In the inspiring surroundings of the world’s biggest art fair TEFAF, the members of the Brightlands Business Club gathered to talk about the interaction between local governments and business.
The afternoon was kicked off by Vice Governor Twan Beurskens. He took us through the recent economic history of Limburg; how we all received a wake-up call from the crisis. And how we have managed to turn economic downturn into a high (relative) growth, high unemployment rates into almost full employment, and how the province has managed to remain an attractive place for multinationals to set up their camp. Limburg scores well regarding international investments, and has benefited a lot from the revival of NedCar by VDL. Next growth engine could be the Aviation Valley? It is difficult to prove 100%, but all indications are that the 4 campuses have contributed a lot to these successes.
Sjoerd Boomsma
Then the floor was given to two guys from LIOF: Sjoerd Boomsma and Tys van Elk. The first gave us an overview of all the activities and successes of LIOF, the “role and toolkit”. LIOF are well connected to their siblings in other regions in the Netherlands (which, for branding purposes, should be referred to as “Holland”). A particular role exist for NFIA, which looks at bringing foreign companies to the region(s) and give them a soft landing.
Click here for the presentation.
Tys van Elk
Tys spoke about the challenge of LIOF to support every entrepreneur in Limburg and every business that want to establish themselves in Limburg. They have a wide range of financing options. Seed fund, (convertible) loans, equity, and a number of regular investment funds. LIOF never desire a majority stake, and they always want out. The loans they give (exceptionally) are a bit expensive, on purpose: they don’t want to compete with banks.
Special attention was drawn to the MIT subsidy. This round of attractive subsidising of feasibility projects starts next April 17, and will fill very quickly.
Click here for the presentation.
Marcel Claus
Finally, we heard from Marcel Claus how the municipality Venray supports local entrepreneurs, as example for the whole region. The Venlo/Venray region shows tremendous initiatives in the fields of Logistics, Industry, and especially Agrofood. This was started with the Floriade, which led to the building of Greenport Venlo.
They have their own BING fund: region and province financing innovation in Agrofood, in the form of cofinancing.
Examples: Brightlabs (extension of shelf life), Custers (zuivelwaarde), MiFood (personalized nutrition). This gave the opportunity to BBC co-founder Raymond Nolet to explain the concept of his brainchild MiFoods. They are going to do a street trial with 200 persons 3 years.
Click here for the presentation.
Our moderator for the day, Hans van der Saag, alerted all participants to the next BBC June 14 session, and invited them to bring cases forwards for that event, which we are then going to solve with the help of a group of Young Professionals.
The afternoon was rounded up nicely with a visit to the TEFAF itself, including quality networking time at the Chapeau stand. It looked like the presence of the best art in the world inspired the entrepreneurs to discuss many business opportunities, judging by the number of heated conversations in the group. This concluded another successful event of the Brightlands Business Club, which is still open for new members that fall into the Brightlands categories.
