The Netherlands-based maritime start-up accelerator PortXL has signed a partnership agreement with MINDbase Rotterdam, one of the Dutch Ministry of Defence’s innovation organisation’s’ hubs’.
Since its founding in 2015, PortXL has facilitated the growth of more than 100 start-up and scale-up companies. Working in close cooperation with its industry partners – which include the Port of Rotterdam, Van Oord, Boskalis, Rotterdam City Council, Damen Shipyards, and GTT; PortXL’s range of focus has been concentrated on the maritime, energy, logistics and refinery sectors. With this latest partner ‘acquisition’ of MINDbase, PortXL’s scope has broadened to now also encompass military applications.
MINDbase works under the umbrella of COMMIT (Materiel and IT Command), which is one of the six branches of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. COMMIT ensures that Dutch military personnel work with modern, robust and safe materiel and IT. To accomplish this, a significant part of COMMIT’s duties is the purchase and maintenance of materiel. MINDbase was established in 2020 to stimulate military-focused innovations; its activities take place at the RDM Innovation Dock in Rotterdam in addition to locations in Eindhoven and Enschede.
Military sees opportunity in commercial market
Innovation Manager Major Rick Zagers explains the reason for the partnership is that where once the military was at the cutting edge of innovation, now that is no longer a given.
“The work of PortXL aligns very well with what we are looking for,” Zagers says. “Looking at how the global political and military situation has changed in the previous two years; we have had to re-focus on our core task of defending our own territory and the territory of our allies. Moreover, we need to do more with less. The potential of this partnership is enormous. I have no doubt that this is going to be a very interesting process.”
