WUR celebrates entrepreneurship with the Wageningen Impact Expo 2025 for young startups

During the Wageningen Impact Expo 2025, visitors had the opportunity to explore various innovative solutions from WUR entrepreneurs at different stages of pre-incubation. Additionally, the Lizzy Grant 2025 awards were presented to young WUR entrepreneurs, made possible by Wageningen Ambassador Peter Poortinga.

Entrepreneurship has long held a cherished place within Wageningen University & Research, where researchers and students use their Wageningen knowledge to develop innovative solutions and bring them to market. Over the past twenty years, the organisation has increasingly supported this endeavour, including offering entrepreneurship courses and support to students, PhDs and recent graduates through Starthub Wageningen, WUR’s startup incubator and educator.

Tim van Oerle is one of the entrepreneurs with roots in Wageningen. He co-founded Natuurhuisje, which is the number one marketplace for holiday houses situated in nature. At the expo, he shared his journey as a startup entrepreneur in an inspiring keynote. Furthermore, SeaCrete was launched at this year’s Wageningen Impact Expo. This is a new WUR spin-off developing bio-inspired reef restoration technology by Tom Kodger, Tinka Murk, and Marc van der Peet.

The startups eligible for The Lizzy Grant awards may not be widely known yet, but they are actively growing their businesses. The Lizzy Grant 2025, consisting of five awards of €5,000 each, aims to help young entrepreneurs advance their startups. Wageningen Ambassador Peter Poortinga, former CEO of Plukon and now CEO of Wageningen-based company Solynta, established the prize to give them a boost. He named the award after the chicken Lizzy from a well-known commercial, where the concept for image stabilisation in cameras came from a chicken’s head, which remains stable while its body moves around.

The winners of The Lizzy Grant 2025 were the following:

• Johan Bucher – Babette, delivering 4D insights into plant growth and development.
• Alita Tithphit – Paibloom, advancing regenerative and traceable longan production for Cambodian smallholders.
• Salma Rian, EngD – Hydrapeck, creating modular water-saving technology for farmers.
• Victor van Saltbommel – Hubert’s Food, making nutritious and sustainable ice cream for the elderly.
• David Logeman & Hanna Seong – SolPhyX, a solar-powered nutrient recovery for sustainable agriculture

The award will help these entrepreneurs take the next step in market validation or testing. The day marked the awarding of the second edition of The Lizzy Grant, providing multiple promising young entrepreneurs with financial support and visibility.