Government Focus on DeepTech Startups

The Netherlands aims to be the leader in attracting tech start-ups. Since 2015, the state program to support such projects has been operating in the country. techleap.nl, which is supervised by the brother of the king - Prince Constantijn van Oranje. Recently, the government decided to extend this program for another three years, until 2026. At the same time, science-intensive startups, the so-called DeepTech *, will be in priority.

Minister's position

Economy and Climate Policy Minister Micky Adriaansens noted: “In recent years, we have laid the foundation for an ambitious policy. Now we want to use our innovative potential even better. The government is directly investing hundreds of millions of euros in technology through the Deep Tech Fund, the Dutch Future Fund and indirectly through National Growth Fund projects. Now is also the time to improve government engagement with private parties. We need to invest more together.”

The focus should be on knowledge-intensive start-ups that turn research into a business, because that's where the best growth opportunities lie. Institutional investors are an indispensable link in this, but they are too often lacking. The government has allocated 38 million euros for an early-stage startup funding scheme. And increasingly, this scheme is used for Deep Tech. In addition, the minister seeks to establish and strengthen cooperation with financial institutions to make it easier for start-up entrepreneurs to find funding.

Techleap.nl program

The initiative to support young start-ups grew into a state program in 2015. The program was first called StartupDelta and then Techleap.nl. Its main task was and remains to support startups at the scaling stage. As curator of Techleap.nl, Prince Constantine aims to turn the Netherlands into state of unicorns*. Under the StartupDelta program (Techleap.nl), companies initially had an annual budget of €1 million available, then €8,75 million, and now the budget is €5 million.

Dutch startups

Now the country has over 10 startups. More than 10 of them are "unicorns". 135 jobs can be classified as technological. More than 1400 Dutch startups are engaged in "deep technologies": These are knowledge-intensive start-ups that combine high-quality technological knowledge with research, development and production. Approximately 21% of Dutch startups grow into scaleups*.

These companies develop products or offer services in the field of alternative energy, biotechnology, nanotechnology, FinTech, quantum computing, healthcare, recycling, photonics. The government believes that in the future it is necessary to place even more expressive emphasis on these areas.

According to the prestigious rating Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2022, Netherlands (Amsterdam-Delta) 14th in the world for startup climate, first place in the EU (above Paris and Berlin) and second place in Europe after London (UK).