Name: Dr. Anne Berends
Company: SunLED Life Science B.V.
Position: CEO, CTO and Co-Founder
Website: https://sunled.health
About Dr. Anne Berends
Dr. Anne Berends is a research scientist and the CEO, CTO and co-founder of SunLED Life Science, the creator of proprietary near-infrared lighting (NIR) technology, including the consumer product SunBooster.
Anne’s journey began from both scientific curiosity and personal experience. Trained as a materials scientist at a technology incubator company specializing in advanced materials and etching technologies, she was constantly searching for projects around meaningful innovation. At the same time, she personally experienced the effects of the long, dark Dutch winters and insufficient sunlight. This led her to focus her research on making the health benefits of sunlight accessible indoors for everyone.
She dove into the question of what makes sunlight healthy and identified an overlooked component: near-infrared light (NIR). This part of the light spectrum has been studied since the 1960s and used in several medical devices, yet it has largely been overlooked by the lighting industry.
Based on her underlying scientific research, she founded SunLED Life Science.
At SunLED Life Science, Anne merges academic research with real-world applications. She has spent more than six years of R&D developing near-infrared technology that can bring the health benefits of natural sunlight indoors, a potential health and wellness benefit to counteract our indoor lifestyles. Under Anne’s leadership, SunLED Life Science is solving a key challenge created by our indoor lifestyles: the lack of natural sunlight.
The average person spends around 90% of their waking hours indoors (https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-47713.pdf) and up to seven hours looking at screens (https://www.comparitech.com/tv-streaming/screen-time-statistics/) – deprived of natural sunlight, which can have serious systemic health consequences, including a lack of energy and mood disorders.
SunLED Life Science completed two peer-reviewed clinical studies of its patented, scientifically proven near-infrared light technology and recently launched its first product, SunBooster. A first-of-its-kind device that makes screen time healthier, SunBooster uses near-infrared light to boost mental and physical health. A double-blind clinical study conducted by the University of Groningen found that SunLED’s NIR light technology improved mood, decreased drowsiness, lowered resting heart rate and reduced inflammation (Source: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/12/1/60).
Anne leads SunLED Life Science’s technological and scientific strategy, including scientific collaborations, IP portfolio, product (concept) development, and commercial partnerships. Anne built a multidisciplinary team that bridged science and design to pioneer this new category.
Under her leadership, SunLED Life Science has received five major awards, including TIME Best Inventions 2025, IFA 2025 Innovation Awards, Gadgety Awards, Inside Digital Best of Show at MWC Barcelona 2025, and CES 2026 Techlicious Award. Anne is also the host of the Science of Sunshine podcast and a frequent speaker at scientific conferences.
In addition to her strong business record, Anne is an accomplished scientist. She holds a Master of Science in Chemistry and a PhD in nanomaterials science from Utrecht University. Her PhD thesis describes the synthesis and optical properties of colloidal copper indium sulfide nanocrystals – a material highly relevant to semiconductor development. She developed new synthesis methods and characterized the nanocrystals with electron microscopy and time-resolved spectroscopy.
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