In the past, startup ecosystems were primarily confined to major tech hubs like Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. Today, we’re seeing a rise in startup ecosystems all over the world. And one of the most exciting places to watch is Amsterdam.
The Dutch capital has long been known as a hub for creativity and innovation, and that reputation extends to its startup scene. In recent years, Amsterdam has seen an influx of startups and entrepreneurs drawn by the city’s tolerant culture, strong infrastructure, and supportive ecosystem.
With a growing number of accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, and venture capitalists calling Amsterdam home, the city is well on its way to becoming a significant player in the global startup scene.
With its central location in Europe and robust connectivity to the rest of the continent, Amsterdam is poised to become an even more important hub for startups in the years to come.
All said and done, one cannot deny that the StartupAmsterdam initiative is largely responsible for the growth of Amsterdam’s startup ecosystem.
Creation of the Amsterdam Startup Map
In 2015, the City of Amsterdam launched StartupAmsterdam to make the Netherlands’ capital city a top-tier technology hub in Europe.
One of StartupAmsterdam’s first objectives was to create a startup database to help the City of Amsterdam track, measure, and understand the success and growth of its tech and startup ecosystem.
At that point, StartupAmsterdam realised the importance of data since it is the foundation for everything, from setting objectives, measuring results to prioritising initiatives, and designing policy.
Consequently, they needed a comprehensive bottom-up assessment of the entire ecosystem and all its actors.
And that’s where Dealroom.co came into the play!
StartupAmsterdam collaborated with Dealroom to create the Amsterdam Startup Map.
“Our map has been an integral part of our work”, says Alexandra Belicova, Partnerships & Events Lead at StartupAmsterdam. “My colleagues and I use it daily, and the Dealroom team is a Slack message away to implement any suggestions we might have. It’s been great seeing how the map evolved and its new features. My wish is for every Amsterdam startup to be on it, leverage it to the max, find investors or clients and gain exposure crucial to its success”
To learn more about the Amsterdam Startup Map, its growth, and the impact it created, we at Silicon Canals reached out to Syifa Riona, Matthieu Demolin, Sabine Muller from Dealroom.co.
Talking about the creation, Riona says, “The Map is a platform for all stakeholders – startups, investors, accelerators, and universities can find key insights about the Amsterdam startup ecosystem in one single place. In addition, it enables users to search for individual startups, investors, and other ecosystem players and easily visualise macro trends through investment data, funding rounds, and exits.”
According to Riona, the Amsterdam Startup Map has seen tremendous growth in the number of startups since its inception.
She shares, “In the beginning, we tracked less than 1000 startups, and to date, we have over 3,600 Amsterdam startups across 30+ industry verticals such as fintech, health, and more. Amsterdam’s startup ecosystem grew exponentially over the last five years, but Dealroom’s data collection through AI and algorithms is also constantly improving, allowing us to detect and track new startups faster and earlier in their journey.”
How does it benefit startups and scaleups?
Explaining the benefits of the Amsterdam startup map, Matthieu Demolin says, “By being listed on the map, Startups and Scaleups have a unique opportunity to showcase their business to a targeted audience of potential investors, talents, and policymakers. Top-tier venture capital firms like Sequoia, Insight Partners, Balderton, Atomico, and world-class corporates like Google, Amazon, Stripe, McKinsey, BCG, EY, Deloitte, Unilever, Pepsi, and leading government organisations use Dealroom software and data to stay at the forefront of innovation and discover the world’s most promising companies. The map is also the perfect way to actively find partners in your ecosystem.”
Inspired by the Amsterdam Startup Map, Dealroom launched a new and improved platform to grab the attention of potential investors and partners.
Dealroom’s new feature
In June, Dealroom announced its new platform, Dealroom Signal, a predictive algorithm to discover promising companies.
Speaking about introducing Dealroom Signal, Sabine Muller states, “A startup ecosystem is complex and encompasses many different stakeholders and elements. We wanted to create a signal from the noise and make finding the next big thing as easy as possible for investors, VCs, corporates, government enablers, and founders who want to stay at the forefront of innovation, discover the most promising companies, or attract talent and fundraise.”
“Rather than creating a score about a startup’s general quality or performance, Dealroom Signal is specifically aimed at surfacing the most promising upcoming funding opportunities,” she adds.
The Dealroom Signal includes over a dozen inputs, including:
- Company growth (team size, product growth)
- Job openings
- Completion score and contextual data (does the company fit into segments of interest)
- Timing (is the startup likely to raise their next round soon)
- Team composition
Benefits of Dealroom Signal
According to Riona, startups with a high Dealroom Signal are more likely to grab investors’ and potential partners’ attention.
“The best way to improve a Dealroom Signal is to update the startup’s company profile and ensure that the most current and accurate information is available. Teams and founders can claim their company profile and edit it for free,” she adds.
To date, Dealroom has published a list of top 100 startups in various fields, including fintech, energy, impact startups, marketplace, and much more, using Signal’s predictive algorithm. Recently, Dealroom has also published the list of Amsterdam’s Top 100 Startups to Watch by Dealroom Signal. Here’re the top 5 startups from Amsterdam according to the list.
Borzo
Founder/s: Mike Alexandrovski
Based out of Amsterdam, Borzo is an intra-city delivery service for businesses and individuals. The company provides deliveries from on-demand to same-day via any route, any transport, at any weight or size at an affordable price.
Borzo says its algorithms optimise numerous parallel deliveries considering the geographical routes, packages’ contents, couriers, and many others to ensure the feasibility of same-day delivery.
Currently, the company is operational in 10 countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam.
BOOMBRUSH
Founder/s: Kim, Elias
BOOMBRUSH manufactures and provides sonic toothbrushes with a mission to make better oral care accessible to everyone. According to the company, Sonic toothbrushes vibrate between 30,000 and 40,000 times per minute, enabling it to brush in places where a normal or regular electric toothbrush cannot.
BOOMBRUSH features an industrial design with a battery life of 90 days, making it suitable for travellers. The company says the brush remembers users’ personal vibration preferences as well.
The Amsterdam-based company offers “Refill,” a subscription to brush heads, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwashes, enabling customers to make oral care more fun, easier, and affordable.
MessageBird
Founder/s: Robert Vis, Adriaan Mol
MessageBird is a cloud communications platform that connects enterprises to their global customers. The company’s Inbox.ai enables customers to communicate with businesses practically through any channel, including WhatsApp, SMS, Voice, Messenger, Instagram, WeChat, RCS, Line, and Telegram.
The company’s product line also includes a Chat Widget and Flow Builder. The Chat Widget helps convert static pages into dynamic conversations. On the other hand, the Flow Builder is an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) platform that enables auto-replies and message routing.
Naduvi
Founder/s: Itai Gross
Naduvi is an online platform that offers various interior design products of various brands for decor residential projects. The brands sell directly to consumers through NADUVI with discounts ranging from 30 per cent to 80 per cent.
Growth Tribe
Founder/s: Peter van Sabben, David Arnoux, and Quentin Lacointa
Amsterdam-based startup Growth Tribe offers specialised training in multiple digital domains. Training includes growth marketing, data science, UX design, data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. They aim to bridge the gap in digital skills and are committed to offering hands-on and practical training to professionals and students in a faster time.
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