Kevin Klomp has been an entrepreneur for most of his working life. He built and sold a marketing company, spent years learning to read founders across the table, and when it was time to figure out what's next, he didn't rush.

"I was in a lucky position that I had some time to look for what I wanted to do after selling my previous company."

Joined from the outside

Kevin came into ve2ventures from a different angle than David and Jerry. For years, he worked as a project manager and product owner at various agencies, building an understanding of how products and organisations actually work before stepping out on his own. He went on to build and sell a performance marketing company, then shifted his focus to investing in startups—which is where his real dealmaking education began.

That's also how he met David. Kevin invested in JOGO, David's football tracking venture, which was later successfully sold. The relationship that formed around that deal led directly to co-founding ve2ventures alongside David and Jerry in December 2023.

When ve2ventures launched, Kevin led investor outreach and helped build the studio from the ground up. Over time, as the portfolio grew and the deals became more complex, he moved into M&A, finance, legal, and compliance — a role he had no formal background in, and learned by doing.

"I've always been a hands-on founder. When I see a gap in the organisation that should be filled, I jump in. I'm growing into it and learning a lot every day."

How he makes deals

Kevin's approach to dealmaking comes down to one thing before anything else: the team sitting across the table.

"What I look at most is the founding team. That's the core component of every deal that we make. The product can have high potential and be scalable, but if the founding team is not complementary to what we do at ve2ventures, it's a no-deal."

Due diligence matters and the numbers matter. But for Kevin, the moment a deal becomes real is earlier than that; it's a specific point in the conversation when the click arrives.

"Most of the time, there is a point during negotiations where you have a click with the other founder or investor on the other side of the table. Once that click is there and you know you're both going for the same deal, then it's just a go. If the feeling is right — a gut feeling based on experience — then let's go for it."

The investor he looks for

The investors who back ve2ventures and its portfolio are not a uniform group. Kevin has built a community that spans enthusiasts, operators, and financial investors — sometimes all three in the same room.

When Padelplay launched, the investor base reflected the breadth of the opportunity: padel players who loved the game and saw the emerging market, sitting alongside tech investors who wanted exposure to that same market from a return perspective. Some investors came in purely for financial reasons. Others were already inside the sports technology sector and saw ve2ventures as a way to deepen their network.

"I prefer the word participation over investment, because you are actually part of the company and the growth trajectory that we have in mind."

That framing is deliberate. At ve2ventures, investors are brought into the ecosystem, not placed at arm's length from it.

Padelplay: the first proof point

Kevin is an avid padel player and has been for years. When the team started looking at where to apply the sensor technology they had developed through JOGO's insole work, padel was the obvious answer: a sport growing faster than its infrastructure, with almost no player data available anywhere.

"Speed is king, especially in technology. We had that unfair advantage because we could develop the sensor in a much faster way because of our experience with previous insole sensors."

Padelplay became ve2ventures' first venture ideated, developed, and launched entirely in-house — from concept to product in a matter of months. The sales trajectory and player response confirmed what Kevin had believed from the start: the gap in the market was real, and they had arrived early enough to own it.

"To see that the sales are rising and everybody is loving it is just a wonderful feeling. It's a confirmation that we are on the right track.”

The vision

"My vision for ve2ventures is that it will be the go-to partner as the venture-building studio within sportstech, media, and entertainment. Any investor or founder that sees an opportunity to either invest or grow their business and wants to discuss with us is more than welcome."

The asset he points to most, beyond the portfolio, is the team itself: a combination of young, ambitious people and experienced operators across multiple fields, deliberately built and held together by a shared network that most studios in this space don't have access to.

"That's our biggest asset besides our network."