We build new businesses that accelerate a regenerative food system

The goal is to help you shape a venture concept—a clear problem, a validated solution, and the start of a viable business model. This could become the foundation for a venture you continue building in the Fresh Studio. Along the way, you’ll connect with a powerful ecosystem of experts and stakeholders, meet potential co-founders, and test your ideas in practice.

1. The program gives you the opportunity to co-found a mission-driven venture by teaming up with complementary entrepreneurs in the cohort.
2. We’ll support you in identifying, testing, and refining solutions with the potential for deep, structural impact on the food system.
3. You’ll develop your ideas with hands-on feedback and gain access to a rich network of users, experts, and mentors to help co-design, test, and validate your approach in practice.

The program begins with a two-week light digital pre-phase, designed to help you explore our knowledge library, connect with your cohort, and prepare for the in-person experience.

This is followed by a 13-week, in-person program based in Rotterdam. We start by diving into 'problem loving', a deep exploration of the food system to uncover the most promising opportunity areas. From there, you’ll ideate and test potential solutions, gradually narrowing your focus.

In the final phase, you’ll prototype one solution direction and gather feedback from relevant stakeholders. Throughout the journey, there’s a strong emphasis on building a complementary founding team and shaping an idea that could evolve into an investable venture.

No. When you are accepted, you commit to the entire program.

Our goal is to help you build a high-impact venture that contributes to transforming the food system. To support this, we’ll work closely with you throughout the program, bringing together our expertise in systems thinking, food systems, venture development, and team formation (including co-founder matching).

You’ll also be supported by a core group of mentors and subject matter experts from our ecosystem, offering insights from across the food system as well as hands-on venture-building experience. In addition, we’ll connect you to key stakeholders – such as farmers, food manufacturers, and other end beneficiaries – who play a vital role in validating and shaping your solution.

No, you do not need a team to apply for the Fresh program. In fact, one of the purposes of the Fresh program is to support individuals find and build a team as they identify a problem they’re committed to solving.

Yes, you can apply with an existing team. However, Fresh is not an accelerator program; we work with participants to truly understand the challenges in the food system and develop innovative solutions that can address critical barriers. Each team member will need to apply separately, you should come with an open mind, and you should be open to the possibility of matching with other co-founders.

That’s okay too. There are many examples of entrepreneurs going at it alone in the beginning, and matches are not always easy to find. However, when it comes to selecting which ventures enter the studio, a well balanced team in sync with each other will be one of the criteria we’ll take into consideration.

No. Some participants may come into Fresh with an existing idea, others will be exploring multiple areas. While having an existing idea can be valuable pre-thinking, the Fresh program emphasizes taking a step back to fully understand a problem before scoping a solution.

It depends on the stage of your idea. Experimenting with different directions is a plus, implying that you are already learning a lot about possible problem and solution spaces. But if your idea is already a business, then it's probably not a great fit. Fresh is a pre-idea program and not an accelerator program. We start with deeply and further understanding the problems inherent in the food system. We ask every participant to take a step back from any ideas or preconceptions to take a fresh, critical look at their assumptions and idea development.

Yes and no. If it’s a grant or a small investment amount in a general direction, then yes. But if it’s a serious seed investment, to us that implies that you’re already quite path-committed to an existing plan and deviating from that path would be problematic for you or your stakeholders. We want to ensure that participants have maximum flexibility when it comes to understanding the problems and designing solutions that can structurally address them.

Yes, generally speaking. There are no IP agreements and you are entitled to work on any ideas that come to you during or after the program. However, Fresh does not sign NDAs with participants entering our program or entrepreneurs more broadly. You can protect your idea through standard legal means, but otherwise it becomes part of a toolkit of potential solutions for others, including participants in future cohorts, to solve problems. 

We aim to build ventures that address a systemic challenge by addressing key barriers or build critical capacity. For the first few years, Fresh will focus on farmer-centric solutions that accelerate the transition of the cultivation side of the food chain: regenerative food systems. For a more elaborate answer, and a list of good examples of ventures, please see our portfolio.

Fresh is looking for a diverse mix of people. Business-minded individuals, domain experts, and technical people of different stripes are all needed to create well balanced teams. Often what we see is that people from very different fields are capable of approaching these challenges in unique and innovative ways.
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Beside the diversity we aim to cultivate in our cohort and team, everybody needs a tremendous drive to transform the food system Intention & capacity to start a venture as a long-term commitment. Our founders need grit and perseverance to push through challenges and be keen to challenge the status quo. We look for people that are comfortable with uncertainty: intent on listening, learning, and challenging their own assumptions. Fresh Founders have and cultivate energy to mobilise supporters and meet the needs of key stakeholders. They are able to communicate thoughts and ideas clearly and with multiple perspectives in mind. Last but not least: they are dead-set on building a deeply impactful organisation, structured according to steward-ownership principles.

