The DOEN Foundation Joins Rockstart as a Strategic Shareholder in Global Expansion

Investment accelerates Rockstart’s ambition to support entrepreneurs everywhere


Summary
As a new shareholder in Rockstart’s holding company, DOEN’s investment provides the means to roll out and scale up Rockstart’s ambitious growth plans and capitalize on a number of global opportunities.

Rockstart, the Global Startup Machine, and Dutch impact investor The DOEN Foundation announced today a strategic partnership to further stimulate entrepreneurship through the support of startups across the world. As a new shareholder in Rockstart’s holding company, DOEN’s investment provides the means to roll out and scale up Rockstart’s ambitious growth plans and capitalize on a number of global opportunities.

Rockstart and DOEN share similar missions - particularly in the realm of enabling entrepreneurship through investing, coaching and hands-on support. For the last three years, Rockstart and DOEN have collaborated on a number of initiatives including the joint Smart Energy Accelerator/Postcode Lottery’s Green Challenge Deep Dive as well as investments in Rockstart Impact startups, among others.

Next five years

Oscar Kneppers, founder of Rockstart says, “The strategic partnership with DOEN comes at a particularly momentous time - this week Rockstart celebrates its 5th birthday and while we are proud of our accomplishments of the last five years, we are looking to grow even further in the next five. We’ve built a solid international community of entrepreneurs, investors and mentors who share our vision and are giving back by supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs.Since 2011 we’ve helped dozens of early stage tech startups unlock their full potential to address such global challenges as energy, health and food. DOEN’s investment allows us to continue to focus on international expansion and supporting founders across the world.”

Innovative businesses

DOEN CFO Jasper Snoek adds, “For the last three years, we’ve worked well together with Rockstart to help innovative impactful small businesses get off the ground. We see this as an opportunity to fulfill our own goal of working with entrepreneurs who address global problems, while providing access to our worldwide network and supporting the ambitious plans of Rockstart.”

Financial details were not disclosed.

About Rockstart

Amsterdam based Rockstart ‘’The Global Startup Machine’, was founded in 2010 by Dutch serial entrepreneur Oscar Kneppers, in 2011 joined by Don Ritzen, Rune Theill and Koen Wagemakers to launch the first Rockstart Accelerator in 2012. Rockstart has accelerated 78 startups in 8 programs in the domains of Web/Mobile, Smart Energy and Digital Health. Rockstart organizes Q&A events in 21 European cities and has run an Impact Accelerator in Nepal since 2015. To date, over 78% of Rockstart alumni (including 3D Hubs and Peerby) have attracted over €33 million in funding from national and international angel and venture capital investors including Greylock Partners, Balderton Capital,XAnge Private Equity and Walvis Participaties.

About The DOEN Foundation

The DOEN Foundation (Stichting DOEN) is a Dutch fund that receives its revenues from the Dutch Postcode Lottery, the BankGiro Lottery and the Friends Lottery. DOEN believes that a green, socially-inclusive and creative society is achievable because the world is full of committed entrepreneurs eager to develop sustainable, cultural and socially-engaged initiatives. People who are not afraid to take risks while putting their pioneering ideas into practice. People who inspire others. DOEN offers these people financial support and brings them together to connect them.www.doen.nl

About Rockstart

Rockstart is an early stage investor that empowers purpose-driven founders across three domains: Energy, AgriFood, and Emerging Technologies.

Rockstart invests in early-stage startups from each of the three funds and provides access to capital, market, and expertise by connecting founders with co-investors, mentors, partners, corporates, and the wider Rockstart network.

Rockstart has invested in more than 350 startups and its alumni value to date is more than €1.6bn. Rockstart is an international team of 45+ professionals dedicated to empowering purpose-driven founders to become scalable and drive positive change on a global scale. Rockstart has notable exits such asWercker, Dan.com, Hubs.Com, Bouw7, iClinic, and s and Brincr. The company has offices in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Bogota.

Contact details

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