Analysis of investment startups

even more money and foreign interest

Last year, Dutch startups raised at least 655 million euros in investment money. Companies in software, e-commerce and travel in particular have managed to attract attention. This and more is evident from an analysis of the investments made in 2017.

In the past year, at least 655 million euros was invested in Dutch startups. More than 200 million euros more than earlier figures for 2017 showed. And almost 400 million euros more than in the previous year. It appears from the dataset that StartupJuncture has compiled and has now been enriched by Thomas Mensink of Golden Egg Check. Among other things, he looked at the “hot topics” and most active venture capital funds (VC) in the country.

As in previous years, StartupJuncture has collected figures about Dutch startups, data that business analyst Mensink has enriched and explored. By adding some forgotten companies and omitting some names that have outgrown the start-up phase – for example, Takeaway.com, which also raised the money with an IPO – he arrives at 122 deals with an average value of 5.3 million euros. Picnic (100 million euros), Messagebird (52 million euros) and Xeltis (45 million euros) top the list.

Few hypes, lots of software and commerce

In addition to the investments, Mensink also looked at the nature of the companies, origin and the VCs with which business was conducted. What strikes him is that he does not encounter many of the absolute “buzzwords”. Dutch software and e-commerce companies in particular appear to be popular with investors, followed by parties active in the travel industry. Another type of investment is the German SAAS industry which is growing rapidly The absence of terms like VR, AI, robotics and blockchain may have to do with the categorization – according to the Crunchbase classification. For example, the term software does refer to AI in some cases. “But more likely it will take start-ups in those popular markets some time to scale up in order to qualify for money from VCs.”

Investment amount is increasing

The average of 5.3 million euros gives a somewhat distorted picture of the amounts raised. That is why the deals have been divided into seed investments, series A with a first VC, series B and series C. With each round, the investment amount also appears to increase: from 730 thousand euros (seed) to 18.8 million euros (series C ). Incidentally, far fewer deals have been concluded for the latter type. Only Xeltis, Luxexcell, iWelcome and BUX completed a Series C investment.

Divided by type of company, it is also noticeable that high-tech start-ups collect the most seed money on average (1.1 million euros), companies in medical technology have the highest series A amounts (7.3 million euros) and organizations that deal with software on average the highest B-series (16 million).