Innova Connect

About Innova Connect

Innova Connect is a Dutch innovation consultancy based in Wageningen that helps increase the impact of science and technology. It works at the interface between knowledge institutions, companies, startups, investors, and public funders, with a particular focus on the agricultural and horticultural sectors and broader agrifood innovation.

The company positions itself as a connector and facilitator rather than a pure research house: it helps parties find each other, understand each other’s needs, and turn promising ideas into practical collaboration. Its mission is to make innovation happen in ways that create societal impact, while respecting the interests of all parties involved.

Core Values

• Impact: The company’s central aim is to increase the societal impact of science and technology, not just generate ideas or reports.
• Collaboration: Innova Connect emphasizes bringing together parties with complementary interests and capabilities, because innovation usually depends on cooperation across boundaries.
• Trust: It presents careful handling of problems and constructive steps as essential to successful collaboration, and explicitly frames trust as a core principle.
• Practicality: The firm stresses implementation, not only inspiration; its work is meant to help ideas move into action and into practice.
• Respect for different interests: It says effective innovation requires attention to the interests of knowledge institutions, companies, funders, and other stakeholders.
• Creativity and openness: The company values space for new ideas, interdisciplinary encounters, and the willingness to explore unfamiliar territory.

Unique Aspects

• Strong Wageningen and agrifood network: Innova Connect is rooted in Wageningen and repeatedly works across the Dutch and international agricultural and horticultural innovation ecosystem.
• Cross-sector bridge between science and practice: The team combines experience from academia, industry, consultancy, and agribusiness, which it uses to translate research into usable collaboration and innovation pathways.
• Experience with public-private innovation programs: It has supported consortium building, proposal development, impact studies, and network events for organizations such as NWO, Topsector Tuinbouw & Uitgangsmaterialen, and Plantum.
• Startup-to-market support in regulated fields: The company has specific experience helping startups navigate market entry, regulatory questions, and introductions to potential customers and partners.
• Investor-facing technical and market diligence: It supports investors with due diligence, market analysis, sustainability assessment, and issue management for high-tech agrifood ventures.
• International and multidisciplinary reach: Its services and references show work with organizations in the Netherlands and abroad, and across disciplines ranging from plant sciences to semiconductor-enabled agrifood innovation.