FORWARD.one

FORWARD.one

FORWARD.one invests from the conviction that European labs produce world-class technology but chronically fail at commercialization. The firm was founded to bridge that gap, taking positions in seed and early-stage startups where the core team demonstrates what the firm calls "results, not just ideas." The firm's principals include Arjan Göbel, Robin van Boxsel, and Riemer Smink, supported by a roster of venture partners that includes Tim Heijwegen and Marc de Jong. The firm targets industrial technology undergoing a step change in speed, efficiency, or physical autonomy. Its portfolio spans quantum computing — holding a position in a quantum processor company that closed what the firm describes as the world's largest private round for a dedicated quantum processor company — as well as photonic chips, software-defined radio silicon, and nano-3D-printing lithography. On the industrial automation side, FORWARD.one backs companies making off-road vehicles autonomous, teaching robots to see and perform tasks, and turning sensor data into real-time shop-floor decisions. Energy-transition bets include grid-scale storage built from used EV batteries, technologies to eliminate SF6 from the electricity grid, and a wind-turbine-blade monitoring and control company. Geographic coverage concentrates on the Netherlands and Europe, with select portfolio companies also expanding into the United States. FORWARD.one manages at least three funds, having secured commitments from ABN AMRO Corporate Investments and the European Investment Fund for its Fund III. The firm has exited positions well ahead of the typical venture timeline: Sonos acquired its loudspeaker-technology portfolio company, Monolithic Power Systems bought its fabless audio-amplifier chip company, and ABB picked up its energy-monitoring startup built to cut consumption for SMEs. In 2024, the firm rebranded around the tagline "Same Mission, Sharper Focus," doubling down on its identity as a performance-driven industrial tech investor. In tandem, portfolio company Sensorfact, an industrial energy-monitoring platform, completed its exit, a transaction the firm's own communications later cited as a teaching case for its concentrated early-stage method. What distinguishes FORWARD.one structurally is its posture as a co-engineering investor. The firm markets itself not as a passive backer but as an active commercialization partner that sets near-impossible deadlines and treats time-to-market as the ultimate differentiator. That philosophy — treating venture capital as a performance product rather than a funding product — means the firm's real counterparty is less the startup's founding team than the inertia that keeps laboratory breakthroughs from becoming operating businesses.