Dutch startups raise €265 million in 2016 – a mighty year for medtech

UPDATE – In 2016 Dutch startups altogether raised at least 264.7 million euro in funding – more than 180 million euro less as compared to last year. A lack of real outliers and skews this year results in a notable drop in funds, unfortunately. But even though the total numbers aren’t too impressive, investments in medtech companies excel.

At StartupJuncture we make a big effort to report and collect all funding news about Dutch startups, in order to provide insights into the Dutch investment climate. The result is one of the most complete lists of startup deals closed in The Netherlands in 2016. Have a look at our previous reports of 2014 and 2015.

The data we published are for everyone to use. In this report, we’ve analyzed the data and spotted some trends. Anyone can use the full list for their own analysis however. If you do, please let us know, we’d love to see the results.

In 2015 we counted a little more than 150 deals. This year we saw nearly the same amout. We noted a big difference in the average deal size, being 1.80 million euro in 2016, as compared to 2.82 million euro in 2015. The median investment this year was 600.000 euro, again slightly lower than last year: 650.000 euro.

Top 5 deals of 2016

Medtech startups are well represented in 2016’s top 5 of funding rounds. Rank 1, 4 and 5 are for  G-Therapeutics (implants), Nightbalance (sleep apnea) and BlueBee (DNA analytics). Vicentra (6) and Gadeta (7) are just behind. Bynder (marketing software) and GitLab (coding platform) got silver and bronze.

Implant-company G-Therapeutics tops the list. Technically speaking this is a company from Switzerland (a spin-off from Swiss university Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), but the startup has strong ties with the Netherlands.

G-Therapeutics is led by Dutch CEO Sjaak Deckers, whom successfully sold medtech company Sapiens earlier in his career. And the  product is developed at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven.

You can find more information about our criteria for being a ‘Dutch startup’ in the notes section of this article.

Explaining 2016

For the second consecutive year, the total amount of funding was lower as compared to the previous year. In 2014 Dutch startups raised 500 million euro. In 2015 this was 430 million euro, and this year we see the totals drop to ‘just’ 263 million euro.

StartupJuncture believes the decline can be paralleled with the overall declining trust of investors in startups. This is a world wide trend: investors seem to be looking ‘beyond the startup hype’. The funding climate for startups in The Netherlands is no exception to this.

We must however also note that this year’s results weren’t skewed by big rounds – like those present in previous years. In 2014 the list was heavily skewed due to investments in Adyen (200 million euro) and Takeaway (74 million euro). In 2015 we had outliers like Catawiki (75 million euro) and Adyen (undisclosed) again. We might see some of those rounds again next year or in 2018.

If we don’t include the above mentioned skews, we can conclude that the investments were roughly 225 million euro (2014), 305 million euro (2015) and 263 million euro (2016). So even without the outliers, 2016 shows a huge drop as compared to last year. The total amount was however up as compared to 2014.

A mighty year for medtech

Last year we noticed more medtech startups closing deals. We counted 15 deals this year, 10 more than last year. Next to the three companies in the top 5, we saw companies like Gadeta, Mint Solutions, Cytosmart, Noviosense and Optics11 successfully raise funding.

This requires an explanation, as the overall medtech hype is long gone. So why do these startups thrive in The Netherlands in 2016? It’s hard to tell. Is it the nurturing climate for medtech companies? Great regulations and access to knowledge that attract foreign startups (like Mint)? Or was Philips’ move to medtech (Philips Healthcare) an important sign to the sector?

Other trends in The Netherlands

Investments in fintech were strong this year, just as they are worldwide. In The Netherlands, we noted deals for companies like notable Q2. Bux, InvoiceFinance, and Surence.

As always, SaaS and e-commerce is doing great with notable investments in startups like Bynder, Tiqets and Crobox. It’s also great to see that coding platform startups like GitLab, Wercker and Magnetic.io get more attention.

There’s a worldwide interest in the topics of curation and content, so startups within this section are on the rise as well. In The Netherlands we saw funding for Crowdynews, Dot.World, Revue and Instant. We could also say Bynder could fit in this list.

Full list of Dutch startup deals in 2016

Without much further ado: here are the 2016 startup deals ranked in one table. The list is based on our previous quarterly overviews, but updated.

Important notes

As always: a little more information about how this funding report came into being.

The goal of this list is to give an overview of (serious) investments in Dutch startups. We do not include pre-sales crowdfunding (like on Kickstarter) but focus on convertible notes or equity crowdfunding.

We typically also don’t count grants and subsidies, as well as loans or debt financing. We do not mention funding deals below 50.000 euro. Majority stakes or takeovers aren’t included in this list either.

StartupJuncture included closed crowdfunding campaigns, and left those whom have reached their goal amount but are still raising out. For instance, startups like Solarus, Perfect XL, Cabture and Chordify are still going strong in overfunding.

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.

Dutch startup

To count in our list, a startup should 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.

Sources

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 of the possibility that we might have missed something. This funding report however gives a good impression of the state of startup funding in The Netherlands and is best used as an indication. If you believe a deal is missing, send us the details at team (@) startupjuncture.com.

Image: Wikemedia, creative commons