Oost NL
Oost NL is the regional development agency of East Netherlands, a public investor owned by the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. It makes early-stage venture investments in food, health, tech, and energy, and its water exposure is occasional: as of 2026 it has backed one water company, the drinking-water startup SolarDew.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Oost NL is the development agency of East Netherlands, owned by the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel together with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, and it has been investing public money into regional startups for roughly fifty years. That public mandate is the whole personality of the place: Oost NL backs young companies to strengthen a region and push innovation to market, the way a private venture firm would, but answering to taxpayers rather than to limited partners (the outside investors who fund a normal fund).
Oost NL spreads its capital across the four themes the eastern Netherlands is strongest in, food, health, tech and energy, which means water is never the headline. In the Leviathan database I keep on water raises, Oost NL surfaces exactly once: a single water company, the drinking-water startup SolarDew, which it has backed across two rounds. Water reaches a generalist public investor like this one sideways, as part of the cleantech and energy edge of the mandate, not as a thesis of its own.
Oost NL's single water holding is worth knowing in its own right. SolarDew builds solar-powered membrane distillation units that turn polluted or salt water into clean drinking water using only sunlight and gravity, with no electricity and no chemicals, for off-grid and water-stressed communities. It is exactly the kind of patient, public-good hardware bet a publicly funded agency can make, and it shows how water tends to reach a generalist regional investor: as climate and public-health infrastructure, one company at a time.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Oost NL invest in?
- Oost NL invests in early-stage companies across four sectors the eastern Netherlands is strong in: food, health, tech and energy. It deploys public money on behalf of its government shareholders through its OostNL Capital arm, and its water exposure is occasional, currently a single drinking-water company, SolarDew.
- Does Oost NL invest in water?
- Oost NL invests in water only occasionally. (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional: as of 2026 the Leviathan database shows one water company, SolarDew, inside a portfolio otherwise centred on food, health, tech and energy rather than on water specifically.
- Who owns Oost NL?
- Oost NL is a public development agency owned and commissioned by the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. That ownership is why Oost NL invests to strengthen the East Netherlands region and its innovation economy rather than to maximise a private fund's return.
- Where is Oost NL based?
- Oost NL is based in Apeldoorn, in the Gelderland province of the eastern Netherlands. It serves the two eastern provinces, Gelderland and Overijssel, and has worked from the region for roughly fifty years, running its venture investments through the OostNL Capital arm.
- Is Oost NL the same as NOM or ROM InWest?
- No. Oost NL is the regional development agency for the eastern Netherlands, covering Gelderland and Overijssel. NOM serves the northern Netherlands and ROM InWest the Amsterdam region; all three are Dutch regional development companies, known as ROMs, but each covers a different territory.