Jasper van Berkel

Serial entrepreneur | Building identity-driven communication infrastructure | Founding CEO at RELAY

Netherlands

About

I build and scale technology-driven ventures in complex, science-based environments. Over the past years, my work has focused on translating academic innovation into scalable, commercially viable companies, primarily within biotech and life sciences. This includes navigating the full spectrum from IP strategy and business model design to financing, team building, and partnerships with academic groups, CROs, and international pharma. I tend to operate where complexity is high and outcomes are uncertain — environments that require both structured thinking and pragmatic execution. My role is typically to bring clarity, direction and momentum to initiatives that have strong underlying potential but require careful positioning and orchestration to succeed. Across these ventures, a recurring theme has been the gap between how systems are designed and how they actually function in practice. Much of my work revolves around identifying these structural mismatches and building towards more robust, scalable alternatives. Recently, I have started exploring such a mismatch outside the life sciences domain: the absence of a true identity layer in digital communication. Today, communication still depends on channel-specific identifiers such as email addresses, phone numbers and platform handles. These were never designed to function as persistent identity, yet they have become the default. This creates structural inefficiencies for both individuals and organisations — from loss of control and privacy at the user level to increasing complexity and cost in managing contact data. I am exploring a model in which communication is anchored in identity rather than in contact details, where identity is persistent, user-controlled and independent of underlying communication channels. This work is still at an early stage, but driven by the conviction that communication infrastructure will fundamentally evolve in the coming years.

Experience

  • Founding CEO at RELAY
    Mar 2026 - Present · 4 mos

    Built RELAY from the ground up: the concept, the architecture, the namespace (155,000+ terms across 33 languages), the claim flow, and the economic framework behind it. RELAY gives every person, organisation, and AI agent a persistent address — decoupled from phone numbers, email addresses, and platform handles. The sender knows the identity. The recipient controls the rest. First investors engaged. Feasibility funded. Building the infrastructure layer that digital communication has always been missing.

  • Founder at SynergyPeak & Company
    Jan 2024 - Present · 2 yrs 6 mos

    Current SP&C freelance engagements: * AtheroScreen B.V. - Strategy and Business Development Advisor * Litharis Bio - Strategy and Business Development Advisor ✅ Clear2Cure - COO ✅ Clear2Cure - Strategy and Business Development Advisor ✅ VitalNext - Strategy and Business Development Advisor ✅ Keystonemab - Strategy Advisor and New Business Development

  • Co-Founder at Global Premium Nutrition
    Jan 2024 - Present · 2 yrs 6 mos

    Since January 2025, Global Premium Nutrition's operations have been paused to create space for other strategic priorities of the founding team.

  • Chief Operating Officer at Clear2Cure
    Feb 2025 - Nov 2025 · 10 mos

    www.clear2cure.com

  • Chief Operating Officer at Orgonex B.V.
    Jan 2023 - Jan 2024 · 1 yr 1 mo

    Now part of Demcon