Yes! Not only will you have the opportunity to pair yourself with someone who is stronger on the business side of things, but the Fresh program and Studio are designed to develop and complement your skills in that area. We also have a broad network of experienced entrepreneurs who can guide you during the program.

We require all participants to locate to (or close to) Rotterdam for the physical part of the Program, so expect to move to the Netherlands for the duration of the program to get set-up! Building relationships with other potential co-founders and teammates ultimately requires proximity. Relationships are built over dinners, drinks, and struggling through a challenging process together, not over video chat.

Currently, the Fresh program is available only to those with EU citizenship, residence, or a visa that enables them to participate. We are working to make it possible for international applicants from outside the EU and without existing working permissions to join the Fresh program in the future, but for now it’s unfortunately not possible.

No, the program is delivered free-of-cost to participants. We view it as an essential investment in capacity building and early progress of the ventures we may start together.

Unfortunately we do not offer financial support during the program. Participants must cover their personal and program related expenses. During the program we make sure there is breakfast and lunch in the space. After the program there’s up to 10K kick-start budget available per team that gets invited into the studio.

You will have to find housing yourself. However, we support everyone with helpful resources, tips and tricks, and the ability to coordinate with other participants.

No, the program is a full-time commitment and must have participants’ full attention.

No, the Fresh program requires full-time commitment. If you're looking for a more orientating program that you can do while fulfilling an existing job, please check our course.

In general, we do not allow accepted applicants to defer their participation. A lot can happen in a year, and our focus areas for future programs may shift. However, we will work with accepted applicants to defer their participation for cases due to extenuating circumstances.

We run three application rounds: early, mid, and final.
‍Round 1 (early): October 11th
Round 2 (mid): December 1st
Round 3 (final): January 18th

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, but since our interview capacity is limited, we group interviews into batches.

‍Our tip: apply as early as possible. Cohort spots are limited and may fill up before the final deadline. The last round is mainly for late deciders, by then, spots are tight and competition is higher.

At the end of the program, venture teams will have the opportunity to join the Fresh Studio to co-found and build their venture with us. That decision needs to be a mutual choice; should either the venture team or Fresh not see an ideal fit, the venture team is free to continue building the venture on their own.

Fresh has a network of core investors & financiers that have enable us to access early grants & seed capital for ventures entering the studio. However, obtaining investment depends partially on the stage the venture is in. In some cases, ventures start off with grants, subsidies, and early pilots before seeking investment from our core investors.

Ventures accepted in the studio will receive a kick-start budget up to 10.000 euros which can go towards early ventures’ expenses.

In terms of equity and how we structure the studio investments, find more detailed information on how we structure and finance ventures when they join on the program & studio agreement page.

Yes, when you transfer to the studio we co-found the venture alongside you. Program support, fundraising, network development, recruitment, opportunity due diligence, and our hands-on support is part of our investment. However, Fresh is adopting a Steward Ownership model which has a big impact on how shares are dealt with. Steward Ownership splits decision-making and profit-sharing rights and creates multiple types of stakes and shares.

You as founder or founding team will receive 100% of the exclusive decision-making shares, meaning you have the hands on the steering wheel. Founders also receive economic shares for the hard work, the risk you take, and investment you are making at an early stage.

We calculate our investment as a co-founder based on the investment delivered through the program and time the venture will have spent in the Studio. This investment is put into an EPOS (similar to a SAFE), enabling your new venture to postpone valuation and make fundraising easier. This EPOS is converted into shares after a first round of investment or when the company has established full cashflow positivity by natural growth. Upon conversion fresh receives non-voting shares and we offer the option for a predefined capped return [4.8x] on our investment in case the venture implements steward ownership, which we strongly favor and help you develop.

The Studio is an institutionalised co-founder that supports the venture on a day-to-day basis in the first 1-2 years of its development. The studio takes a hands-on approach and works alongside the entrepreneurial team to organise capital, connect to expertise, build a team, and helps with a lot of the nitty gritty like legal, accounting, design, and finding early customers. The objective of the studio is to help the ventures it builds become fully autonomous as they find success and traction.

Our team will be reviewing all applications and will reach out to you if there's any questions or if we need additional information. When we see potential in an applicant, the next steps include an interview with members of the Fresh team. Interviews will be planned with qualified applicants on a rolling basis, but since our interview capacity is limited, we group interviews into batches.

‍Our tip: apply as early as possible. Cohort spots are limited and may fill up before the final deadline. The last round is mainly for late deciders, by then, spots are tight and competition is higher.