Many startups want to meet investors, but they just don’t know where to start. Venture Capital firm Peak Capital therefore launched a map of the Dutch VC ecosystem during the special capital bike tour XXL of Amsterdam Capital Week.
“There is plenty of venture capital in The Netherlands”, says Johan van Mil of Peak Capital. But startups have too little knowledge about the actual ecosystem or procedures of funds.”
This map could be a starting point for startups to see what kind of funds or options are available in different startup stages. “We want to make the market more transparent”, says Van Mil. “ But the current map is by no means exhaustive, we invite all parties to contribute.”
Meeting the startups of the bike tour, as well as others, the investor found out that there is usually too big of a distance between VC’s and startups.
“We want to show that our door is always open, and how we work”, says Van Mil. “It is very important for entrepreneurs to understand a certain VC fund before looking at the options of funding. What is for example the background, focus or the amount of money the fund invests?”
Misconception
Van Mil says that it is a misconception that there is too little VC-money, also for early stage startups. “There is almost too much money. All you need it’s a great scalable idea and skilled team.”
Peak Capital itself currently operates a third fund of 12 million euro, launched in the summer of 2015. “We hope to invest in at least ten tech startups”, says Van Mil. This could for example be IoT, software or e-commerce companies. “We invest from 200K and are very fond of digital market places.”
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Many of the investors in that landscape are no longer active.