StartLife and BDO continue their collaboration to support Food & Agri startups in the Foodvalley. The goal for the coming years is to help even more startups make a positive impact.
When you start your own company, it is not only important to validate customer needs but also to have up-to-date and accurate insights into your business finances. BDO helps startups and scaleups from the StartLife community to obtain these insights. In addition, BDO provides the startups with strategic advice and brings them into contact with parties from their own network. The collaboration is greatly appreciated by all parties involved, so a follow-up was in the offing.
Gateway to partners
As one of the largest accounting and consulting organizations in the world, BDO has an enormous network, from research institutions to companies, both large and small. Due to their role and position they know very well what is going on with their clients, what they find important and where their needs lie. Rachel Dibbets, senior consultant accountant at BDO, confirms this. “We can quickly estimate what advice and guidance startups need to help them grow. In addition, we are happy to go the extra mile for our clients by, for example, putting startups in contact with other organizations that may be of interest to them and bringing them in contact with the right people. We not only find this a valuable contribution, but also enjoy doing so.”
During the earlier collaboration Jan Meiling, Managing Director at StartLife, soon noticed that BDO has very close relationships with their customers, which allows them to lay very good connections. What Meiling particularly appreciates about the relationship with BDO is that they are above all very active in connecting startups to their huge network.
In the video below you can see how BDO connected food startup UmaMeats, one of the startups of StartLife, to one of the most innovative catering companies in the Netherlands, Hutten. (in Dutch)
Growing number of ambitious companies requires more intensive cooperation
Both StartLife and BDO note that more and more startups and scaleups are settling in the Foodvalley region. The ambitions are often high and the challenges are becoming increasingly complex, as evidenced by the issues that the startups present. “Of course everyone is very happy with this development,” says Rachel Dibbets. “Together with StartLife we want to offer these growth companies even more support to flourish, sometimes literally but mostly figuratively.” This includes support on topics such as internationalization, legal structures and agreements, but also ad hoc advice with regard to staffing, business valuation models, taxes and strategic (growth) issues.