BOM is betting on fewer doors between an idea and a business

Even startup support can acquire too many moving parts. In July 2026, Brabant’s provincial government moved to simplify its network of entrepreneurship services. Much of Braventure’s work went to the Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij, better known as BOM, and Brabant Startup Fonds. For a region that spends considerable effort helping young companies grow, the diagnosis was revealing: the organizations offering help could themselves become an obstacle.

BOM took over acceleration programs, including Startup Readiness, business-developer training, and responsibility for activities around the annual LEVEL UP event. The transfer became effective on July 1. The purpose was straightforward: make support easier to organize and more effective. A founder trying to turn research into revenue already has enough institutions to understand.

That reshuffle is a useful introduction to BOM. It writes investment cheques, helps entrepreneurs build companies and connects businesses across borders. Its job also extends to the environment around a company: the laboratories, partners, expertise and routes to market that can determine whether an invention becomes a business at all.

A public investor with a commercial test

BOM began in 1983, founded by the Province of Noord-Brabant and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs when the regional economy needed a boost. Its contemporary mission is the sustainable strengthening of Brabant’s economy. The mechanisms are development, investment and internationalization, applied to energy, health, food and key technologies.

The ownership deserves a little precision. BOM’s 2024 reporting identifies the province as the sole shareholder of the holding company. The ministry participates through minority stakes in two operating companies. This is a public development group organized through companies, with responsibilities that stretch beyond the return on any single investment.

Commercial discipline remains part of the bargain. BOM’s published investment criteria specify minority ownership, a stake no larger than 49 percent, a three-to-seven-year investment horizon and a market-rate return target. The advertised investment ceiling is €5 million. Founders get an investor with a regional mission, and still have to explain how the company will earn money.

That places BOM between several familiar categories. It has some of the functions of a venture investor, an accelerator and an international business agency. A private fund may supply capital; an incubator may help test an idea; a trade adviser may help locate buyers. BOM combines those activities with responsibility for a particular region. Other Dutch regional development agencies occupy similar territory elsewhere.

Nine weeks to discover whether you want the money

The most revealing detail in BOM’s published VC Readiness program is one possible ending: a founder can conclude that venture capital is the wrong route. For an organization that invests in startups, that is a useful admission. Raising money creates obligations as well as options, and some businesses will not suit the growth expectations attached to equity.

The October-December 2025 edition offered nine weeks of sessions, at no charge and without taking shares. Applicants needed a pitch deck, an MVP or pilot customer, at least two founders, previous financing and a funding requirement of at least €1 million, depending on sector. The work covered the proposition, financial plan, investor approach and pitch, with input from BOM specialists and entrepreneurs from Include Industries.

These requirements make the intended customer fairly clear. The program was designed for a company that had begun proving something and needed to prepare for a seed or Series A round. The founder’s cost was time and preparation. The free course and an eventual equity investment are separate decisions, with different consequences.

BOM’s wider service menu stretches across earlier and later needs: startup readiness, food innovation, intellectual property, energy projects and export preparation. The useful question for an entrepreneur is specific: which obstacle is stopping the next stage of the company, and does this service address it?

A camera chip makes the case for company building

Eyeo offers a concrete example of the work BOM finances. The Eindhoven company develops imaging technology that separates incoming light into colors and directs it toward the appropriate pixels. Conventional color filters discard light. Eyeo’s proposition is to make better use of it, with potential applications in phones, industrial systems and extended-reality devices.

In May 2025, eyeo announced a €15 million seed round led by imec.xpand and Invest-NL, with BOM among the participants. The money was earmarked for evaluation kits, production preparation and commercial partnerships. Those are the unglamorous steps between a research result and a component that a customer can test and eventually buy.

A year later, on May 11, 2026, eyeo announced a €40 million Series A led by Innovation Industries, again including BOM. The company said the round would expand sensor-design capabilities and support commercial deployment. These are whole-round amounts shared among investors. They show the scale of the financing requirement as the company moves toward volume production.

