The new knowledge map of the Netherlands

Here, we explore the specialisms and qualities of the different provinces, based on the many startup hubs in the Netherlands, often closely connected with knowledge institutes.

If you ask people about Dutch specialisations in knowledge areas, agriculture and waterway construction quickly come to mind, both based on the country’s rich history. The Netherlands is a small country where limited space requires efficient food production. It is also a country that is around 26 percent below sea level and where 59 percent of the land is prone to flooding. However, Dutch people know a thing or two about dealing with water. Instead of fixating on the status quo, let us focus on the new growth industries in which the Netherlands participates on the international stage. And Techleap is a logical place to start.

A successful startup ecosystem

Techleap is an engine for the Dutch tech industry financed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. The organisation brings together investors and entrepreneurs, provides knowledge to startups and organises study and trade trips abroad. Techleap has managed to put the Netherlands on the map as a centre for startups internationally. Thanks in part to this, NATO recently decided to establish its NATO Innovation Fund of €1 billion in Amsterdam. According to world-leading innovation policy advisory and research firm Startup Genome, the Amsterdam Delta was the most successful startup ecosystem in Europe in 2022. It consists of the provinces of North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht, and is leaving Berlin and Paris behind. Given the relatively limited surface area of the Amsterdam Delta, Startup Genome claims how impressively this ecosystem has developed, consisting of some 10,000 startups, scaleups and grownups with a total business value of €310 billion. This is due to an open and dynamic business climate that embraces startups and the presence of highly educated and multilingual people. In addition to the Amsterdam Delta, the Netherlands has several other large startup hubs in Enschede, Eindhoven, Groningen, and Maastricht.

The most important industries

Energy and fintech are the most important industries, as measured by the number of startups, enterprise software, e-commerce, and healthtech. Fintech and healthtech excel when it comes to the percentage of companies that have developed into scaleups. The Netherlands’ newest unicorn, Backbase, is active in fintech. The company reached unicorn status in June 2022 when it raised €120 million in new investment money, which valued Backbase at €2.5 billion. Two other companies worth more than €1 billion are games and advertising company Azerion and charging station company Allego. With 1.4 unicorn companies per million inhabitants, the Netherlands is now fourth after Israel, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Growth factors

Techleap sees opportunities to further grow the tech ecosystem by achieving an increase of 35 to 45 percent in the number of new start-ups by 2030. The organisation has formulated five sources to drive this growth, mainly based on achieving greater diversity among the starting entrepreneurs. For example, the share of women founders needs to increase. Next, more spin-offs from universities and research institutes should be created. The share of experienced founders, founders with a migrant background and founders with a non-academic education must also increase. It is logical that Techleap sees universities as an important potential cradle for new companies to be founded. With only 0.2 percent of the world’s population, Dutch knowledge institutes provide 2.1 percent of the research output. The Netherlands also accounts for at least 5.6 percent of the 1 percent of most-cited articles in the world.

Universities as an engine

Over the past decade, Dutch universities and research institutes have moved into the startup scene. Efforts have been made to support science-based businesses, with a greater emphasis on valorisation. The universities founded an estimated 1,600 startups, of which 745 are verified spin-offs via intellectual property licensing and/or are part of the equity portfolio of a knowledge institute. Technical universities are the most common source of spin-offs (30 percent), followed by university medical centres (28 percent) and general universities (25 percent). Additionally, 7 percent of the spin-offs were initiated by research organisations, and the source of knowledge for the remaining 10 percent is unconfirmed.

Deep tech innovations

In 2022, Techleap commissioned research into knowledge areas with high potential for the Netherlands. The top three are quantum mechanics, augmented reality and robotics. All three are called deep tech innovations, which can be defined as disruptive solutions based on unique, protected or difficult to reproduce technological or scientific progress. A lot is expected from research-driven deep-tech companies because they can provide new solutions for major transitions in healthcare, energy, food and agriculture, high tech, and manufacturing industries, which are necessary to fulfil the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

 Source: Dealroom.co. Based on reclassified Dealroom data; this is the number of all verified startups, scaleups and grownups.

 

Qualities per province

Although the Netherlands as a whole is viewed internationally as one big city, with Amsterdam used as a synonym for it, it is still useful to zoom in on the qualities of the various provinces, even if only to choose the right conference destination. Here as well, we base ourselves on the startup scene, knowing that the traditional structure of knowledge institutes has a major influence.

North Brabant

North Brabant is a good place to continue with the deep tech theme, as it is home to 172 deep-tech startups, including Prodrive Technologies (chip machine modules), Sioux Technologies (software and smart modules for high-tech companies) and Smart Robotics (fulfilment centre automation). The province’s academic source of knowledge is Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), a medium-sized university with about 5,000 BA students, 3,200 MA students and 1,200 PhD students. Its key research areas include automotive systems, broadband telecommunication technologies, information and communication systems, nanoengineering, plasmas and polymers, as well as its key research areas of energy, health and smart mobility. North Brabant mainly draws its strength from the collaboration between training and research institutes, companies, governments, and startups that make up Brainport Eindhoven, Europe’s technological hotspot. As an example, TU/e ranks first in Europe when it comes to joint publications with industry. Tilburg University (more than 20,000 students) is also included in Brainport Eindhoven, with business and economics as well as law and psychology as the main fields of study.

Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe

The fastest-growing startup province is Groningen, which, together with Friesland and Drenthe, makes up the Northern Netherlands Delta. The University of Groningen is an important driver of new development. It is one of the seven Dutch universities that rank among the global top 100 according to Times Higher Education (THE). This broad-based university of more than 36,000 students has more than 9,000 international students from 127 countries. Notable startups include solar power company Soly, QDI Systems (next generation X-ray imaging systems) and e-health platform Liv. Energy is an important theme in Groningen. Originally, it was because of its large gas fields, but today there is a search for alternative energy sources and distribution. Hanze UAS is very active in this domain with applied research. The water-rich neighbouring province of Friesland houses startup hub BioBizz (water and bio-based technology) in Balk en Watercampus Leeuwarden, an ecosystem for innovation in the field of water technology. The GreenWise Campus has started in Drenthe, where various partners are looking for green and smart solutions in the fields of circular plastics, energy, the smart manufacturing industry, and technology for healthcare and welfare. The University of Twente is an important knowledge institution with research institutes in the fields of nanotechnology, information technology, biomedical technology and technical medicine, sustainable energy and smart devices, governance, behavioural sciences, geo-information science, and earth observation.

Gelderland and Overijssel

It is no surprise that Gelderland is the cradle of food tech start-ups, as Wageningen University and Research (WUR) is located here. It is one of the world’s top universities in the field of food, ranking first in agriculture and forestry and fifth in environmental sciences. A number of noteworthy spin-offs are Rival Foods (plant-based alternatives for meat), revyve (microbial ingredients) and Plant-e (electricity generated with plants). These companies show that Gelderland can play a role for impact companies. There are also newcomers such as Elestor (energy storage) and Enzyre (near patient blood coagulation analysis). Radboud University Nijmegen, a broad-based university with more than 24,000 students, is also located in Gelderland. Overijssel stands out with its various healthtech hubs spread across the Netherlands. Health tech startups provided 30 percent of startup jobs in the province in 2022. Noteworthy companies are Ecare (smart ICT solutions for nursing home care, home care and care for the disabled), QuiX Quantum (quantum photonic processors) and IamFluidics (microparticle production).

Limburg

Limburg benefits from its central location from a multinational perspective. The southernmost province of the Netherlands is located in the heart of the ‘Eindhoven, Leuven and Aachen Technology Triangle’ (ELAT) with quick access to the German market. Maastricht University, with more than 20,000 students (of whom 56 percent are international students), is a broad-based university with six faculties. However, it is not the only source of fundamental knowledge and talent. KU Leuven, Belgium, and RWTH Aachen University, Germany, are also located in this Euroregion. The close collaboration between knowledge institutes and the business community can be seen at the four Brightlands campuses. The Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Sittard-Geleen is a leading chemistry hub with expertise in material science and additive industries. Maastricht houses the Health Campus, while Heerlen houses the Smart Services Campus, a community of entrepreneurs, researchers and students who jointly develop new smart digital services to improve the quality of life. Healthy and sustainable food is central to Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. Well-known startups in Limburg are S+dB (seed embedding), Aerial Precision (3D sensor modules for drones), Mosa Meat (growing meat), and NPROXX (hydrogen storage).

Zeeland and Flevoland

Although Zeeland has the fewest startups in the Netherlands, a lot is expected from them in the future, particularly in the local food and transport industries. At Campus Zeeland, companies, knowledge and research institutions and governments have joined forces to increase the innovative power of the province. This partnership mainly focuses on economic sectors that owe their origins and advantages to the water surrounding Zeeland: industry and maintenance, ports and logistics, agrofood and seafood, water and energy, and healthcare and tourism. The province of Flevoland is comparable in terms of new business development. In recent years, the first steps have been taken with a number of hubs in the field of food tech, such as Flevo Campus, a knowledge institute that links science, education, entrepreneurship, and policy to find fresh solutions for urban food dilemmas.

South Holland

Let’s now have a closer look at the Amsterdam Delta, which brings together South Holland, Utrecht and North Holland. South Holland is mainly a hub for impact-focused startups, which include 62 companies that focus on clean and affordable energy. The companies located there can draw on a large and diverse talent pool from three Top 100 universities: Erasmus University Rotterdam, Delft University of Technology and Leiden University. The Hague, the international city of peace and justice, is also located in South Holland. Leiden University has a campus in the city with a focus on international law, peace and security, globalisation and international relations, politics, public administration and public finance, and urban issues.

Utrecht

Utrecht currently generates the second-largest number of startup jobs per capita. Some of the province’s biggest employers include bol.com (webshop), AFAS Software (administration software) and Ultimaker (3D printers). Important innovative industries are health, fintech and e-commerce. Utrecht University is located in the provincial capital of the same name. More than 36,000 students study at the university every year, spread over seven faculties.

North Holland

With more than 3,400 startups and 51,600 startup jobs, North Holland represents 38 percent of the startup workforce in the Netherlands. Successful companies such as payment platforms Adyen and Mollie, as well as the online supermarket Picnic, were launched there. The province also houses high-impact startup employers, including EVBox (charging stations) and VanMoof (electric bicycles). The province’s particular strengths lie in the fintech, travel, transportation, and health industries. The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an academic source of knowledge. With more than 14,000 international students and researchers from more than 100 countries, the UvA offers one of the largest ranges of English-taught Master’s programmes in Europe. The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) has more than 31,000 students. Another asset of the Dutch capital is the many national and international venture capitalists and incubators headquartered there, which provide the necessary funding to grow the startup ecosystem year after year.