Benno Tieke, PhD, a seasoned Physicist and innovations leader at Philips for over 27 years, has joined the EIC Scaling Club as Cardiovascular Therapies Group President. 

He brings a remarkable depth of experience in research and innovation leadership roles both in the corporate environment as well as in start-up investments, which is a unique and invaluable addition to the Club. 

A career rooted in research and innovation

Benno's career at Philips began in optical recording technologies like CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray. For the last 15 years, he has focused exclusively on driving healthcare innovation at Philips, contributing to the company's transformation from an electronics brand to a global healthcare technologies leader.

His expertise comes from leading research departments and fostering innovation ecosystems both in corporate and start-up environments across Europe. He has worked in the Eindhoven High Tech Campus for much of his career but was also responsible for establishing a new Research lab in Cambridge, UK, engaging with academics, start-ups, and investors in the Cambridge ecosystem.

His current role as Portfolio Management Director at Philips Ventures involves identifying and driving innovation and investment opportunities within the MedTech field. “My role is to look outward and bring innovations into Phillips, and to bring innovations to the outside world.”

Joining the EIC Scaling Club

Having worked with numerous start-ups and funds connected with the EIC, Benno was familiar with the Scaling Club and recognized its crucial role in addressing the funding and support gap for scale-ups. He explains: 

“There's a lot of focus on university spin-outs and accelerators, and there are research grants left and right. There's a lot of initial help for start-ups to get established. This is all necessary to create a starting position, but what happens after that? To be competitive in Europe, we need to grow larger companies, and those successful champions need to be nurtured. The Scaling Club has stepped in to do exactly that.”

Furthermore, his experience in venture capital and startup investments positions him to provide guidance on scaling, fundraising, and building partnerships. “In Philips Ventures, I've worked with start-ups, invested in start-ups, venture builders, and VC funds. And I've also helped people create spin-outs from Philips.” Benno's ability to connect scale-ups with experienced investors and industry leaders is a valuable contribution to the EIC Scaling Club.

As the Cardiovascular Therapies Group President, Benno is committed to using his experience from a large corporation to help scale-ups navigate the complexities of organizational growth while attempting to innovate and disrupt the healthcare industry. He says: “You can't manage a team of a hundred people the same as you managed a team of ten. People in large companies, like myself, have the experience of how a large company behaves, how it achieves and maintains its success, and where to focus your efforts.”

As a MedTech expert, Benno emphasizes the importance of integrating new technologies with existing systems and infrastructures and shares his perspective: 

“The healthcare field is very conservative for a good reason – to maintain patient safety. To increase the likelihood of development or acceptance of innovations in the clinic, we need to make sure that innovations can be integrated into existing workflows.”

Addressing Europe's competitiveness

Benno believes that the EIC Scaling Club plays a vital role in enhancing Europe's competitiveness in the global innovation landscape. By supporting the growth of European scale-ups, the Club can help ensure that valuable technologies and capital remain within Europe.

He highlights the challenges faced by European scale-ups in securing funding, particularly in the later stages of growth, and emphasizes the need for more experienced investors and greater access to capital to enable these companies to scale successfully: “What happens in the VC world, especially in MedTech, is when a funding round of 30 million or 50 million comes, there's not enough money and experienced investors in Europe. Hence, investors from other regions come in, and companies get bought too early, before they can scale. And then what happens to all the previous investments? In the end, this will impact our competitive position as Europe.” 

He suggests that EIC can contribute to shaping the thinking and policies around arranging capital markets to benefit European companies: “That's a policy task for EIC – how to arrange the capital markets for scale-ups in the right way.”

Benno encourages scale-ups entering the Scaling Club to be mindful of the different phases of company growth and to adapt their strategies accordingly: “Be very much aware of the phase you are in. Your behaviors as a start-up are not the same as those that would make you a successful scale-up.” He also emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships and leveraging the connections available within the Club's network: “Make the most out of the network of experienced companies and VCs.”

About the EIC Scaling Club

The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.

The top 120+ European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.

The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

Subscribe to our newsletter here to stay up-to-date!