How an Agtech Founder Turned a Dutch Market Gap Into a Botanical Hydration Brand

Mo Qaem chose the Netherlands. He chose it deliberately, analytically, and well before he ever booked a flight.

Before moving, Mo built a scoring matrix comparing European countries across five criteria: population size, tea consumption per capita, English proficiency, startup visa availability, and overall business climate. The Netherlands came out on top. He applied, waited six months, and arrived. Within one month of landing, he had launched a company.

That mix of careful thinking and decisive action has defined Mo’s approach to business for over twenty years. oostaMo is the latest chapter in a story that started long before the Netherlands.

A story that begins a century ago

Mo’s grandfather was a hardworking saffron farmer in Iran, a man who owned no land but raised ten children. He planned to keep them out of school and working beside him. It was Mo’s grandmother who changed that. She insisted his father receive an education, and his father went on to become a doctor.

That decision, made by a woman whose name rarely appears in the story, shaped everything that followed. He describes it plainly: he was raised to follow his dreams without fear of falling.

Each generation built further than the last. Mo became an entrepreneur, and the saffron farming roots his grandfather planted stayed close to everything he built.

Building from the ground up

Mo started his first business at twenty. Employment options were scarce, so he created his own path. That first venture was internet service provision, and he became one of the first ISPs in his hometown. The business grew fast enough that the mayor paid a personal visit.

The business eventually failed. His father sold a piece of land to cover the debts. Mo carried that forward as a lesson, and kept going.

From there, the ventures grew in ambition. He opened the first vegan restaurant in Iran’s second-largest city, years before plant-based food became a mainstream conversation. He then founded Kavikonj, an urban children’s farm that connected young people in big cities back to nature and farm animals. The concept led a quiet movement: eighty similar nature schools opened across Iran in the years that followed.

A platform built on saffron and purpose

The most significant chapter came with Keshmoon, a marketplace Mo co-founded to connect saffron farmers directly to consumers and businesses. The idea came from personal experience: Mo grew up in a saffron farming family in northeast Iran, and he understood the gap between what farmers grew and what they earned.

Keshmoon grew into one of Iran’s top agriculture startups. Mo built the team to forty people, raised multiple investment rounds, and grew turnover by over 550% in a single year. The platform earned national recognition, reaching the top ten startups in the country, and the UN extended invitations to collaborate on farmer empowerment projects.

When he sold his shares, he had taken the business as far as that ecosystem would allow. So he started looking further.

A considered move to a new market

The scoring matrix was real. Mo compared countries methodically, weighting each factor against what the next business would need to grow. To be very exact, the screening started by comparing the Far East (Japan, China and South Korea) and Europe and USA. The Far East is very different culturally so he thought it is not the right starting point. USA is politically complex so he knew it must start from Europe and then expand to those markets.

Tea consumption per capita was one of those factors. It makes sense once you understand what Mo was building towards. Mo’s personal interview showed that one in four people in the Netherlands find plain water dull, even as they want to drink more of it. That insight became the foundation of everything that followed.

Mo navigated the process through Dockwize, a Zeeland-based facilitator from the government-approved list.. Six months later, he was in the Netherlands. One month after that, oostaMo was open for business.

Overnight Botanicals: nature in a glass

oostaMo launched as a herbal tea company and evolved quickly. Today, the business sells Overnight Botanicals: small sachets hand-filled with precise portions of dried flowers, leaves, fruit, and roots. You drop a bag into cold tap water, leave it overnight, and by morning you have a premium botanical drink, full of colour and flavour. Naturally sweet, with zero sugar and zero additives.

The colours alone tell a story: deep red from hibiscus, golden yellow from saffron, soft purple from butterfly pea flower. Each one comes directly from the plant.

Based in Vlissingen, Zeeland, oostaMo sources botanicals directly from regenerative farmers, keeping the supply chain short and transparent. Dutch farmers supply locally, including apple mint from Nieuwe Bodem in the Achterhoek. Organic ingredients come from further afield too, with Mo actively sourcing from farmers across Europe and beyond who farm with the land rather than against it.

The business is gaining real ground. oostaMo achieved fourfold growth in 2025 compared to 2024. Overnight Botanicals are now served at some Coffee Company locations in Amsterdam and at Hortus Grand Cafe at the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden. The brand has been featured at Horecava and at a dedicated corporate gifting fair.

Values at the centre of every venture

Every business Mo has built has been anchored in something he genuinely cares about: the environment, animal welfare, and supporting farmers who regenerate the land rather than extract from it. Keshmoon was built to give saffron farmers a direct route to consumers and a fair share of what they grew. The children’s farm was built to reconnect young people with where food comes from. oostaMo carries the same thread. 

The mission Mo describes is straightforward: create market demand for farmers who are doing things the right way. Every bag of Overnight Botanicals connects the person drinking it to the person who grew it.

“I am always asking how we can do this differently,” Mo says. That question has driven every venture across two decades and two continents, and it continues to shape what oostaMo is becoming.

The foundation that made it possible

Mo is open about the role his family played. When his first internet business failed, his father sold land to clear the debts. That kind of support gave Mo the stability to keep going through the difficult periods, to learn from setbacks and try again. He carries a strong sense of what that meant, and of the responsibility that comes with it.

It is the kind of foundation that changes what is possible. Mo has built on it steadily, across sectors and countries, for over two decades.

What comes next

Mo describes 2025 as the year of exploration, a time to test directions and learn what works. 2026 is the year of focus: growing revenue fivefold, finding the right niche more clearly, and building the brand identity and messaging to match. The real scale-up, he says, will come in 2027.

The Overnight Botanicals range is growing. New flavours are in development. Pairing ideas with chefs, sommeliers, and bartenders are underway. A plantable limited edition, where the used bag can go straight into soil to grow flowers for bees and pollinators, is being explored for spring.

Mo is also working with students from technical school Scalda to design a filling machine, part of a broader move towards a social workplace production partnership. With 75,000 bags needed this year, the business is at a real inflection point, and Mo is building the infrastructure to match.

From a saffron farming family in northeast Iran to botanical drinks on café menus in Amsterdam, every step has been intentional. That is what good entrepreneurship looks like: progress built on purpose, one considered step at a time.

Mo is a Forward·Inc alumni. Learn more about oostaMo and the Overnight Botanicals range at oostamo.com or connect with Mo on LinkedIn. Use the discount code forward to get a 10% discount on your purchase for the next 30 days. 

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