Conference Matters 141

INTERVIEW

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knowledge The of the Netherlands

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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 universi ties 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 Nether lands 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

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 Hol land 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 Nether lands 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 star tups, 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 Back base at €2.5 billion. Two other companies worth more than €1 billion

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.

By Edwin Nunnink

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 effi cient 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 know ledge 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.

unique, protected or difficult to reproduce tech nological 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.

nisations, and the source of knowledge for the remaining 10 percent is unconfirmed.

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 uni versity medical centres (28 percent) and general universities (25 percent). Additionally, 7 percent of the spin-offs were initiated by research orga

Deep tech innovations In 2022, Techleap commissioned research into knowledge areas with high potential for the Netherlands. The top three are quantum mecha nics, augmented reality and robotics. All three are called deep tech innovations, which can be defined as disruptive solutions based on

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