The top of the Dutch business community united to strengthen cooperation with startups. KPN, Shell, Philips, Akzo Nobel, Port of Rotterdam, Eneco, ING, KLM, DSM and Thales Nederland share at the highest level their ‘best and worst practices’ and together will look closely how to make cooperation a smarter, more innovative and durable succes. Today Neelie Kroes of StartupDelta launches the frontrunners group COSTA with Jan Kees de Jager, CFO of KPN, in the role of pioneer.

Virtually nowhere in the world are so many corporates located on a small territory as here in Netherlands. This provides unique opportunities for strengthening the Dutch startup ecosystem. When startups and corporates work together, innovation can be accelerated, new business models developed and products and services enter the market accelerated. Startups and corporates can be very meaningful to each other. They can open up worlds for each other, but in order to do so they must first open up to each other. Costa aims, coming from the unique position that the Netherlands has with all corporates, to make the startup ecosystem smarter, stronger, faster and more sustainable.

Neelie Kroes, Special Envoy of StartupDelta and initiator of COSTA: “often corporates reinvent the wheel separately or take the wrong beaten paths. Or startups think that the corporate will simply launch their new product. That must change. That is why I asked Jan Kees de Jager as special envoy. He has a unique experience, because he himself has started multiple companies, now takes position in the board of a corporate who is busy developing new business models and in his role as CFO of KPN has experience with investments in startups. Together with corporates from various sectors he works on the excellent innovative power of the Dutch startup ecosystem. ”

Jan Kees de Jager, CFO of KPN and frontrunner: “We seek active cooperation with startups. With this, we want to accelerate innovation and the development and launch of new ICT applications. COSTA offers a unique opportunity together with other large Dutch companies to improve the cooperation between startups and corporates and make an even greater contribution to the development of the Dutch innovation ecosystem. The Netherlands has a central strategic location with a superior infrastructure. In addition, we have a lot of innovative talent in the Netherlands. I’m looking forward to, together with other partners in COSTA, improve that position and to help that innovation talent to become an even bigger growth pillar of and for the Dutch economy. ”

With this cooperation the best insights are brought together on three specific themes: governance, the link with startups and launching customer ship. This answers questions such as: how should the organization best be arranged to encourage innovation with startups? How do you facilitate the contact between a corporate and startup? And, how can the purchasing process offer more space to startups to become supplier?

The frontrunners group come together a number of times with the annual main event the How To Get There Summit. In May 2017 all the insights and models will be shared, under the supervision of Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship. KPN, Shell, Philips, Akzo Nobel, Port of Rotterdam, Eneco, ING, KLM, DSM and Thales Nederland together form the frontrunners group of COSTA. The partners who have shaped COSTA and got started with the programme are: Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE), expertise center of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Corporate Venturing Network, Municipality of Eindhoven and VNO-NCW.