The GEN Atlas Country Deep Dive is a monthly exploration of the startup support policy landscape in selected countries, drawing upon entries from the GEN Atlas compendium of entrepreneurship policies. We offer a holistic overview of what each country is providing, identifying success stories, gaps in provision and always looking for insight that can be shared across borders around the world. Our analysis of each nation’s startup support is built around eight overarching themes:
- Finance: New types of capital for startups and scaleups at the right time
- Education + Skills: Embedding enterprise and entrepreneurship into education and providing (both existing and potential) entrepreneurs with mentoring, training and support
- Market Access: Expanding access to markets for startups domestically and abroad
- Inclusivity + Culture: Ensuring that entrepreneurship is a culturally attractive vocation for all sections of society and in particular that people from disadvantaged groups have an equal opportunity to launch and grow a business
- Regulation: Removing regulatory barriers to innovation and startup success
- Ecosystem + Economic Development: Developing and managing local ecosystems to better support entrepreneurs, startups and scale-ups
- Science, Technology and Innovation: Utilizing the latest advancements in science and technology to improve productivity, boost economic growth and solve societal problems through innovation
- Policy Making: Maintaining a data-driven, effective and coherent policy making process that supports entrepreneurs and ensures public awareness of available programs
Unexpected election results in the Netherlands have left commentators questioning the future direction the country will take on big issues such as immigration, taxation and its long-term relationship with the European Union. While it is likely to take many months for the makeup and agenda of the next government to become clear, we have chosen to examine the entrepreneurial support environment in the Netherlands for this week’s Deep Dive.
The startup ecosystem in the Netherlands has long been considered vibrant and is known for innovative companies in Fintech, eCommerce and HealthTech in particular. On top of this the Netherlands is famous for its high levels of urban innovation and quality of life which both fosters local talent and attracts entrepreneurs from all corners of the world. The Amsterdam-Delta ecosystem is considered one of the most attractive in the world and is ranked 14th in the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking. Likewise, Startup Blink ranks the Dutch ecosystem as 10th in the world with 23 notable city ecosystems.
Policymakers in the Netherlands have consistently prioritized building a favorable entrepreneurial environment across their ecosystem. This is demonstrated in the Ambitious Entrepreneurship Action Plan which has been backed up with a budget of €75 million and contains a broad range of strategic measures to support entrepreneurs and startups. These efforts are also reflected in the Index of Dynamic Entrepreneurship where the Netherlands has climbed from 7th into 1st over the past decade.
Finance
Like every ecosystem under the sun, securing access to funding for the right startups at the right time in the early stages of development is a critical issue in the Netherlands which is why providing better access to capital for startups and entrepreneurs through funding opportunities, early-stage finance, and other financial support is the number one objective of the Ambitious Entrepreneurship Action Plan.
In particular, Dutch startups are able to access to the BMKB credit guarantee scheme which provides loan guarantees to SMEs and startups. The primary objective of the BMKB is to enhance the borrowing capacity of SMEs and it is backed up by a total budget of €1.5 billion. By providing a government-backed guarantee, the scheme offsets the risks for lenders, making them more inclined to offer loans to businesses that may otherwise struggle to secure financing due to a lack of collateral. The scheme guarantees between 45%-67.5% of new loans for startups with a maximum credit of €1.5 million.
Education + Skills
The Netherlands is one of the best educated nations in the world and has invested considerable resources in building E-learning into post-secondary education. Historic programs such as CodePact have also sought to boost the pool of talented programmers available to Dutch startups.
Over the years there have been several initiatives to promote entrepreneurial education in the Netherlands including the Action Programme for Education and Entrepreneurship which was launched in 2008 by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. While there is no central mandate for Dutch schools to include entrepreneurship education in their curricula, they are subsidized to develop courses in cooperation with other ecosystem actors and there are high levels of demand for these courses.
Furthermore, the Dutch Centres for Entrepreneurship (DutchCE) is an initiative aimed at strengthening entrepreneurship education across the Netherlands by facilitating collaboration and pooling of resources between university resource centers. This includes the provision of seminars and PhD schools that educate and encourage potential entrepreneurs.
