About the company

Following a year of preparations in areas such as product development, marketing and organisation, a private limited company was officially established on 17 June 2010 by five shareholders. Funding was provided by the Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands (NOM) and Friesland Bank, among others. The management board consists of two members: Jozias Hillenkamp and Leo Hovestadt. The aim of the company is to further develop and market the Raindropchess® game.

Raindropchess® works closely with Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen and Alfa-college, a regional training centre in the north of the Netherlands. Students at intermediate vocational education (MBO) level can complete their internship or apprenticeship training at Raindropchess®, which has been certified as a ‘host company’ for this purpose. We have developed a particularly close relationship with students and teachers at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, with a focus on disciplines like multimedia and programming. A number of specialised tasks are outsourced to freelancers.

Idea and development

The idea for Raindropchess® arose by accident when Jozias Hillenkamp and his son Melchior were playing a game of chess on the couch at home and some pieces fell off the game board. The basic concept of the game was born when father and son returned the pieces to the board, placing them on squares they selected themselves. Jozias and Melchior then quickly came up with the idea of recording the sequence of pieces on a set of cards. The name ‘Raindropchess®’ was inspired by the image of chess pieces returning to the board one at a time, i.e. ‘drop by drop’.

A prototype of the game was tested extensively by chess players, friends and family members throughout 2009. In October 2010, Raindropchess® Basic was introduced to the market in a bilingual version. This version of the game was targeted mainly at the Dutch chess community, i.e. people who already own a chessboard. Following enthusiastic responses at various trade shows and demonstrations of the game at schools, chess clubs and tournaments, Raindropchess® Standard was brought out in the autumn of 2010.

The Raindropchess® name and logo are protected trade marks within and outside Europe.