Wouter was part of the founding team at Illumina Ventures, initially seconded from Illumina Inc., and later joining full time in the role of Principal. He brings 15+ years of experience in life science tools development and genomics to the fund.

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Prior to Illumina Ventures, he was Director of Corporate Development at Illumina Inc., where his main focus was venture investing and M&A. Investments led by Wouter at Illumina include Desktop Genetics, acquired by Celixir in 2018; and Biota Technologies, currently an Illumina Ventures portfolio company. Since joining Illumina in 2009, he has also held roles in R&D and Product Development at Illumina, where he was instrumental in the development of sequencing platforms, the sourcing and evaluation of new technology opportunities, and competitive benchmarking.

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An electrochemist by training, Wouter made his debut in life sciences in 2003 as first hire for Oxford University spin-out Oxamer, a company founded by Lasker-award winner Professor Sir Edwin Southern, where he contributed to the development of a benchtop DNA microarray fabrication platform. Following the company’s merger with Oxford Gene Technology (later acquired by Sysmex), he continued working alongside Prof. Southern, leading R&D on single cell gene expression analysis and novel applications for DNA microarrays.

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Wouter obtained a joint BSc/MSc (magna cum laude) in Chemistry from the University of Ghent, Belgium, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Newcastle, U.K., and a MBA from the University of Cambridge, U.K.