/ News / Dutch startups raise 84.4 million euro in Q3 2016 – investments slowly crawl up

Dutch startups raise 84.4 million euro in Q3 2016 – investments slowly crawl up

Startups from The Netherlands have raised 84.4 million euro in the third quarter of 2016. For the third consecutive quarter the amount rose, however, the number of deals took a drop. The numbers show the investment climate is slightly recovering, however, the amount raised is still way less than the same quarter in 2015.

In total, we saw 25 deals in Q3 2016. The average deal size this quarter was €3,4M and the median deal size was €1M.

Compared to Q2 2016, the total amount of funding for Dutch startups rose from 77.2 to 84.4 million euro. Last quarter had way more deals: 45 compared to 25, resulting in a higher average deal size this quarter: 1.7 versus 3.4 million euro.

But compared to the same quarter last year, investments in Dutch startups are still behind, when 178.1 million euro was raised. However, this year we see the total amount of funding crawl up after a poor Q4 2015.

The Q2 numbers have been slightly updated for this quarter’s overview.

Dutch startups funding Q3 2016
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When we analyzed the number of deals compared to the average funding size, we see something funny this quarter. Where the number of deals and the average deal size in previous quarters are somewhat in line (with Q4 2015, Q1 2016 and Q2 2016 clearly showing less money per deal), this quarter it’s completely the other way around: less deals, more money. This can be explained by more later stage investments (series A and up), instead of lots of seed rounds. Also, we didn’t saw much crowdfunding success in Q3.

Number of deals + average deal size Q3 2016
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Top 5

In this quarter’s top 5 we saw three big investments of 10 million euro or more. Bynder (€22M series A), Gitlab (€17.8M series B) and NightBalance (€12.5M series B) are followed by 3D Hubs and Mint Solutions, who both closed series B investments. It sure feels good to finally see some series B investments in Dutch startups again. Remarkable but not so remarkable: the big money still comes from US investors.

Netherlands vs. Europe

According to Dealroom, European tech companies have raised significantly less venture capital this quarter: 3.2 billion euro. In The Netherlands the investments fortunately have gone up, and we didn’t saw an overall decline (series A and B). Funding in Dutch startups still doesn’t have a big impact in the larger picture, however it’s good to notice we focus on startups primarily and not all tech companies. We do recognize the decline in seed rounds. This can be caused, cleverly noted by Dealroom, that some data has yet to be shared.

Here’s the full list of Dutch startup funding in Q3 2016, ranked highest to lowest.

Name Amount (EUR) Type By Who More info Investment from country
Bynder 22,000,000 series A VC Insight Venture Partners StartupJuncture US
Gitlab 17,800,000 series B VC’s August Capital, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator StartupJuncture US
Nightbalance 12,500,000 series B VC’s INKEF Capital, Gilde Healthcare Partners, Thuja Capital, Health Innovation Fund, Van Herk Ventures StartupJuncture NL
3D Hubs 6,340,000 series B VC’s EQT Ventures, Balderton Capital StartupJuncture EU, UK
Mint Solutions 5,000,000 series B VC’s + regional dev fund BOM Capital, LSP, Seventure StartupJuncture NL + FR
SecurityMatters ‘more than 5M’ venture VC’s Emerald Technology Ventures, KPN Ventures, e.a. SiliconCanals SU + DE + NL
Helloprint 3,000,000  series A angels Gert Jan Munneke, board StartupJuncture NL
Hotelchamp 1,750,000 seed VC + informals + own money Investion Venture Capital, Thomas Joosten, Marc Albert, Nalden, Kristian Valk, Kasper Middelkoop + others StartupJuncture NL
The Next Ad 1,500,000 venture VC Newion Investments StartupJuncture NL
Zerocopter 1,300,000 seed undisclosed Investion e.a. StartupJuncture NL
Crobox 1,100,000 series A VC + angels Keadyn, Ventech StartupJuncture NL + FR
Energyworx 1,000,000 series A VC HenQ StartupJuncture NL
TradeCloud undisclosed venture regional dev, informal investor InnovationQuarter + Paul van Keep StartupJuncture NL
OneFit 850,000 venture VC + angel Peak Capital + Roelof Borggreve StartupJuncture NL
Plugify 745,000 convertible notes crowdfunders OnePlanetCrowd OnePlanetCrowd NL
ViriCiti 700,000  series A VC’s Mainport Innovation Fund II, Breesaap Green Link StartupJuncture NL
Mopinion undisclosed seed VC’s led by Capital Mills Mopinion NL
Quicargo 450,000 seed strategic Hebo Investments + private investors StartupJuncture NL
Qwiksense 400,000 venture foundation, strategic DOEN foundation e.a. StartupJuncture NL
Adjuvo Motion 300,000 convertible loan  regional dev UNIIQ StartupJuncture NL
WOLK Company 300,000 convertible loan  regional dev UNIIQ StartupJuncture NL
BimBimBikes 250,000 seed angels investors from The Herd StartupJuncture NL
Dashtag 250,000 seed angel + crowdfunders Leapfunder StartupJuncture NL
ABOSS 200,000 seed VC Keadyn StartupJuncture NL
Clevergig 120,000 convertible notes crowdfunders Leapfunder Leapfunder NL

Important notes

As always: a little more info on how this funding report came to be.

The goal of the list is to give an overview of investments into Dutch startups. We do not include pre-sales crowdfunding (like on Kickstarter), only convertible note or equity crowdfunding. We typically also don’t count grants and subsidies, as well as loans or debt financing. We don’t mention funding below 50.000 euro. Majority stakes or takeovers don’t count for our list.

When an investment size was undisclosed, our team made an educated guess. In several cases of undisclosed funding the exact amount is known by the editorial team. Out of respect for founders and investors we choose not to publish those numbers. They do however add up in the total amount of funding.

A startup should also have a Dutch connection: either the company must be based in The Netherlands or have Dutch founders.

For the definition of a startup: this is always arbitrary. The complete table should be helpful for anyone who defines the term ‘startup’ differently. In the past we included big fish scale-ups like Adyen and Catawiki because they’re still growing fast (and are max ten years old).

We tried to use all available public data sources. We relied on communication directly to the StartupJuncture team, information from incubators and accelerators, our network, other media, information from crowdfunding platforms (Symbid, Leapfunder and OnePlanetCrowd) and from Dealroom, Index.co, Crunchbase and Angellist.

Of course, we are aware we might have missed something. This funding report however gives you a good impression and is best used as an indication of the state of startup funding in The Netherlands. If there’s something missing, just give us a heads up in the comments or via team(at)startupjuncture.com.

Main image: Hans @ Pixabay

Lorenz van Gool
Lorenz is co-editor-in-chief of StartupJuncture. As a freelance editor and journalist, he writes about startups, innovation and (e)-business. Loves to report from conferences. Really likes cleantech and journalism startups. You can ask him anything about dinosaurs. Twitter: @lorenzroman

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