My promise to founders is that they can count on me to always stay curious. I am not a “know it all” investor, but a “learn it all” investor. My most important added value is to ask the right questions and support them in making the best decisions possible and becoming the best entrepreneurs they can be.

I have an incurable inclination for matching people and opportunities. Unconsciously, I am doing this the whole day, every day. And when technology is involved, I really get excited. I get a kick out of solving problems, facilitating new solutions and encouraging positive change by bringing people, ideas and communities together.

It’s amazing how my role as a senior partner at LUMO Labs brings everything together I have experienced, learned and developed in my career over the years. From complex dynamics at a multinational fresh out of college, to being down in the trenches at a startup, through getting the opportunity and support at a family-owned company to take responsibility, develop myself and thrive as a leader and eventually to founding my own startup and building a community in Proptech brick-by-brick.

Amidst all this, in 2010, I contacted a culture and leadership expert named Ingrid Tappin on Twitter. After a few tweets and DM’s, I decided she might be the right person to help me take a next step in my career as an entrepreneur. We met for drinks, and this encounter changed the course of my whole life. We ended up building a business together, co-founded a tech startup, invested in several other startups. In the meantime, we fell madly in love, got married, bought houses, travelled the world and have been raising our two daughters together with their other parents for more than 12 years now.

We are both leaders working in tech, mothers in a mosaic family and women with a passion for creating impact through diversity, equity and inclusion. Since I met Ingrid, every day is filled with new experiences, new challenges, new people, and we love every minute of it.

When Ingrid and I launched our software platform in 2013, I learned that only 5% of the industry leaders had a vision related to the digital future and the other 95% were not interested in it yet. I wanted to collect the visionaries and connect them with relevant ConTech and PropTech startups to accelerate innovation in the sector. I created a business model around this idea and created real value for both startups and grown-ups by founding Holland ConTech & PropTech. Through matchmaking events, we showcased promising startups and matched them to the right leaders and companies that could help them with further growth. A lot of new collaborations and innovations came out of this community. Founding this organization and knowing that it still exists is an achievement I am very proud of today.

All these different roles, company cultures, challenges and personal development taught me a lot about growing people, scaling businesses and seizing opportunities. Exactly what I set out to do at LUMO Labs.

Diversity attracts diversity, meaning that as a fund with a high-performing diverse team, we will build the highest quality pipeline of opportunities and create access to important networks and communities for all our stakeholders. The tech, the opportunity, the impact, the people. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning and is my motivation to bring everything I have to the table.

What I love about the LUMO Labs team is that we all bring different backgrounds, different lived experiences, different personalities to the table and different networks to tap into.

We foster the community mindset within our team, our portfolio companies, our investor base, as well as within the entire tech ecosystem in which we play our part as community members.

To me, a community means having a sense of belonging and being driven by a collective purpose. It implies that a strong community is a safe environment where everyone feels welcome to speak up and does not feel the need to hide certain parts of their identity.

To this community I promise to be open, honest and courageous and to build bridges for empathy, compassion and safety. And for every founder that identifies as a “diverse” founder, I promise to be an ally and create a safe space to belong.