#FoundersFridays: Meet Sébastien Willems

Can you briefly walk us through your career and how it contributed to the founding of Antfarm?

After studying Digital Communication, I founded my first startup, Presspage, a corporate communications platform —think of it as Salesforce for PR and communications. I worked on it for more than twelve years. In the last few years, I started to feel a bit stuck. I looked for the next step, both within the company and outside of it, but I was not sure about my path. Then, COVID happened. This final push made me think: Okay, I will replace myself. On January 1, 2021, I stepped down as CEO. I took a year and a half off, married, and welcomed my first child. After that time, I felt the itch again. I worked on a few small projects but realized I wanted to build something again.

Did you immediately come up with Antfarm?

No, I had quite some false starts. If I’m honest, I think I burned through about 150k on projects and ideas. Eventually, I realized that if I’m going to create something new, it must have a real impact. Sustainability must be a key factor. I’ve always been fascinated by how society has developed and how our growth has affected climate change, ocean pollution, and waste. The issue of waste, in particular, started to grab my attention.

What is it about waste that fascinates you?

Everyone talks about climate change—it’s a hot topic—but waste is still an afterthought. It’s something dirty, banal, something we’d rather not think about. I find it painfully ironic that we’re the only species on earth that can’t clean up its own mess. We keep inventing new materials without considering how to dispose of them. And you don’t have to look far to encounter it. On the outskirts of the city, you’ll find massive material recovery facilities—huge complexes where our waste is sorted and processed. That sounds good in theory—“processing”—but in the Netherlands alone, 7 billion kilos of waste are incinerated yearly. We’re either unaware of this or, worse, we think it’s normal. It’s a bizarre contrast to how other living creatures manage their waste.

How did ants become a source of inspiration?

Ants are an example of a species that efficiently manages its waste streams. If you observe how an ant colony handles its waste, it’s fascinating. They work together, everything has its place, and it’s incredibly efficient and goal-oriented. There’s a lot we can learn from them. The concept of a swarm that works seamlessly together—attuned to each other—struck me as a beautiful example of how things should work.

How did those two things come together?

I felt strongly that I needed to do something about waste. I noticed that there were already robots on the market, and coming from a software background, I understood how AI and software could make a difference. I saw that robots were inefficient in using the space they were given. I asked myself, Why use them this way? Could it be different? Initially, I mapped out these robots: what are their functions? What other sorting machines exist? Robots that pick out the last pieces of contamination from waste streams and place them in the correct bin are incredibly precise. I hypothesized we could do this with much higher volumes. There had to be something between the large, clunky machines that handle high volumes and the precise robots that remove the last bits of contamination. That’s the gap we’re targeting.

How did you proceed from that hypothesis?

I tested the hypothesis, showed it to some people, and had a robotics team create a simulation of my concept. I presented this to several major market players in the Netherlands and abroad, asking if they would be interested if this existed. Everyone we spoke to was immediately enthusiastic.

We are currently developing a prototype: an integrated machine with up to 24 robotic arms in just 3m². The next step is a "swarm in a box", a group of sorting machines that - in line with the prototype - can work in the current infrastructure of the existing sorting centers. That is phase 1. Phase 2 is the autonomous swarms that can operate independently outdoors or in a sorting center.

You aim to raise 750k for Antfarm. How will you use this funding, and what are the next steps for Antfarm in 2025?

We’re now a little over halfway to our goal, so things are looking good. The “swarm in a box” is under development, and we want to scale it up. Next year, we aim to launch a prototype and generate data to prove it works. NASA introduced the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), which range from 1 to 9 for hardware. We are currently at TRL 4 and aim to reach TRL 7 next year. We are collaborating with TU Eindhoven and the National Test Center Circular Plastics to conduct our indoor swarm test as a proof of concept.

What about further development? Is this only applicable to sorting centers in the Netherlands?

Absolutely not! We want to provide a solution to a global problem. Although waste management is also an issue in Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands, it’s especially pressing in countries with enormous landfills, often filled with waste cheaply dumped by other nations. Right now, sorting centers are the gold standard, but building a material recovery facility is expensive and time-consuming, and it isn’t agile—adding new machines to handle new waste streams is challenging.

For example, in Southeast Asia, where landfills are common and sorting centers are rare, there’s significant interest in what we’re developing. In three years, robot swarms could replace existing recovery facilities. We could be the leapfrog solution, allowing countries to move directly to autonomous swarms rather than building expensive centers.

What has been a recent win for your company?

Aside from the investments we’re excited about, we’re very pleased with the data generated from our new simulation. It shows we’re on the right track. Market players have told us: “Can this be available now? It would save me a lot of money.” 

What has been a recent challenge?

Finding the right robotic arms and scaling up. There are plenty of suppliers, but what we need doesn’t exist yet. Industrial arms are often large and clunky, while precision arms are overly detailed and expensive. We need something in between—accurate enough to fill the gap between coarse sorting machines and precise analytical equipment.

What are your long-term plans?

We want Antfarms around the globe servicing various waste streams, with robots operating autonomously so that minimal human labor is required.

What do you need to create more impact?

It would help if governments worldwide pushed harder for the use of recycled materials. This is on the agenda for 2027, but it could and should happen sooner. With the right incentives, companies would quickly follow. We must ensure that recycled material becomes the norm. That’s the only way to strengthen the recycling market and make the world cleaner.

If you’re an Amsterdam-based founder working on an innovative solution that solves an urban or social challenge, and you’d like to share your story with our audience, email impact@amsterdam.nl