Partner at Northzone (Web3)
Check size: No personal check-size range is published. Michiel invests through Northzone across early and selected later rounds; disclosed financing totals are company rounds and do not establish an individual check range.
Michiel focuses on SaaS, healthcare, and AI, often where modern, collaborative, or intelligent software replaces complex legacy systems. His portfolio ranges from HR, manufacturing, architecture, logistics, and developer tools to healthcare and domain-specific foundation models. His founder advice is empirical: listen to the market and test, learn, and re-test quickly.
Demonstrate the product and the learning loop. Show why users abandon a legacy system, how quickly they reach value, and what retention or enthusiasm proves. For scientific AI, connect proprietary models and domain knowledge to real-world validation and commercialization. Be candid about what customer tests changed in the strategy.
Exceptional technical and domain teams, a sharp product vision, rapid customer learning, strong user enthusiasm, modern UX in a neglected category, commercial drive, and scientific or technical advances that can support a category-defining global platform.
His published commentary implies caution toward founder strategies detached from market feedback, complicated software without adoption advantages, products with weak time-to-value, and frontier AI lacking both domain expertise and a commercialization path. These are evidence-based inferences, not an explicit public list.
Ask what the team believed, which customer or product test challenged it, what changed, and how quickly the next iteration produced measurable evidence.
Compare incumbent complexity, pricing, setup, collaboration, and integrations with the proposed product's time-to-value and path to category ownership.
Evaluate proprietary models, scarce data, domain expertise, simulation or validation, and the bridge from research performance to a repeatable commercial workflow.
Assess whether constrained capital sharpens revenue, prioritization, and resilience rather than becoming an excuse for slow customer learning.
“Listen to the market. Strategy is all well and good. But really you need to test, learn and re-test. Fast.”
— https://northzone.com/team/michiel-kotting
Specialized foundation models that combine generative AI, simulation, domain expertise, and commercialization capability can accelerate materials discovery and real-world performance.
Interactive, personalized self-service can replace static documentation, improve time-to-value, and become a horizontal platform across onboarding, support, and internal training.
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