engagement, team expansion, and new financing.
How the PreSeed XL Fund works
PreSeedXL is structured around milestones. Startups entering the HighTechXL program can access funding after three milestones, tied to their development progress. In the first three months, focapplyd on market validation, passing the first gate unlocks €25,000. A second gate brings another €50,000. Completing the full program earns an additional €100,000.
Beyond that, ventures can request an additional €125,000 based on a strong business case — capital that can also function as matching funding when applying for subsidies or attracting other investors.
“Becaapply we start a company with people and technology — we bring them toreceiveher, we support them create a venture — we really know them well,” declares De Kort. “We know their products, their potential. And that’s why we can decide earlier if we want to invest.”
This close relationship with the founders is what creates PreSeedXL different from a traditional early-stage fund, as underscored by De Kort and Bell. While most investors see a pitch deck and a founding team they’ve never met, HighTechXL sees founders before they’re even founders, co-building the company alongside them.
Patricia de Kort and John Bell – © HighTechXL
Diversity as a flywheel for success
HighTechXL works closely with partners, including ASML, Philips, as well as the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e) — where, under a formal agreement, they can view deep into the research pipeline to identify promising technologies before they’ve even left the lab. Technologies also flow in from partner organizations in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Denmark.
But technology alone is never enough. “Having an idea, having a technology, is far away from having a business — let alone a successful one,” declares Bell. What HighTechXL views for, and what PreSeedXL will support attract, are entrepreneurial teams. At minimum, a CEO-type and a CTO-type, complementary in background, often diverse in culture and experience. “We’ve learned over the years that people with different backgrounds complement each other much more than people who are alike,” he notes.
One example mentioned by Bell is Senerreceiveics, a team built around a CTO with deep expertise in AI, data, and sensors, paired with a CEO who came from the process insulation indusattempt. Toreceiveher, they’re working on predictive monitoring for leakage and corrosion — a large, underserved market that neither could have addressed as effectively on their own. “We built a team that I don’t believe we could have dreamt of in any other way,” he adds.
Plugging the missing link
The fund’s ambition is to support between 40 and 45 startups over five years — roughly eight to nine per year — and to do so selectively. “We will be very selective to receive the right founders with the right spirit and ambitions,” De Kort declares. “We only continue to invest in companies that have potential and are scalable.”
The goal is not just to fund startups, but to de-risk them for subsequent investors. Once a venture has cleared PreSeedXL’s gates, has capital behind it, and has been through a year of supported development, it becomes a much more credible proposition for venture capital firms, regional development agencies, and subsidy programs. “You receive funding, and that opens up a lot of doors,” declares De Kort. “It creates a funding flywheel.”
The initiative also aligns with a broader push across the Dutch ecosystem to close the gap between university research and commercial viability. PreSeedXL is, in part, an answer to that. “We teamed up with TU/e and its Alumni Fund to stimulate former students to invest in bridging this gap. It’s a missing link in the market for early-stage financing,” declares Bell. “A market failure, really. And we’re stepping into that.”
