Tilburg Demos Pitches & Drinks: the power of community innovation

The Spoorzone’s energy felt unmistakably “Tilburg” on Thursday evening: practical, collaborative, and quietly ambitious. For the second time, the long-running monthly Demos, Pitches & Drinks by the Gerard & Anton Foundation organized a Tilburg edition. This 112th edition, curated together with Startups for Society at Midpoint Brabant, showcased founders working on challenges that affect millions: burnout, water scarcity, childcare, health-care access, safety, divorce, and even the daily stress of feeding a baby.

If Eindhoven’s editions often lean towards deeptech, Tilburg added its own flavour: socially grounded innovation with immediate, relatable impact.

Tilburg Demos Pitches & Drinks

Making vitality personal again

The night opened with a stark diagnosis of modern working life. “1.6 million employees in the Netherlands show burnout symptoms, and sitting workers now sit more than nine hours a day,” said Sjoerd Gulikers, co-founder of Fysioboost. “These numbers aren’t just bad, they’re accelerating.”

While HR budgets for vitality programs are growing, Gulikers argued that their biggest problem is a lack of personalization. “They aren’t personal. They lack personality. And because of that, they fail.”

Fysioboost offers an AI-driven dashboard that gives employees tailored tasks, scans, and rewards, while providing HR with anonymized insights into company-wide bottlenecks. “If you’re ready to fix engagement, absenteeism, and productivity, talk to us,” he concluded. A clear Tilburg theme emerged early: solutions built not for show, but for actual use.

100 calls per second: AI that brings healthcare back to humans

The next pitch took the audience to a Rotterdam clinic on a chaotic Monday morning. “A receptionist told me: Rafi, I’m losing patients because I simply can’t pick up the phone anymore,” recalled Rafi Majed, founder of Vocal Agent AI. One patient had tried to call for three days without reaching anyone.

“That story really struck me,” Majed said. His startup now offers AI voice agents that can answer up to 100 calls per second, speak 34 languages, make bookings, send confirmations, and even call patients back at the end of the day.

With 18 paying clients in Romania and two hospitals in Bulgaria, the team is eyeing the Dutch market. “People should get the healthcare they deserve. No more press-1-for-this, press-2-for-that, and wait 20 minutes.”

Childcare by the parents, for the parents

“Work-parent life is tough,” said Koen Vermeulen of Play Pals Club. “Most afternoons at school, I watch my kids run off with friends, leaving me alone, and it made me think: why aren’t we helping each other more?”

Play Pals Club is a platform where parents “upload” their kids’ availability, offer hosting slots when they’re home, and let an algorithm create a balanced weekly childcare schedule among trusted families.

The promise: more friendships for the kids, more peace of mind for parents, fewer hours spent dealing with expensive institutions. It’s hyper-local innovation with immediate community value, exactly the type of idea Tilburg founders love to build.

Water risk is business risk

“Water is life. Everything you use, even ChatGPT, depends on it.” With that opening, Juanita Ayala set the room silent. The direct economic value of water is estimated at €7.5 trillion annually, and yet, two-thirds of global companies face disruptions due to water stress.

“If water fails, your business fails,” she said.

Ayala’s work combines AI-driven analytics with deep expertise in water governance to help companies map their dependencies and risks across the whole value chain. “Water isn’t a sustainability issue. It’s a business-continuity issue, and a cost issue.”

She is currently looking for a technical co-founder, mentors, a co-working space, and pilot companies.

Speaking so your message actually lands

Iryna Digtiarova's pitch was full of humor and pain - corporate pain. She described the familiar moment when a perfect presentation receives polite applause but no follow-up. “The CFO would ask me every month: What’s the point? And every time, apparently, my message was too long, too detailed, too… everything.”

To fix it, she dove into storytelling, acting classes, and competitive speaking.

“The lesson is simple: numbers don’t speak for themselves, but people do. And if you can’t connect with the audience, the message won’t land.”

She now coaches founders and professionals who walk out of a room thinking, I wish I had said that differently. “Let’s talk,” she said. “I promise golden tips.”

Rapid-fire innovation: the Open Mic

Demos Pitches & Drinks is known for its open-mic segment: one minute, no slides, pure entrepreneurial energy. Tilburg delivered six very different sparks:

1. Proactive home maintenance – A team developing smart in-home sensors with AI-driven analysis to warn homeowners before damage occurs. “Why should property management be reactive when it can be proactive?”

2. A Silicon Valley YC veteran offering advice – A former founder and investor from Pioneer Fund and 500 Global, now in Tilburg, inviting founders for fundraising and growth insights.

3. Women’s safety wearable – A discreet, elegant device combining existing tech with a new design, allowing women to signal for help without drawing attention.

4. Helping divorced parents co-parent better – A software developer building a co-parenting app after realizing existing solutions don’t solve the real problem. An MVP launches next month; a sales/marketing co-founder is sought.

5. A young investor helping startups sharpen their business fundamentals – “Seven figures under management,” he said, offering strategy and financial modeling support to early-stage founders.

6. Baby Bar – frozen meals for babies – Founder Lisette described a mission born from parental stress, not spreadsheets: “Parents constantly wonder: Am I doing it right? We remove one daily dilemma: what to feed your child.” She seeks investors with experience in food startups.

Tilburg shows its character

What stood out in this edition wasn’t the technology—it was the human problem-solving instinct behind every pitch. Burnout, healthcare access, childcare, safety, co-parenting, water, and even infant nutrition: these founders aren’t building products first. They’re fixing problems first.

In other words: peak Tilburg.

The next Demos, Pitches & Drinks returns this Wednesday to Eindhoven, but the Spoorzone has made its point. Tilburg has a startup scene that’s ready to take societal challenges head-on.