The famous Dutch Hardt Hyperloop startup that promised to revolutionise transport in the Netherlands and beyond has been declared bankrupt.
Ever imagined teleporting from Amsterdam to Paris in under an hour? Well, you’re not the only one.
Students from Delft University created the Hardt Hyperloop project back in 2017 after winning a 2015 design competition hosted by Elon Musk himself.
It sounded wacky even then: the tech-heads were concocting a way to shoot travellers in a capsule through a pneumatic tube at breakneck speeds.
Alas, as of 2026, Hardt Hyperloop has declared bankruptcy: the Den Haag court issued the ruling on 4 March 2026, confirmed in the Centraal Insolventieregister (Central Insolvency Register).
Sometimes, reaching for the stars is just too expensive.
Optimism at first
Hardt Hyperloop came onto the scene with a bang. The Netherlands was all in: private investors, NS railway systems, and even the city of Groningen invested millions, reports de Volkskrant.
Even the European Innovation Council threw in their support, in the form of a not-so-quaint €15 million.
READ MORE | Hop on the hyperloop! Dutch hyperloop receives €15 million funding boost
Eventually, investment and interest allowed them to build a €10 million test track in Veendam. The massive tube is a sight to see.
For a long time, things seemed to be on the right track (pun intended).
Money, money, money…
Somehow, with all those millions invested (most recently, € 12 million in 2023), Hardt Hyperloop is broke.
How do you spend all that money in just two years, you ask? Therein lies the problem with the project as a whole.
READ MORE | Rotterdam expects to have the world’s very first hyperloop by 2030
As reported by NOS, while the technology is fascinating and certainly speedy, it’s been too difficult to develop a business model for such an expensive form of transport.
Pneumatic tubes, or vacuum tubes, require entirely different and more costly forms of construction than more traditional transportation.
In the end, building an aeroplane or a high-speed train is just much cheaper. It seems investors have been frightened off by this daunting reality.
Not to mention, research is always expensive, especially when it comes to developing new transportation.
So what now?
Despite a promising test-run in 2024, the company signalled in 2025 that it was unable to continue without significant and timely financial support.
RTL Z, who broke the story, reports that Hardt Hyperloop trustee Sjoerd Warringa definitively confirmed bankruptcy rumours were true.
More information on the exact details has not been disclosed. Warringa did not comment on the possibility of a project restart.
While this may well be the end of Hardt Hyperloop, however, it is certainly not the end of the hyperloop concept as a whole.
The test track in Veendam, for instance, continues to exist separately from the company, reports NOS, and could continue to be used for research and development.
Other startups and the European Hyperloop Centre have also shown stoicism in the face of another startup crash.
So while it might be the end of this particular Dutch endeavour of hyperlooping passengers at 1,200 kilometres an hour, don’t write off the idea entirely: you may still find yourself being catapulted to work in the future.
What do you think of Hardt Hyperloop’s declaration? Let us know in the comments!
