There’s a community in the middle of Leiden where someone is always launching something, pitching something, or quietly panicking over a spreadsheet.
We belong to that community and on September 17, 2026, that marvellous group of nerds and conquerors turns 10!
PLNT, Leiden’s startup incubator, is celebrating a decade of getting ambitious people into one place and sprinkling it with guidance, connecting bright minds, tosti’s and innovative spirit, and hoping it will actually amount to something (spoilers: often it did!).
We may be slightly biased here. DutchReview has worked out of PLNT since 2018, which, in startup years, feels roughly like a geological era.
So, after eight years of testing this recipe of sprinkling, let us tell you why we still think it’s a special place.
What is PLNT, exactly?
If you’re picturing a grey office block with a sad coffee machine, adjust your expectations.
Which is all to say there are actually plants and colourful rugs everywhere, several abused coffee machines, and most importantly, a very gezellige cafe.
PLNT is Leiden’s centre for innovation and entrepreneurship. It’s a startup incubator run in partnership with Leiden University, the town of Leiden, Hoge School Leiden, and many more.
It’s a place where people with big ideas come to figure out whether those ideas actually work.
Some are students testing a first concept. Others are established companies with staff, funding, and a very real and innovative product.
The mix is what makes it interesting. On any given day, you might share a lift with a biotech founder, a game designer, a sustainability engineer and someone who’s just realised their brilliant idea already exists.
There are students enjoying their first work-experience, as well as pensionados sharing their rich experience.
Throw some expert-knowledge, an always delivering network, and many serious workshops and fun drinks, and we’ve found it to be the perfect spot for toiling away at that potentially golden idea.
Eight years of DutchReview at PLNT
We moved into PLNT back in 2018, and we only see reasons to stay. Working next to people building things from scratch keeps you on your toes.
It’s handy for the day job, too: when we write about Leiden startups, we can sometimes just walk down the corridor to talk to their founders.
We’ve covered a fair few of our neighbours over the years, from a whole cohort of game-changing startups sharing our building to the most promising Leiden names to watch.
The companies that started here and went on to bigger things
PLNT isn’t designed to keep companies forever. It’s designed to help them grow until they’re ready to head out on their own.
It takes you from validating that vague dream about a gamechanging business to actually making it happen with the right people.
A good example is SeraNovo. The pharmaceutical startup was co-founded by Niall Hodgins, who, like many internationals in Leiden, originally moved here for a Master’s degree and started a company before he’d even graduated.
SeraNovo tackles an enormous problem: most medicines in development aren’t absorbed well by the body, which means even a brilliant cure can be effectively useless. SeraNovo’s technology helps fix that.
The company went on to win the LifeSciences@Work Venture Challenge and is now a well-established name in the Leiden Bio Science Park community.
That’s the PLNT journey in a nutshell: start small, grow up, spread your wings, and come back for the borrel.
And SeraNovo isn’t alone. Battery innovator LeydenJar and protein-from-CO2 startup Deep Branch both count PLNT among their old addresses, and there’s plenty of that same energy still in the building today.
The rooftop, the borrels, and what makes the community tick
Now, about the roof. PLNT has a rooftop garden, and it’s the sort of feature that sounds like a nice bonus until you spend time there.
Perched above the city, it’s where the accidental conversations happen (the ones over a coffee or a Friday borrel that somehow turn into collaborations).
Indeed, some of the best things about PLNT aren’t on the floor plan. They’re on the roof.
Ask people at PLNT what sets it apart, though, and most land on the same word: community.
It’s a close-knit crowd of like-minded people who help each other out, compare notes, and, by their own admission, laugh a lot.
There are biweekly borrels, an annual ski trip, and a general sense that everyone’s quietly rooting for everyone else.
For a place built around competition and ambition, it’s remarkably warm a home away from home where you can build your innovative startup.
Ten years in, PLNT still feels like a place where something’s about to happen. Van harte gefeliciteerd PLNT!