Wout Eggink started out with an 11-square-meter shoe repair shop in Deventer. A few businesses later, he now works out of an office in Amsterdam’s Science Park, where AI agents draft grant applications for consultants across Europe.
A month ago, his company Twin joined AIC4NL’s Breaking Barriers program—literally to break down national borders—and on June 4, the team will fly to London for the first time.
One thing, very specific
Wout handles the commercial and strategic aspects; co-founder Patrick van Rietschoten handles the technical side. Twin is building a platform that enables grant consultants to write grant applications faster, more easily, and with greater success.
A knowledge base is available for each grant program. Multiple AI agents work in a chain on top of this. The first conducts research and structures the data, the next one outlines the narrative, and yet another one formats the text. With the click of a button, the document is generated in the correct submission format. The team consists of ten people. At the end of last year, Twin raised a million euros in funding, and the platform has been live since November.
The advantage of a niche
The decision to be hyper-specific is paying off. “If you try to compete in the general CRM market, you’re up against giant companies. In the niche of grant consultants, you can become the best with two and a half years of focus,” Wout explains. And Twin is well on its way to achieving that: the share of the Dutch market it has secured as clients is growing steadily. By the end of the year, Wout expects they will have spoken with most consultants in the country and secured a substantial market share. From that point on, there will be little left to gain domestically.
That’s why they’re expanding abroad. Twin has plans for the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, and Belgium. Their approach is based on a clear concept: building communities around the target audience, supplemented by live events. In the Netherlands, the SubsidieExperts NL community now has 190 members, and its British counterpart, Grant Experts UK, has 120 members. The first event in England will take place on June 4 in London.
Human Work
The biggest challenge lies in purchasing behavior across the border. “The buying journey of a British consumer is completely different from that of a German one,” says Wout. Every market has its own pace and its own logic. An AI agent can’t just cut through that.
The core product is running smoothly, and the team relies heavily on AI for development. Eighty to ninety percent of what Twin produces is assisted by an AI agent. This frees up capacity for tasks that only humans can do: building relationships in new markets and learning exactly how things work there.
Breaking Barriers
Twin joined through its own network. Wout and Patrick are familiar with the startup and venture capital circles where Breaking Barriers is a well-known name. The goal of participating is twofold: expansion and product development. Twin is seeking targeted assistance in both areas. The program offers access to a broad network of experts and a financial component that provides the flexibility to expand more quickly.
The flight has been booked, and the agents are staying in Amsterdam. What a British grant consultant needs isn’t covered in any knowledge base. Wout is doing that research himself.
