Meet the Eggsperts
Founded as a company in 2013, In Ovo was created with one goal in mind: preventing the killing of day-old chicks. In order to achieve this goal, we have become experts and innovation leaders in the poultry sector. This experience has expanded our vision to encompass the development of a range of technologies that improve animal welfare without impacting production efficiency.
The In Ovo team loves poultry and loves biotech. Our people have backgrounds in biology, biomedical sciences, engineering, metabolomics, animal sciences and biotechnology. We consider sustainability, efficiency and animal welfare increasingly important focus points in our society, which are very much applicable to the poultry industry. Our multidisciplinary team has a wide range of competences and wants to use these to develop products that make a positive impact. Do you believe you have the right skills and experience to further strengthen our team? Don't hesitate to contact us with an open application!
Foodvalley Champion | Winner of 2020
EU Top 50 Startup | Winner of 2017
Dutch National Icon | Finalist of 2016
Food Heroes Award | Winner of 2019
EU Horizon 2020 | Seal of Excellence 2017
Herman Wijffels Innovatieprijs | Winner of 2012
MVO Pluimvee Award | Winner of 2011
Leonard van Bommel
Systems engineer
Wilfred Breedijk
Test engineer
Annemarie Burgers
HR manager
Tiemen Dalhuisen
CFO a.i.
Sander van Dijk
Financial controller
Pietro Faggiani
Mechanical engineer
Wouter Feldmeijer
Laboratory technician
Arne Hoffman
Embedded engineer
Kelly Hoogkamer
Poultry researcher
Hugo Hulshof
Operations manager
Stefan Ketelaars
Operator
Steven Koenders
Operator
Joey Koopman
Mechanical engineer
Marco Le Kluse
Mechanical engineer
Adam Paterak
Operator
Imme Plaisier
Brand manager
Agnieszka Reijmers
Scientist mass spectrometry
Irene Schaaper
Hatchery researcher
Bas Teunissen
Senior scientist
Carlvin Tromp
UI design intern
Bram Uljee
Marketing manager
Chantal Vonk
Office & culture manager
Goof van de Weg
Lead software developer
Joanna Wozniak
Operator
Want to work with us?
We are always on the look out for enthusiastic people who could help us reach our goals. Our team is solution driven, but has a solid scientific background and we are not afraid of some good ol’ research. Currently we have several vacancies. Please check out our recruitment page!
Board of Observers
- Mark Redshaw | Evonik Venture Capital
- Matthieu Vermersch | VisVires New Protein
- Rob Mayfield | Leiden University
- Willem te Beest
Our story
The In Ovo story began in 2011, when co-founders Wouter Bruins and Wil Stutterheim met at Leiden University. Having enrolled on the science based business MSc course, they were tasked with leveraging the university's scientific and technical expertise to develop a project with a strong business case. At this point, the project had no name, and the founders had no knowledge on the poultry industry. Discussions with key stakeholders in egg production identified the killing of male day-old chicks as a problem lacking a solution.
Wil and Wouter saw not only an ethical problem that surely must have a solution, but a viable business case. Their scientific endeavours soon led to a technically feasible solution, and through this proof of principle they were able to secure a series of small funding streams to help a student project transition into a genuine business.
2013 saw Wil and Wouter spin out from Leiden University, becoming In Ovo B.V. In collaboration with Prof. Dr. Thomas Hankemeier they were able to identify a biomarker that could effectively be used to gender type an egg. After that, the challenge was to find a rapid, cost-effective screening technique, suitable for use in a hatchery, to determine the concentration in each egg. In collaboration with Thomas Hankemeier, they started looking into mass spectrometry, which eventually proved to be able to meet the high-throughput and low costs requirements for sexing the thousands of eggs per minute required at large hatchery scale.
Since 2013, In Ovo has been steadily growing in many ways. The team has increased in size and projects have expanded beyond gender screening. We have won several prizes for our efforts in bettering animal welfare, had our first successful product launch (SmartStart™) and we have established ourselves as true innovators in the poultry sector.
With full proof of concept for gender screening and a wealth of innovations in the pipeline, In Ovo closed a Series A funding round in summer 2018. This will enable us to scale our process to a fully functional device in a hatchery and make the poultry industry more efficient and animal friendly
Photo: Wouter Bruins pitches for the National Icon election 2016 - Ministry of Economic Affairs
Our expertise
Biology
Our background in biology, the science that studies life and living organisms, helps us identifying problems and needs in the poultry industry.
Poultry
In Ovo focuses on poultry: we want to improve production efficiency as well as animal welfare. We've learned to understand the needs of producers as well as chickens.
Microbiology
Small things can have big implications! We understand how microorganisms can be both beneficial and harmful.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a broad area of biology that focuses on involving living systems and organisms for developments or making products.
Chemistry
(Analytical) chemistry helps defining the world around us. We know how to figure out what stuff is made of.
Technology transfer
Technology transfer is the process of bringing technology from its place of origin to a wider audience and making it available. It's all about knowledge valorisation.
Science based business
We love science and we believe more businesses should use it to improve processes, products and services.
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