Managing Director at StartLife, the Startup Accelerator and Business Innovation Centre located at Wageningen campus.
After graduating in Toxicology and Philosophy of Biology at the University of Utrecht, Jan started off working in Marketing & Sales and Business Development at a Dutch Contract Research Organisation, moving on in 2006 to Innovation management and New Business Development at DSM, the multinational Food Ingredient company.
From 2009, Jan has been driving Entrepreneurship and Innovation for the Food Valley ecosystem in the Netherlands. Nowadays he is the Managing Director at StartLife, the Startup Accelerator and Business Innovation Centre located at Wageningen campus.
StartLife comprises of a Startup incubator, Startup Accelerator program, Early Stage Pre-seed fund, Venture Building activities and a StartLife Invest ltd company. Startlife builds and supports early-stage ventures in Food& Agtech, contributing to their initiation, modelling, strategy and growth.
StartLife is passionately involved in fostering business opportunities in the Agrifood domain, eager to develop a comprehensive Innovation infrastructure in Europe with its centre of gravity on Wageningen Campus and the surrounding Food Valley that drives relevant business with societal and economic impact.
Jan Meiling is also a co-founder and Director of F&A Next, a benchmark European Event platform that aims to promote innovation and impact in Agrifood. The platform inspires and connects startups and scaleups with the corporate and investor community.