Victor Straatman · general partner, 4impact capital

Curiosity is my compass.

Looking back, the pattern is simple: I find something worth doing, commit my energy and means to it, and see it through. That’s how I’ve built companies, how Manon and I decided to move to New Zealand and to live in Vancouver for a while, and how I now back founders building the future I’d like to live in. I’ve been lucky to meet remarkable people at every turn, and I’m still curious about what comes next. Here’s the path so far, told from today back to my upbringing in Groningen.

Rewind from 2026

BuildingInvesting & boardsMentoring & advisingMoving: sport, sea, lifeStudy & jobs

Photos are black and white. Hover or tap one and the colour comes back.

  1. 2024–nowThe Hague

    General partner at 4impact capital4impact.vc ↗

    After twenty years of starting companies, I now spend my days with people doing the same. At 4impact capital we back early-stage European tech that solves global challenges: Seed to Series A, first tickets of €250k to €2.5M, from our €68M Fund II. I look for founders who want impact for people and planet as much as building a business to scale, and who see no contradiction between the two.

    The 4impact capital team on the steps of a stone house
    The 4impact team
    Pitch your company at 4impact.vcFollow 4impact on LinkedIn

    Recent deals I led as partner

    • OurMind AI that takes admin work off hospital doctors so they can spend more time with patients.€2.1M Series A · June 2026
    • Regulate Science-backed breathwork that helps professionals manage stress and perform.€1.4M seed · May 2026
    • Lucend AI software that cuts the energy data centres spend on cooling by up to 40%. Formerly Coolgradient: I led the first VC investment, then followed on.$3.3M round · January 2026

    Also in the 4impact portfolioCarbon Equity · Carbonfuture · Circularise · Deftpower · Envision · Equalture · Etpa · Exnaton · FRYTE · Green Story · GreenShift · Myrspoven · Quan · Satelligence · SkillsCV · Solar Monkey · Suena Energy · The Fabricant

  2. NowAt home

    Meanwhile, Manon makes art

    Manon and I have been together since 2000, and every big decision on this page was ours, not just mine. In her studio she turns high-end fabric cut-offs into abstract panels of simple shapes and contrast, often commissioned to tell someone’s story.

    Visit manongarritsen.comFollow Manon on Instagram

    Artwork and studio photos © Studio Manon Garritsen

  3. 2024–26

    Supervisory boards

    Two 4impact portfolio companies I’m proud to sit alongside: Solar Monkey, solar design software, which I followed through its merger with Eturnity in Switzerland, and Circularise, which brings traceability to supply chains for the circular economy.

  4. 2023–now

    Co-founder, Verbleverble.app ↗

    A conversation on a flight home from Lisbon turned into an AI speechwriting assistant. Within weeks of launch, people in more than 100 countries were using it to say what they meant. Proud to see it keep growing and helping users around the world.

  5. 2018–24

    Mentor and advisor, on the side

    Founders helped me when it mattered, so I try to return the favour: Launch Academy, Village Capital, Graduate Entrepreneur, Warren Brandeis, and the advisory board of OTFLOW, which cuts fruit waste in reefer containers.

  6. 2021–24

    Entrepreneur in residence, 4impact capital4impact.vc ↗

    Three days a week with the team and their founders, to find out whether investing was something I’d be good at. It turned into what I do now.

  7. 2019–21’s-Hertogenbosch

    BrandLoyalty

    Business director, then business development manager EMEA. The one time I had a job rather than a company, and a useful look at how a global market leader works from the inside.

  8. 2015–19Vancouver, Canada

    Vancouver: living a dream, and building through it

    In 2015 Manon and I moved to Vancouver to make another move abroad, now as a family with our two sons. Once there, I couldn’t find local, ethically raised meat for us, so I co-founded Meatme: people buying straight from regenerative farmers, with less impact and nothing wasted.

    • Mentoring at Launch Academy, Futurpreneur Canada, e@UBC and RADIUS SFU, and coaching kids aged 10 to 15 on their first ventures
    • Advising Sofar Ocean on getting ocean data into the hands of ships
    • Trail running in the mountains behind the city: first 50 km races, then the 50-mile (80 km) run I’m proudest of, which took me 11.5 hours to complete
    Victor on a mountain summit above Vancouver after a trail run
    Above the city, after a run · 2017
    Victor presenting Meatme on stage with a cow diagram projected behind him
    Meatme demo night, Vancouver Startup Week · 2016
    Victor, Manon and the boys on a mountain trail near Squamish
    Sea to Sky, Squamish · 2015
    Five runners at the start of the 50-mile trail race from Squamish to Whistler
    Start of 50 miles, Squamish to Whistler · June 2017
    Victor on stage at PechaKucha Night Vancouver in front of a projected pasture
    PechaKucha Night Vancouver · 2018
    Two surfers walking out of the water at Tofino
    Surf at Tofino · 2017
    The Meatme team on stage at the BCIC New Ventures awards
    Meatme team, BCIC New Ventures · 2016
    View over Howe Sound from a rocky trail
    Howe Sound from the trail
    Victor on a boat beside a yellow Sofar Ocean Spotter buoy
    A Sofar Ocean Spotter buoy, at sea
    A car with a rooftop tent in a sunlit forest campsite
    Camping, rooftop tent
  9. 2004–15Rotterdam

    Redkiwi: from an attic room to a 50-person agencyredkiwi.com ↗

    Back from New Zealand with a taste for the web, I started Redkiwi in 2004 with Jasper Verbunt, my best friend from uni. We bootstrapped it, one client at a time, into a full-service digital agency. In 2015 I handed over the day-to-day and stayed on as a shareholder. Today Redkiwi is an AI-driven growth agency of more than 55 specialists, still independent, and I’m proud of their continued success and the strong culture the team has kept alive.