The portfolio also reaches into software. In August 2026, Den Bosch startup Kyvvu announced €1 million in pre-seed financing from Volta Ventures and BOM. It builds controls for AI agents, checking proposed actions against what the agent has already done. The funding is intended to expand engineering, integration partnerships and deployments.

That deal supplies a useful counterweight to the factory-floor image of Brabant. BOM’s technology remit includes software infrastructure with commercial customers, alongside hardware. The common question is how a defensible technology can become a scalable enterprise connected to the region.

For biotech, the business plan includes the regulatory path

A drug-development startup faces a different set of dependencies. BOM’s BioVenture Builder, developed with 3D-PharmXchange and Odgers, targets preclinical businesses. Its work includes asset strategy, intellectual property, regulation, team development and fundraising. The program is described as continuing practical support through preparation for investment.

The combination matters because those decisions affect one another. A patent position shapes what a company can defend; a development strategy shapes the evidence it needs; the team has to execute both. BOM’s offer brings these questions into the same process. For founders emerging from research, that can make the transition into company management more concrete.

Energy projects demand another kind of coordination. BOM’s 2025-2028 strategy focuses on decentralized systems that combine generation, storage, distribution and consumption. Its 2022 reporting had already described a shift from emphasis on solar and wind generation toward conversion and heat and battery storage. The project around the technology increasingly matters as much as the technology itself.

Lightyear ran out of payroll money

The awkward portfolio story is essential. In January 2023, the carmaking subsidiary behind the Lightyear 0 entered bankruptcy after it could no longer pay staff. BOM had been among the company’s backers. Production had started only the previous November; the vehicle carried a €250,000 price tag.

According to NOS, only a handful had been built when the company stopped production and redirected attention toward the proposed, cheaper Lightyear 2. The manufacturing subsidiary failed while the parent holding the intellectual property and the solar-panel operation remained outside that bankruptcy. The immediate break was liquidity, before manufacturing could reach the promised scale.

The lesson for a founder is uncomfortable and practical: a working product does not settle how the next payroll will be funded. Public participation cannot guarantee that new investors arrive in time. A manufacturing business needs financing that matches its production schedule, alongside evidence that customers will support the eventual economics.

A region needs buyers beyond its borders

BOM’s international business work runs in both directions. It helps Brabant enterprises identify markets, customers, suppliers and partners abroad. It also assists foreign businesses establishing or expanding in Brabant. Trade & Innovate NL, Invest in Holland and the Dutch government’s international network extend that reach.

The services include market research, export plans and connections to regional networks. For an entrepreneur, their value depends on the assignment: a relevant introduction or a better understanding of a target market can move a project forward. Contact lists alone do little for a product that buyers do not want.

The reported activity is substantial. BOM’s homepage records €41 million invested in 2024. Its results announcement for that year lists 14 new development projects and 38 foreign company establishments. These figures describe different kinds of work; they should be read separately. Bringing in a company, developing a project and making an investment are distinct contributions to the region.

The institution is changing its own working arrangements

The Braventure transfer brings the story back to the support system itself. Explaining the July 2026 change, CEO Brigit van Dijk - van de Reijt identified fragmentation as a barrier to rapid growth. BOM and Brabant Startup Fonds retained collaboration with regional hubs, but redistributed responsibility for programs and access to funding.

“Fragmentation in the innovation landscape often acts as a barrier to rapid growth.”

Brigit van Dijk - van de Reijt · translated from Dutch, July 2026

There is a method here that other organizations can copy without reproducing BOM’s public ownership. Diagnose the company’s stage, specify the next piece of evidence it needs, and organize support around that task. BOM’s August 2026 financing and support guides use four stages: customer discovery, customer validation, customer creation and company building.

The approach has conditions. Direct investment requires a strong Brabant connection and a business that fits BOM’s criteria. A founder seeking permanent sole ownership may reject equity. A program cannot remove scientific risk, create customer demand or make production cheap overnight. BOM’s useful offer is a way to work on those problems with capital and relevant people. The July reorganization puts a test to BOM itself: can the organization make that help easier to reach?