Dutch tech startups benefit from less investment than their competitors in other countries and are finding it hard to recruit enough people, despite the mass redundancies at big tech companies, startup lobby group Techleap said on Thursday.

‘Dutch startups are increasingly disadvantaged compared to their competitors in neighbouring European countries, the US and Asia,’ TechLeap said in its new report on the state of the Dutch technology sector.

‘To remain competitive, more needs to be done to develop deeptech and expand the pool of founders and leaders. Stimulating the growth of the success rate of startups by making more capital available and attracting talent is essential.’ Deeptech is technology which requires significant scientific or engineering-based advances.

The report shows that the average financing per startup in the Netherlands in 2022 was €260,0000, compared with €900,000 in Sweden and €670,000 in France and the UK. Germany too, with average financing of €550,000 is also far above the Dutch figure.

‘Tech has become extremely strategic… and that is why it has to become part of economic and industrial strategy across every sector,’ said Techleap’s special envoy Constantijn van Oranje.

In addition, in 2022, the volume of external funding fell by 50% when compared with the record year of 2021, Techleap said.

Read the report (in English)

Spin-offs

The report also showed that despite the reputation of the Netherlands’ higher education institutes, they spawn relatively few spin-offs, and those there are grow slowly. Some 80% are still active after 10 years but more than half still have fewer than 10 workers.

Talks are underway with the universities about developing transparent standard contracts which would deal with complicated issues such as intellectual property rights, Techleap said.