Who are Cradle's decision-makers?
Cradle is led by Stef van Grieken, Co-founder and CEO, with a leadership bench spanning product, science, operations, and commercialization.
- CEO
- Stef van Grieken
- Key exec
- Jelle Prins
- Founded
- 2021
- Employees
- Private; Amsterdam and Zurich teams
- HQ
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Notable
- Former Google product leader focused on protein design software.
- Stef van GriekenCo-founder and CEOCo-founder · since 2021Former Google product leader focused on protein design software.
- Jelle PrinsCo-founderCo-founderProduct and engineering co-founder.
- Elise de ReusCo-founderCo-founderBiology and operations co-founder.
- Eli BixbyCo-founderCo-founderScientific co-founder.
Who leads Cradle?
Stef van Grieken serves as Co-founder and CEO; Jelle Prins serves as Co-founder; Elise de Reus serves as Co-founder; Eli Bixby serves as Co-founder. The leadership pattern reflects the company's focus on protein engineering ai.
For outreach, leadership background matters because it shows whether decisions are likely to be product-led, science-led, clinical, industrial, or government-procurement heavy.
Who actually makes buying decisions at Cradle?
Likely buying committees include the executive owner of Protein design platform, security and compliance leaders, finance/procurement, and the technical leaders responsible for integration.
A seller should avoid starting with a generic CEO pitch unless the offer is strategic. Most practical deals will need a functional champion who owns deployment pain and a finance or operations approver.
How is Cradle organized as it scales?
Cradle's public footprint suggests a scaling private company with cross-functional teams around product, engineering, customer deployment, and go-to-market or R&D. Exact reporting lines are not public.
The safest assumption is a matrixed buying process: technical validation first, operational proof second, and executive approval for larger commitments.
As of June 2026.Sources:Cradle websiteTechCrunch Cradle Series B
Cradle — frequently asked questions
