Harnessing Tomorrowland’s spirit for corporate–startup innovation: Interview with Mats Raes of Love Tomorrow & Impact Circle

Innovation doesn’t only come from research labs; sometimes it’s sparked by bringing the right people together at exactly the right moment.

This is the idea behind The Impact Circle, a curated network where corporates, startups, investors, and policymakers collaborate to tackle major societal and industrial challenges. In recent years, it has become a key partner of the European Innovation Council’s Corporate Partnership Programme (EIC CPP), helping connect Europe’s top innovators with large corporates for impactful commercial collaborations.

At the heart of this effort is Mats Reas, who has helped channel the power of Tomorrowland – a huge music festival known for creating meaningful human connections at an extraordinary scale – into a new kind of meeting ground, where corporates and startups spark ideas, pilot solutions, and build long-term innovation partnerships.

In this interview, we dive into how The Impact Circle’s model accelerates corporate–startup collaboration, why its partnership with the EIC CPP has been so effective, and what came out of the co-hosted EIC Multi-Corporate Discovery Day this year. We also explore the upcoming 2026 Circles focused on Mobility, Consumer Goods, and Construction, and how new corporates can formally get involved.

So Mats, welcome! Most people know Tomorrowland as one of the world’s biggest music festivals, but far fewer know about its innovation ecosystem. In one sentence each, how would you describe Love Tomorrow and Impact Circle in your own words?

Love Tomorrow Summit is a thought leadership festival organised on the grounds of Tomorrowland.

The Impact Circle is Europe’s exclusive network where pioneering corporates with an open innovation culture and bold startups connect, joined by a curated group of visionary investors and policymakers to extend scale and momentum. In summer, this group of bright minds comes together at the main 3-day event taking place at and around the Love Tomorrow Summit.

How did The Impact Circle evolve into a platform for startups, corporates, and sustainability-driven innovation, and what are some of your biggest successes with this format? 

Organising a mass event like Tomorrowland with more than 200 nationalities is much like building a temporary city. Many of the challenges we face are in parallel with broader societal or ecological challenges, and so over the years, we’ve learned that open innovation is crucial in finding effective and durable solutions.

Most importantly, the Impact Circle wants to help you as a company to engage with the innovation challenges you are facing. The primary focus is on the cleantech, digital, health and lifestyle industries.

If and when relevant, we will add some of the challenges we can bring to the table, so we can make a difference together. In this way, we believe we can create meaningful impact and generate real economic value. And why not have some fun while doing so?

As an experienced community builder and event organiser, we believe we have the responsibility and the unique ability to bring people together. We are convinced that, in partnership with leading companies, we can shape a path toward scalable impact and celebrate shared success!

Impact Circle curates “Circles” where corporates meet startups. What inspired you to create this format, and why is it so effective?

We believe that uniting multiple companies in circles around shared goals creates fertile ground for maximum cross-pollination. By integrating disruptive startups and scaleups, the strongest ideas gain room to win, while internal buy-in increases through the involvement of corporate experts. Often, adopting external technologies also delivers a better business case than building them internally.

From the corporate perspective, what makes participating in a Circle valuable, and how can it help them explore innovation opportunities?

In addition to the above, beyond connecting companies to exchange best practices, we also organise targeted workshops around specific innovation themes. In these workshops, we bring together corporate experts with the most relevant startups for their challenges. This format has been a great success and significantly strengthens internal buy-in within the companies. The informal and open atmosphere certainly contributes to that success. 

This year, you partnered with the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme as part of your wider Impact Circle 2025 event. For the EIC’s Multi-Corporate Discovery Day, the EIC brought 40 startups, and you saw corporates P&G, Coca-Cola, and AB Inbev team up. Could you tell us about the results of this event?

It’s a bit early to share the final results. The various companies that participated last summer are actively implementing their client venturing processes as we speak, and we expect the outcomes to become clear in the coming months. First testimonials, however, are remarkably positive: 25-35% of the startups they met during The Impact Circle are already actively engaging with them to build a collaboration.

This is a natural and logical result of the intensive preparation leading up to the event, together with the EIC and its official suppliers, Dealflow and Hello Tomorrow. If you partner with The Impact Circle, we will be working closely over a period of 4–6 months leading up to the summer event: defining challenges, scouting startups, developing expert workshops, preparing pitching competitions, and much more. Because of the fact that the Impact Circle is an invite-only event, we can ensure the relevance of all the participants and maximise the value of the three days spent together.

For 2026, you’re planning three themed Circles with the EIC: Mobility, Consumer Goods, and Construction. What opportunities do you see for new corporate partners, and what kind of partnerships do you hope will come out of the event? 

The primary focus is on the cleantech, digital, health, and lifestyle industries. We chose this positioning with large organisations to collaborate around technologies that tackle society’s most pressing challenges head-on. We firmly believe in the power of economies of scale and in the positive impact that can be achieved by engaging major companies through renewed networks and working toward scalable outcomes.

For corporates curious about applying for the next co-hosted EIC Multi-Corporate Discovery Day and Circle at Impact Circle 2026, how can they get involved and apply officially? 

For any questions, companies can contact our team via Bart Deweer, our Partnerships Manager, at [email protected]. You can find our website here, which will be fully updated in the coming months.

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