Today, Thijs invests in startups and, together with his former United Wardrobe co-founders Sjuul Berden and Thijs Slijkhuis, launched the Hippie, Hacker & Hustler Seed Fund (3HSF). Through this fund, they invest €2 million in Dutch pre-seed and seed-stage startups and support founders hands-on with technology, strategy, marketing, growth, and fundraising.
As a speaker, Thijs speaks candidly about building and selling a startup, but now also shares insights from the other side of the table: why some startups successfully raise funding, what investors are really looking for, and which mistakes founders keep making.
From startup founder to investor
Thijs Verheul founded United Wardrobe in 2014 together with Sjuul Berden and Thijs Slijkhuis. Without prior experience, a large network, or significant funding, they built a marketplace from their student days that eventually reached millions of users across several European countries.
The team raised millions in growth capital, built an organisation of more than forty employees, and competed with international players. In 2020, United Wardrobe was acquired by Vinted. After the acquisition, Thijs remained a shareholder in Vinted and wrote about the full entrepreneurial journey in his book Voor hoeveel heb je het verkocht?
After United Wardrobe, Thijs began investing himself. He invested in startups including Breeze, Eddy Grid, Hadrian, and BookBoost, and supported founders with growth, marketing, and fundraising. In 2026, he joined forces again with his former co-founders and launched 3HSF: Hippie, Hacker & Hustler Seed Fund. The fund has €2 million available for Dutch startups in the pre-seed and seed stages. The three founders bring the same division of roles they used while building United Wardrobe: vision and strategy, technology and product, and growth and commercial execution.
Within 3HSF, Thijs focuses mainly on go-to-market strategy, marketing, fundraising, and growth. As a result, he now sees hundreds of startups up close and understands not only what it is like to convince investors himself, but also why an investor ultimately says yes or no.
Thijs as a speaker
Thijs combines the story of a successful startup exit with his current experience as an investor. His talks are therefore not simply a retrospective on one success story, but focus on how entrepreneurship actually works in practice.
Without management jargon, he shares the choices, mistakes, and unexpected turns behind United Wardrobe, from finding the first users and using clever marketing tactics to hiring employees, dealing with investors, expanding internationally, and eventually selling the company to Vinted.
Through 3HSF, he can now add a new perspective. What does an investor see when a founder walks in with a pitch deck? Why does one team raise a million within a few weeks while another struggles for months to convince anyone? And how important are traction, team, technology, and timing really?
His style is down-to-earth, energetic, and practical. Not a story in which everything turns out to have been part of a brilliant master plan, but entrepreneurship as it actually happens.
Career
Thijs Verheul is an entrepreneur, startup investor, author, and speaker. He founded United Wardrobe and sold the company to Vinted in 2020. Since then, he has invested as an angel investor in early-stage technology companies.
In 2026, he founded 3HSF together with Sjuul Berden and Thijs Slijkhuis, a €2 million pre-seed and seed fund for Dutch tech startups. 3HSF not only provides capital, but also aims to apply the operational experience of the former United Wardrobe team to a new generation of founders.
In addition to his investment activities, Thijs speaks at companies, universities, and events about entrepreneurship, startups, investing, marketing, and growth.