    FD Gazellen fast growthDeloitte Technology Fast 5040–50 people
    • Guest lecturer in entrepreneurial marketing and bootstrapping at Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2011–15, passing on what we’d learned the hard way
    • Hung up the hockey stick and ran my first half marathons instead, mostly to think
    Visit redkiwi.comFollow Redkiwi on LinkedIn
    Working at a window desk in the early Redkiwi office
    The early office · 2005
    Victor with a mug next to the Redkiwi sign
    At the front door · 2005
    Painting of two red kiwi fruit halves on a plate, by Victor’s mother
    The painting my mother made when we founded Redkiwi
    The Redkiwi team working late around a table of laptops
    Still going strong · 2014
  10. 2004Auckland → Tonga → Fiji

    Ten weeks under sail across the Pacific

    Before heading home to start a company, we took the long way: out of Auckland on the yacht Amandla Star, up to Tonga, then on to Fiji. Ten weeks at sea teaches you patience, to enjoy the journey rather than the destination, and that most problems are smaller than they look from the deck.

    Auckland Tonga Fiji
    The yacht Amandla Star under sail, leaving Auckland with three people waving from the cockpit
    Amandla Star leaving Auckland · 2004
    Victor at the wheel at dusk, mid-ocean
    At the helm · 2004
    Manon on deck, smiling, open ocean behind her
    Manon on deck · 2004
    A beach at dusk with a tall rock stack topped by trees, people by a fire
    Tonga, at dusk · 2004
    Amandla Star at anchor off a palm-lined beach in evening light
    At anchor, Tonga · 2004
  11. 2002–04Auckland, New Zealand

    The other side of the world

    Straight after Delft, Manon and I moved to New Zealand for a simple reason: our English was poor, and I didn’t feel confident speaking it. The best way to fix that was to live in it. In Auckland I ran residential projects at Ocon, then led sales at internet agency Datum Connect, growing revenue 51% in my first six months. That taste of the web is what brought me home to start Redkiwi.

    • Premier League field hockey for Western
    • Mt Taranaki, kayaks and watching the America’s Cup up close. It also made me an All Blacks fan
    Victor and Manon laughing on a windswept beach at dusk
    Manon and me, on a beach somewhere in New Zealand · 2003
    A white weatherboard villa with a veranda and a pool, Auckland
    Home in Auckland · 2002
    Manon, Victor and a friend sitting on a rocky summit under a blue sky
    On top, with friends · 2003
    The Datum Connect-sponsored field hockey team posed in front of the goal
    Western, in Datum Connect shirts · 2003
    Victor in a hat and waders tying a fly by a stony riverbed
    Fly fishing, South Island · 2003
    Auckland skyline and Sky Tower across the harbour, yachts at anchor
    Auckland from the water · 2003
    Manon and a friend striking poses on a wild west-coast beach
    Manon and a friend, West Coast · 2003
    Victor and Manon throwing snow in the air on a mountain pass
    Snow in summer, on a hike · 2003
    A skydiver under a rainbow canopy against a cloudy blue sky
    Skydiving · 2003
  12. 1994–2002Delft

    An engineer who kept starting things

    Civil engineering at Delft taught me to take a problem apart and build it back up. The things I started on the side taught me everything else, and were the foundation for my later entrepreneurial journey.

    • Co-founder, Civil Engineering internship agency, 1997
    • Co-founder and advisory board, Techniek Bedrijven, 1998–2001
    • A year full-time as CFO (penningmeester) of student society KSV Sanctus Virgilius
    • Internships at Oranjewoud and in Taranto, Italy
    • Master thesis at APPM Management Consultants: a method and software tool for how governments collaborate on infrastructure projects
    • Regional sales manager for Brabo field hockey gear, 1994–2000
    • And every week, back on the hockey pitch
  13. 1991–94

    Flag hoisting at Koop Holding

    Every morning, the flags at the headquarters of a civil engineering contractor. A small job, and my first look at the industry I’d go on to study.

  14. 1989–94GHHC Groningen

    13years old

    Field hockey at GHHC Groningen, from 13 to 18

    My first stick at 13. I played at GHHC until I left for Delft in 1994, then through university at Hudito and later Dopie 1, and into the Premier League in New Zealand. The teams changed; the love for it didn’t.

    Victor's GHHC Groningen A1 team in 1993
    GHHC Groningen A1 · 1993
  15. 1988–92

    First business: Apple Macintosh consultant

    Still at the Maartenscollege, I started helping my dad’s colleagues and small businesses get the most out of their Macs. It paid better than a paper round, and it taught me that you can simply begin.

  16. BornGroningen

    Moi.

    That’s hello in Groningen, and goodbye too. I was born there into a very stable family: my mother an artist, my father an ENT surgeon, and my sister later became one too. Both sets of grandparents were entrepreneurs in the city: my mother’s parents ran a delicatessen on the Vismarkt, my father’s parents a bakery in the Oosterstraat. Curiosity has been my compass ever since, and it has always pointed away, and then home.

    The Martinitoren in Groningen against the sky
    The Martinitoren, d’Olle Grieze · Photo C messier, CC BY-SA 4.0
    Black and white close-up of a crying newborn
    Early days · 1976
    A young Victor giving his baby brother a bottle
    Feeding my sister Louise · Groningen
    Victor’s father in a small tent in the garden with two children
    Pitching the tent with my dad, in the garden · Groningen