What happens in the startup scene in The Netherlands right now? Find out in another Dutch startup news update!
News & Updates
Adyen possibly valued at 5 to 10 billion euro’s
Bloomberg reported last week that Adyen BV, ‘a Dutch financial technology company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires’ is going public and is poised to pick JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley to advise on a IPO. Adyen’s clients base consists of many household names including Uber Technologies Inc., Netflix Inc., Spotify and LinkedIn. Adyen raised 200 million euro in 2014 the highest ever funding round in recorded history in the Dutch startup scene.
KPN Venture, Menzis, Monuta and OostNL launch Health Innovation Fund III
Health Innovation Fund III is a 15 million euro fund. The aim of the consortium is to invest approximately 1 million or more in 10 to 15 startups. Startups that apply digital prowess to make healthcare more efficient and thus less costly, and improve the access and quality to healthcare are eligible. KPN Ventures is the venture arm of the telecom company KPN. Menzis (healthcare) and Monuta (funeral) insurers. OostNL is the regional development cooperation of the Dutch eastern provinces Gelderland and Overijssel.
Travis the Translator is the ‘Sprout’ Startup of the Year
Rotterdam based startup Travis the Translator is the 2018 Sprout Startup of the Year (in Dutch). For a reason it seems. The 1-year old startup managed to raises an initial 650.000 dollar in pre-sales on crowdfunding platform Indiego. Amassing in total 1.9 million USD in total from the platform, before ending pre-sales. The startup has already sold 25.000 units and is aiming to ship 25.000 more very soon, Sprout claims. The device translates 80 languages, with everything from English, Spanish, and German to Albanian, Cantonese, and Bengali.
Funding
Fashion outlet startup Otrium raises €750K from industry execs
Amsterdam-based fashion outlet startup Otrium has raised 750.000 euro from former Tommy Hilfiger executives Fred Gehring (ex-CEO) and Ludo Onnink (ex-CFO) and Adriaan Mol, the co-founder of Mollie and MessageBird. Otrium will use the capital raised to accelerate the international expansion of Otrium. The company is already active in the Benelux.
Monday Read
A drug company rose the price of a drug from $13.50 to $750: now hospitals fight back
The late Douglas North, 1993 laureate of economics, demonstrates in his work that most forms of socio-economical change is incremental. But sometimes distasters and crisises intervene and things that previously seemed impossible become possible. The future healthcare crisis that is already in the making might be such as crisis. More and more people need access to medicine. At the same time the businessmodel of pharmaceutical companies seems to be cast in iron. Of every dollar paid for a medicine 20 % is the actual cost of making the medicine. The other 80 % is to compensate the millions if not more invested in the development of the drug. Although it makes sense for these firms to recoup their investments, this situation is unattainable. Specially if in some cases outrages high prices are asked for even decades-old drugs. Luckily, in the USA some of the country’s largest hospital systems are starting to fight back. They plan to go into the drug business themselves. I hope more startups start to disrupt this industry for million dollar opportunities and the benefit of society.
Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000
Here is a nice Techcrunch article about to what degree the Bitcoin ecosystem is controlled by bad actors.
How startups can win at PR
If you’re new in the game here is a good article on PR for startups.
Photo by Kris Atomic on Unsplash