NL House: the NL Lounge
The full force of Dutch creativity and tech, right in the heart of SXSW London…
On June 3, the NL Lounge is your base camp for the day: a place to land between sessions, make new connections, and get a feel for what the Netherlands is building right now.
Visit ten promising Dutch startups, presented by the Dutch Embassy and ROM Utrecht Region, ready for early conversations, pitches and collaboration.
Pitch sessions take place at 10-11 AM and 2-3 PM.
Patrick Willer, Founder, Innovation Network — A Dutch community and platform helping businesses and leadership teams harness AI through meetups, keynotes, dinners and on-demand coaching.
Sander van der Kolk, Co-founder Jamr — A live music discovery app for concerts and festivals, helping fans find local shows, follow artists, and plan nights out with friends.
Thies Godding, Brand & Business Developer Boldly-XR — An XR studio creating immersive experiences across VR, AR, and interactive installations for brands, education and events.
Kees van Dorp, Founder & CEO, and Ragna Hes, Co-Founder & CCO Instama — An AI-powered marketing platform that turns brand strategy into on-brand content, helping companies produce faster without losing their identity.
Holger Schwedt, Co-founder & Inge Zoete Project manager Persona 3D — A media studio using real-time game technology to create emotionally compelling digital characters and live experiences at the crossroads of entertainment, music, and events.
John Wittmaekers, Co-Founder Loookhere — A GPS-powered storytelling platform that triggers location-based audio experiences for visitors, turning travel routes, heritage sites and city destinations into hands-free, immersive narratives.
Danna Mulya, CEO Podego — A startup using AI to create personalised audio guides for museums and cultural venues, available in 30+ languages and multiple storytelling styles.
Floris Smit, Founder & IX Producer, UpscaleXR — A production house specialising in large-scale XR for live events and cultural institutions — the only European organisation consistently running 100 to 300 simultaneous headsets.
Roger Oliveira, Co-Founder Ver.ID — Reinventing online identity: from simple age checks to official business verification, access any credentials you need straight from your customer’s identity app.
René van Engelenburg, Artistic & General Director Dropstuff Media — A pioneer in immersive media design, creating interactive public installations and experiences that blend new technology with storytelling for festivals, museums, and cultural organisations. dropstuff.nl
About the speakers
Speaker bios
Sander van der Kolk is co-founder of Jamr, a live music discovery app built for fans who want to stay connected to the music happening around them. Jamr makes it easy to find local concerts and festivals, follow favourite artists, and plan nights out with friends — bringing spontaneity back to live music in an era of algorithmic overload.
Jamr is on a mission to close the gap between artists and their local audiences, making live music more discoverable and accessible for everyone.
Thies Godding, is Brand & Business Developer at Boldly-XR, an XR studio creating immersive experiences across VR, AR and interactive installations. Working with brands, educational institutions and event organisers, Boldly-XR builds experiences that go beyond the screen — turning complex ideas and brand stories into something audiences can step inside.
Boldly-XR sits at the intersection of creativity and technology, designing experiences that don't just communicate a message but make it felt — whether in a boardroom, a classroom or on an event floor.
Kees van Dorp, is Founder & CEO of Instama, an AI-powered marketing platform that solves one of the core tensions in modern brand management: speed versus identity. Instama turns brand strategy into on-brand content at scale, helping companies produce more without drifting from who they are.
Built for marketing teams under pressure, Instama brings together AI and brand logic in a way that keeps creative output consistent, recognisable and genuinely useful — without the usual trade-off between volume and quality.
Ragna Hes, is Co-Founder & CCO of Instama, an AI-powered marketing platform that solves one of the core tensions in modern brand management: speed versus identity. Instama turns brand strategy into on-brand content at scale, helping companies produce more without drifting from who they are.
Built for marketing teams under pressure, Instama brings together AI and brand logic in a way that keeps creative output consistent, recognisable and genuinely useful — without the usual trade-off between volume and quality.
Holger Schwedt, is co-founder of Persona 3D, a media studio working at the crossroads of entertainment, music and live events. Using real-time game technology, Persona 3D creates emotionally compelling digital characters and live experiences — pushing the boundary between the physical and the virtual in ways audiences can genuinely feel.
Persona 3D brings together expertise in gaming, music and event production to create a new kind of live experience — one where digital characters don't just appear on screen, but become part of the room.
John Wittmaekers, is co-founder of Loookhere, a GPS-powered storytelling platform that transforms how people experience places. By triggering location-based audio as visitors move through a route, heritage site or city destination, Loookhere turns the journey itself into the story — hands-free, immersive and built around where you actually are.
Loookhere works with tourism boards, cultural institutions and city destinations to unlock the narrative potential of physical space — giving visitors a deeper, more personal connection to the places they explore.
Danna Mulya is CEO of Podego, a startup rethinking the museum audio guide for the AI era. Podego creates personalised audio experiences for cultural venues, available in over 30 languages and adaptable to multiple storytelling styles — meeting each visitor where they are rather than delivering a one-size-fits-all tour.
Podego's platform gives cultural institutions a scalable way to deepen visitor engagement, reduce language barriers and tell their stories in ways that feel genuinely tailored — without the cost and complexity of traditional audio guide production.
Floris Smit, is Founder and IX Producer at UpscaleXR, a production house specialising in large-scale immersive experiences for live events and cultural institutions. UpscaleXR is the only European organisation consistently operating 100 to 300 simultaneous headsets — bringing XR out of the lab and into rooms full of people.
UpscaleXR handles the full production chain, from concept to delivery, making large-scale XR viable for organisations that want the impact without the operational risk. Their track record across cultural and live event contexts makes them a rare and reliable partner at this scale.
Roger Oliveira,is co-founder of Ver.ID, a platform reinventing what online identity verification can look like. From age checks to official business credentials, Ver.ID pulls directly from a customer's own identity app — making verification faster, more trustworthy and less friction-heavy for everyone involved.
Ver.ID is building toward a world where proving who you are online is as simple and secure as showing your ID in person — with privacy built in from the start and the customer always in control of their own data.
René van Engelenburg,is Artistic & General Director of Dropstuff Media, one of the Netherlands' leading names in immersive media design. Dropstuff creates interactive public installations and experiences that blend new technology with narrative craft — working with festivals, museums and cultural organisations to build moments that stop people in their tracks.
With a track record spanning public space, cultural venues and major festivals, Dropstuff brings both artistic rigour and technical expertise to every project — designing work that invites audiences in rather than just putting on a show.
Presented by ROM Utrecht Region and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in London.
ROM Utrecht Region is the regional development agency that stimulates innovation and sustainable growth in the Province of Utrecht and the Gooi and Vecht region.
It supports companies, startups, and scale-ups by investing in innovative organisations. It helps companies, governments, and knowledge institutions connect to innovate and grow. https://romutrechtregion.nl/
NL House @ SXSW London
On June 3 2026, NL House opens for a day that runs from a morning wake-up call about where ambitious people should actually point their talent, to late-night conversations about what Amsterdam's after-dark culture is building next.
Expect cities to make the case for why they deserve your attention. Brands and studios showcasing work that moves people. Artists and technologists with projects that refuse to fit neatly into a single discipline. Explore the NL Lounge, where ten Dutch startups will showcase their technological creativity.
Presented by New Dutch Wave and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, created in collaboration with Dutch Digital Design, Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition, EIT Culture & Creativity, the City of Amsterdam, ROM Utrecht Region, Innovally, Gielissen, WT Interactive, and Dentsu Lab.
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