While tech giants such as Meta, MessageBird and Twitter are slashing their workforces, the number of jobs at Dutch start-up firms rose 7.6% last year to 135,000, according to a new report focusing on the Dutch start-up sector.

The report defines a start-up as a ‘company which is designed to grow fast’.

Younger start-ups, founded after 2017, are creating more jobs, while those launched before 2005 have the slowest growth, the report said.

In particular, venture capitalists have put €1 billion into Dutch impact start-ups this year, down slightly on 2021 but double the 2020 total. One in every three euros invested in tech companies in the Netherlands is now going on company with the UN sustainable development goals at its core.

At least 550 start-ups in the Netherlands meet this definition, and companies such as Lightyear, EVBox and VanMoof are among the firms contributing to the trend. One in 10 start-up company employees work for an impact start-up.

These companies are becoming more highly valued than companies which are not involved in trying to combat climate change because ‘investors really do want to become greener’, Maurice van Tilburg, director of government start-up platform Techleap, told the NRC.

‘And the gas crisis has shown that companies focusing on saving energy are also economically very attractive,’ he said.

Read the report, in English

Changes to Dutch tax rules for start-ups will also create 116,00 jobs by 2030, the report said.

In June, MPs voted in favour of legislation which will make it easier for start-ups to pay their staff in shares, and so benefit from their company’s future success. The legislation will be voted on in the senate next week.