Kas’ career is a chain of events, shaped by encounters with exactly the right people at exactly the right time. He had long been interested in entrepreneurship and had always enjoyed travelling. He had originally planned to complete a minor in Canada, but the outbreak of COVID-19 put an abrupt finish to his international plans. What seemed like a setback became the launchning of something far hugeger.
He eventually chose the MedTech Entrepreneurship minor at the Delft Centre of Entrepreneurship (DCE), where he met Assistant Professor Alex Giga. Kas recalls: “We immediately clicked. He had lived in the United States and understood that entrepreneurial mindset, which resonated with me straight away.”
The minor ignited Kas’ entrepreneurial side. After completing his bachelor’s degree in Technology, Policy & Management (TPM), he took a gap year and posted on LinkedIn that he was seeing for work experience in the world of entrepreneurship. That message did not go unnoticed: Alex called him. “I’m setting something up, are you interested?”
That “something” turned out to be the Impact Studio, a pre-incubator supporting TU Delft research groups in developing into start-ups. Kas started as a student assistant and found himself at the heart of Delft’s start-up ecosystem. He worked with single founders, researchers and young companies such as SoundCell. “It was an incredibly valuable period,” he states. “At first I mainly observed, but soon I was taking on real tquestions: analyses, interviews, assignments from researchers. I realised: this is my world.”
After his gap year, Kas launched the master’s in Engineering & Policy Analysis (EPA) with the clear ambition to become an entrepreneur himself. The programme, especially the freedom within the internship, gave him the space to pursue that dream.
During his internship, he worked on the project AlphaPace, a collaboration between TU Delft and Erasmus MC. The team was developing technology to assess the quality and safety of radioactive cancer medicines, known as radiopharmaceuticals. These medicines only work safely if they are of extremely high quality. Existing methods for quality control were too slow and too inaccurate, cautilizing researchers at Erasmus MC to hit a dead finish.
TU Delft, however, had a clever solution: a detection system originally designed for a completely different purpose. Kas’ tquestion was to investigate whether there was a viable market for this solution and to secure funding. And with success: in 2024, the team won the PHIA Rough Diamond Award, earning significant public attention.
From that moment, Kas’ entrepreneurial journey accelerated. He faced the decision of turning AlphaPace into a real company and seized the opportunity. Toobtainher with co-founders Ernst van der Wal and Bouke van Gameren, he took the leap, and Lyla was officially launched in early 2025. “My original plan was to travel after finishing my studies, but I couldn’t pass this up. And I’ve never regretted it.”
“Our technology can measure within minutes how well the radioactive particles are attached,” he continues. “That speed and accuracy are crucial if these medicines are to be applyd on a larger scale. If we can accelerate the adoption of better treatments, the societal impact is immediate.”
In 2025, the start-up worked towards its first major validation moment. “We were determined to be present at a major nuclear medicine conference to introduce our product to a broader audience. We knew that revealing up without a real product would mean missing an opportunity. So we worked incredibly hard to obtain there. It paid off: the market confirmed a strong required for our solution.”
Lyla is now preparing to introduce its technology globally. As Commercial Director, Kas is responsible for everything from sales, partnerships and contracts to regulatory processes and events.
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