14 breakthrough tech companies that put Eindhoven on anybody's radar

The Dutch city of Eindhoven continues to astound the world with amazing and world changing technology, improving life for both people and planet. The following 14 companies all developed technologies that makes you believe you’re reading a sci-fi novel. And they all headquarter at High Tech Campus Eindhoven.

1. AlphaBeats
Hey DJ, keep playing that song! Listening to your favourite music, while entering a zenlike alpha state at the same time. It’s a kinda magic, but it’s what AlphaBeats is all about. The start-up wants to conquer the world with its app that uses biofeedback technology and AI to help you relax.

Once you’ve plugged in your earphones and started your playlist, an algorithm registers your current stress level by measuring your breath or heart rate. The app will then slightly change the quality of the music, triggering your brain to produce alpha waves. The change is so slight that you don’t notice it, but while rocking on to your music your brain has created so much alpha you’re ready to give out free hugs. ‘Our algorithm adjusts the frequency of the user’s favourite tracks and takes their brain to the relaxing alpha-mode,’ explains founder Han Dirkx. ‘The best part is you can achieve that by listening to your own favourite music for just ten minutes a day.’ To use a nineties rock classic: Everything Zen.

Last week, the HighTechXL alumnus announced that LUMO Labs is investing in their health startup. 

2. Carbyon
Nothing less than reversing climate change is the heroic mission of start-up Carbyon. The founders have invented an installation that captures CO2 from the air using thin-film technology. An ultra-thin membrane (we’re talking 30 micrometres) is coated with a special sorbent that acts like glue to CO2 molecules. Air flowing into through the membrane is stripped from its CO2, sticking to the sorbent like bugs to flypaper. The membrane is then heated up in a separate chamber, releasing the CO2 which can then be stored underground or - if other technologies catch up - reused as a resource for renewable diesel and kerosine. Green airplanes here we come! Carbyon’s solution is both brilliant and cost-effective, being about ten times cheaper than current methods of capturing CO2 from the air.

3. Sirius Medical
This med-tech scale-up is about to transform breast cancer surgery. In early-stage breast cancer tumours are pinpointed for surgery by inserting a metal wire with an anchor tip into the breast. Sirius Medical innovated this rough and old-fashioned method by replacing the bulky wire with a small magnet the size of a rice grain, inserted into the tumour with a needle. During the operation, the magnet is located by a probe that looks like a big pen with a navigation algorithm inside that starts beeping once the probe is directly above the magnet - the same way the parking sensor in your car starts beeping when you’re too close to the curb. A display shows the distance to the tumour in millimetres, making it very easy to pinpoint the tumour.

‘Because the magnet can stay inside the breast for up to 180 days, the operation does not have to take place on the same day as the placement procedure,’ says founder Bram Schermers. ‘This gives hospitals more flexibility in their planning, leading to fewer costs and better health care quality.’ More than ten hospitals in different European countries are already using Sirius Medical’s Pintuition system and doctors are raving about it. The company is looking to expand its technology to the US in 2021.

4. Incooling
The coolest piece of technology - literally speaking - in Eindhoven is made by Incooling. During the HighTechXL deep-tech venture building program, the start-up has discovered a way to cool computer chips more efficiently inspired by CERN technology. Traditionally chips in data centres are cooled by blowing cold air through the servers, consuming lots of energy. Incooling’s solution is a cooling system on a small metal plate that can be screwed on top of the chip itself. A cooling liquid is pumped through tiny channels on the plate and absorbs the heat of the chip, which changes it into a gas. This phase change extracts even more heat from the chip, just like sweating does for us. ‘Perspiration that evaporates on your body is also a phase change that cools you down, CEO Rudy Verweij explains: 'Keeping the chips cool this way will also improve chip performance. A chip is a beautiful piece of technology, like a Ferrari. But because of the old-fashioned way of cooling it’s like putting square wheels underneath it.’ Touché!

Photo: Incooling Team

5. TouchWind
Wind turbines are green, they’re great, but they’re also expensive. A single wind turbine costs around twenty-million euro’s. TouchWind has managed to build turbines at half the cost while producing more energy. The idea is both simple and elegant. Instead of three separate blades used in conventional wind turbines, TouchWind only has one. That one blade is able to self-adjust its angle to the wind, making it fit to work even in heavy storms. Where current turbines stop at wind speeds of 25 meter per second, TouchWind can handle speeds up to 70 m/s (hence the extra energy). Another plus is that the turbine floats in the water and doesn’t require a big (and expensive) underwater foundation. The turbines produce enough wind energy to keep 10,000 households going. Wind blowing and mind-blowing at the same time!

6. Zens
No more pesky phone chargers you have to carry around all the time. Just drop your phone, watch or tablet on one of Zens’ stylish charging pads and your batteries are fed with new energy - no strings attached! Zens also helped to create the Qi standard for wireless charging. ‘Like Bluetooth or USB, the Qi standard enables all the different wireless chargers and products to connect to each other,’ says co-founder Erik Plasmans. Makes Zens!

7. Fruit Punch AI
Fruit Punch AI - the idea for the company was born over a bowl of fruit punch - organizes online seminars and offline events to educate tech-savvy people about the good artificial intelligence can do for the world. Their higher mission is to form a European wide AI network that can compete with China and the US. The students are not afraid to think big, as they have hosted a hackathon about solving climate change and developed their own model to predict the spread of COVID-19, all by using algorithms. Or, in their own words, using AI for Good!

8. Pharmi
The Netherlands has 11 million chronic medicine users or 65% of the population. More than 30% of them do not know how to use their medicines correctly. (Before or after eating? Harmful or harmless with alcohol?) A shocking fact that is resulting in thousands of avoidable hospitalisations. Written medicine instructions are often lengthy and difficult to understand, and online sources can be unreliable. Time to digitalise the pharmacy, the founders of Pharmi thought.

They created a user-friendly app that informs the patient with easy to understand tutorials and video’s about how to use their drugs. They’ve even created a friendly (and pretty) chatbot that can answer questions with empathy. Pharmi also provides the human pharmacist or doctor with a dashboard to track their patients online and monitor their progress.

9. SALDtech
Atmospheric Pressure Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition. Apart from a great scrabble word, it’s also a breakthrough in electronic display technology. SALDtech, the company that coined the phrase (and the technology) uses it to produce so-called ‘large area ultra-thin layers’ that appear as displays in your smartphone, tablet, TV and car. Think flexible, rollable and foldable screens that can make a tablet fit in your pocket. It’s been talked about for years, but SALDtech is finally making mass production possible. The technology is more than ten years in the making is a spin-off from Holst Centre and TNO (i.e. very smart people).

10. Gilbert Technologies
Talking about scrabble, how about electrohydrodynamic atomization? Also called ‘electrospray’ or EHDA it’s a technology developed by med-tech start-up Gilbert Technologies. The start-up uses this breakthrough discovery in its line of inhalers to treat lung diseases like severe asthma, cystic fibrosis (CF) or lung cancer.

Producing an electric field at the nozzle of the inhaler EHDA makes it possible to vary the droplet size, creating a tailor-made spray or ‘soft mist’ that can be administered to specific parts of the lung. It makes the treatment of lung conditions more effective and also increases ease for the patient, as the soft mist is more comfortable to inhale than dry powder.