Market Access
The Dutch government has also taken significant steps to open up new markets to startups and scaleups while also attracting entrepreneurs from other ecosystems to participate in the Dutch market through soft landing programs and the Startup NL visa scheme. This program allows for ambitius non-European entrepreneurs to start an innovative business for an initial two-year period. Similarly, the government has attempted to create a favorable system of procurement for startups through the Dutch Public Procurement Act which breaks tenders into several smaller contracts, allows collective bidding by SMEs and promotes transparency and opportunities for bidding.
Inclusivity + Culture
Despite a generally open and progressive culture, only 10 percent of all founders in the Dutch startup ecosystem are women. Programs such as FEM-START aim to remedy this by providing targeted support at existing and potential female entrepreneurs. As well as offering financing. Fem-Start is dedicated to fostering a sense of community and building a network of support. The emphasis on mentorship, in particular, is intended to provide personalized guidance and insights to help women navigate the various challenges of starting and running a business. The program culminates in a startup competition where entrepreneurs pitch their business plans. The winning startup receives an investment of 100,000 euros as seed funding to kickstart their business.
Regulation
The fact that the Netherlands performs so impressively in the Index of Dynamic Entrepreneurship is a testament to the friendly regulatory environment experienced by Dutch startups. One such example of this is the easing of corporation tax on profits derived from self-developed intangible assets and patents through a regime known as the Innovation Box. The Dutch government has also worked to streamline services and ensure the digitalization and efficiency of services used by startups such as through the TenderNed system. This system is an online platform used for public procurement and serves as the central portal for all government tendering processes allowing for a decreased costs of bidding and reduced time spent on applications.
Ecosystem + Economic Development
The Ambitious Entrepreneurship Action Plan places a significant emphasis on the fostering of a supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs with high levels of ambition through the creation of the NLevator initiative. This compliments the TechLeap.NL organization that works to develop 14 regional ecosystems at the sub-national level. Launched in 2015, this initiative works to create better linkages in the ecosystem and facilitate startups’ access to key resources. In addition to this they have mapped the entire Dutch ecosystem through an online portal and work with policymakers to help remove obstacles for startups and ecosystem actors alike.
Science, Technology and Innovation
As well as through the Innovation Box mentioned earlier, the Dutch government have sought to promote Science, Technology and Innovation in a multitude of ways. For example, the Academic Startup Competition provides academic entrepreneurs with the opportunity have their ideas recognized as amongst the top 20 most promising upcoming science-based startups in the Netherlands. This is combined with a package of support designed to support the commercialization process.
Amsterdam is also one of the most notable examples of a “Smart City” in the world. This initiative is a collaborative effort between the municipality of Amsterdam, businesses, research institutions, and citizens to develop and implement innovative solutions to urban challenges. This is achieved in particular by utilizing digital technologies to enhance urban governance and management and focuses on sectors like energy, mobility, the circular economy, and digital connectivity. To give just a few examples, the city has established the Internet of Things Living Lab, a real-life test environment that uses iBeacons and LoRaWan technology to collect and transmit data.
Policymaking
The Ambitious Entrepreneurship Action Plan is a €75 million initiative designed by the national government to provide startups with better access to capital, knowledge, innovation and the global market. In particular the central goal of the Ambitious Entrepreneurship Action Plan is to address what is known as the “Dutch entrepreneur paradox” which refers to the situation where Dutch entrepreneurs have a relatively low fear of failure and a high appreciation for entrepreneurship, but struggle to turn their startups into successful scale-ups due to a perceived lack of ambition and a culture that doesn't promote growth.
In total, the startup support landscape is highly favorable for startups in the Netherlands. While we will closely monitor developments in policy that emerge from the negotiations to form a new government, we do not expect a drastic shift in entrepreneurship policy in the coming years. The case studies covered in GEN Atlas demonstrate an impressive coverage of policies across each of the 8 key themes that should serve as an example for countries around the world to emulate.