It’s time for your weekly update! Here’s what happened in the Dutch startup scene last week, and what’s coming up.
Start-updates
On March 15, all mature Dutchies can vote for a new government. Our colleagues from Sprout are hosting a special startup- and scale-up-related debate with representatives of the major political parties. The debate is hosted by Prince Constantijn. (Link in Dutch)
Another helpfull tool for those who are not sure what to vote for on March 15, is the Fiscale Stemwijzer (In Dutch only unfortunately). This tool was designed by lawyers to help find out what the tax-related perspecives of the 13 largest political parties in The Netherlands are – and which of those fit best to your view points.
Speaking of Prince Constantijn, the head of StartupDelta presented his plans for 2017 – a startup manifest. His ambition (of course!): The Netherlands as no 1 startup country in Europe.
“Amongst others due to the specific startup policy, the Netherlands is in the top three of startup countries in Europe”, he says. “However, we are not there yet… We want to become the number one startup-hub in Europe! The elections and a new government offers opportunities!”
These are the measures that the new government should implement according to StartupDelta,
Funding
Delft Hyperloop, the Delft University’s student team effort that won Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, is spinning-off as Hardt. The startup got a 600.000 euro investment from proof-of-concept fund UNIIQ and the Dutch railway company NS (300.000 euro each) in their ‘homecoming’ party.
Events
During selection days of Port XL this week, the most promising harbour related startups will be selected for this accelerator program. The best 10 will be boosted in the next week and present themselves during ‘Shakedown’ day at June 30.
This years summit of The Next Women on June 12 is all about ambitious female entrepreneurs. Female starters, entrepreneurs, investors and professionals who aim to be successful join in to learn about capital and networking. Keynote speakers include Maartje Bouvy (CFO Rituals) and Catarina Occhio (CEO SeeMe)
Monday Reads
The Economist – Not even Mr Trump could change the cold, hard truth about Twitter: that it can never be Facebook. The platform’s freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from. In fact, really trying to do so—by packing Twitter feeds with advertising, say—would drive away users. Is there life for technology firms beyond Wall Street?
Mashable – From the moment you set foot on British soil, your personal data could easily be accessed, or even hacked, by the government.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, Tweede Kamer
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