Let’s continue our European startups landscape tour with the Netherlands and Amsterdam!! Welkom.

Netherlands is a country of about 17 million inhabitants that have seen the creation of around a thousand startups. The country is indeed famous for its legendary canals, it bike-friendly attitudes and legalised cannabis, but let’s not forget Creativity, Community, Multilingualism, and Practicality.

At #19 on the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking, and #4 in Europe behind London, Germany and France, Amsterdam is certainly seen as the rising star location for technology startups to set up and scale-up.

So who are the Dutch Unicorns / Established tech companies?

• Adyen (Unicorn), a payment technology company.
• Booking.com, an online booking, now part of The Priceline Group,
• TomTom, publicly listed.

Further to that there are amazing startups emerging such as …
Peerby who connects borrowers and lenders via a location-based app.
Treatwell, a “Just Eat” for hairdressers.
Catawiki, a site for comic-book enthusiasts and collectors.
SnappCar a mobile app that offers private car rentals.
Hubs, an online platform connecting designers and IP owners owners with local manufacturers. From rapid 3D protoyping to full-scale production.

Here is our selection of co-working spaces in Amsterdam
WeWork
The Startup Orgy
Hackers and Founders
Spaces Works
B.Amsterdam

Accelerators/Incubators
Rockstart – Rockstart gives startups rock-solid support in their first 1,000 days. They offer accelerator programs, pitching events and office/co-working space.
Startupbootcamp – A global network of industry focused startup accelerators.
ImpactHub – A launch pad and incubator for impact-makers.
Prodock – The linking pin between city and port.
ACE Venture Lab – A startup accelerator that actively supports researchers, scientists, students and entrepreneurs with disruptive tech-driven ideas.

Investors and Funds

In 2015, €300 million went into funding startups in the Netherlands, however, based on Tech.eu data, Amsterdam has had a sluggish start to 2016 with only €24 million raised to date. To put things in perspective, according to Tech.eu data, London-based startups raised €680 million in Q1 2016, Paris €273 million and Berlin €194 million. The key investors are Peak Capital, SanomaVentures and Holland Venture.

And what about the level of tax?

Income Tax
Personal income tax rates are progressive for salary income. The income tax rates are for Holland are 5.1%-52%:
• 5.1% on income between €1 and €19,645
• 10.85% on income between €19,645 and €33,363
• 42% on income between €33,363 and €56,351
• 52% on income over €56,531

Corporate Tax
25%

VAT
The standard VAT rate is 21%

Talent Pool
Talent is essential in today’s technology disruption, transformation and success. Amsterdam, like many other cities have launched numerous initiatives investing in talent. 2015 saw the launch of the Growth Tribe Academy, the first academic growth hacking programme and the B.Amsterdam Startup School, which offers five startup talent modules. Across all sectors in the Netherlands, an average of 13.6% of vacancies were unfilled each quarter in 2014, while 21.9% went unfilled in the Information and Communication industry, according to Central Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) data.

Next month, we will be travelling to Eastern Europe. See you next month.

Sources

iAmsterdam
Startup Overseas
Tech.EU

Author

Sophie Cohen is Head of Research and Delivery for the MitchelLake Group. She has over 15 years experience in executive search across various industries including industrial, pharmaceutical, finance and digital.

Sophie is a trained Psychologist and has lived and worked in France, the UK, the US and Australia. She speaks French and English fluently.

SophieCohen

sophiec@mitchellake.com