TNO, Techleap and Invest-NL have announced a strategic alliance. They are joining forces to bring tech-related innovations to the market faster, to help startups scale up better and to make them competitive. The three organizations announced this during the tech event Hello Tomorrow in Paris. To secure the competitiveness and future earning capacity of the Netherlands and Europe, accelerating technological innovation and scaling up tech startups is crucial.
Only four of the top 50 global tech companies are European. In the Netherlands, the priority is lacking to set the right conditions for tech companies to grow internationally. We need to catch up in this respect, because tech companies play an important role in tackling major challenges such as the circular economy and the energy transition.
The potential of Dutch tech entrepreneurship is not being fully utilised. This is evident from the number of new startups in the Netherlands, which fell for the first time last year (from 197 to 128). The Dutch scale-up ratio (the percentage that grows to at least €10 million in financing) rose from 13% to 21.5% in the past five years. As a result, the Netherlands is still underperforming the European average (23%) and the United States (54%).
