Amsterdam as a startup ecosystem packs an increasingly big punch. Over the last decade, the overall value of the startup ecosystem has been rising fast in Amsterdam.
There are multiple factors behind this rise. Located centrally, the Netherlands is home to business-friendly laws, strong infrastructure, and a well-educated workforce. Also, over 90 per cent of the Dutch population speaks English.
International graduates also get one year to find work or start a business post-graduation. For starting a business, the government already has an entrepreneur visa scheme that offers international entrepreneurs a 1-year visa to get their companies off the ground. Additionally, budding startups benefit from the city’s dozens of accelerator and incubator programs, including several focused on women founders and diverse entrepreneurial talent.
With such benefits and support from the ecosystem, the city is buzzing with an entrepreneurial spirit, innovative drive, and ambition of its stakeholders, and even the Covid-19 pandemic could not extinguish it.
So today, we have compiled a list of Amsterdam-based startups that hit the headlines in 2021.
3D Hubs acquired by Protolabs
Protolabs, a manufacturer of custom prototypes and on-demand production parts with manufacturing facilities, signed an agreement to acquire 3D Hubs for $280M (nearly €231M) in closing consideration and $50M (approx. €41.2M) subject to performance-based targets.
Protolabs is a technology-enabled company that claims to produce custom components in as fast as one day with automated 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, and injection moulding processes.
3D Hubs is an online manufacturing platform that provides engineers with on-demand access to a global network of manufacturing partners. Users can upload their design, receive a quote, and start production. With this acquisition, the entire 3D Hubs’ team will join Protolabs.
“At 3D Hubs, our goal is to empower companies to create revolutionary products through supply chain efficiency and reliability. We are confident that partnering with Protolabs will help us advance that mission,” says Bram de Zwart, co-founder and CEO at 3D Hubs.
Just Eat Takeaway raises €1.1B: Key takeaways
Food delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway raised €1.1B through an offering of convertible bonds. The company said that it placed €1.1B of convertible bonds, consisting of two tranches (“Tranche A” and “Tranche B”). With an aggregate principal amount of €600M, Tranche A – upsized from €500M – is due August 2025. Whereas, Tranche B, with an aggregate principal amount of €500 M, is due February 2028.
The proceeds will be used by the company for “general corporate purposes as well as to provide the company with the financial flexibility to act on strategic opportunities which may arise.”
Just Eat Takeaway claims to be one of the largest online food delivery marketplaces outside China. It is focused on connecting consumers and restaurants through its platforms. The company mainly collaborates with delivery restaurants. The platform also provides its proprietary ‘restaurant delivery services’ to restaurants that do not deliver themselves.
Recently, the company published its H1 2021 results, reporting revenue growth of 52 per cent (63 per cent excluding Grubhub) to €2.6B. Just Eat Takeaway also acquired Grubhub and Bistro.sk business in Slovakia from Ringier Axel Springer Media.
Fintech unicorn Mollie’s new CEO
Payment services provider, Mollie, appointed a new CEO, Shane Happach. Prior to joining Mollie, Happach worked for Worldpay, where he was EVP and Head of Global eCommerce.
Happach succeeds Gaston Aussems, who was Mollie’s CEO between 2013 and mid-2020. He started on April 1, 2021, and has been formally appointed by Mollie’s Supervisory Board. His appointment has been confirmed by the Dutch Central Bank.
Shane Happach has prior experience of more than 10 years with Worldpay – a payment processing company, first as Chief Commercial Officer of its e-commerce division and more recently as EVP and Head of Global eCommerce. Besides, he was also a member of the executive team at Worldpay for its London IPO and its acquisition by both Vantiv and FIS.
Founded in 2004 by Adriaan Mol, Mollie is a payments platform that offers a process for integrating payments into a site or app. It is a technology-based company processing payments for more than 50,000 clients with local payment methods such as Mastercard, VISA, Amex, PayPal, iDEAL, Bancontact, Bitcoin, SEPA Direct Debit, Cartes Bancaires, ESP, Giropay, SOFORT Banking, and more.
Crisp raises Series B round
Crisp, an online-only supermarket, raised €30M in its Series B round of funding. The round was led by European investor Target Global, joined by Keen Venture Partners. Some of Europe’s top entrepreneurs also participated including founders of Adyen and Just Eat Takeaway.com, as well as Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Vinted.
The raised capital will enable Crisp to enlarge its 100 per cent electric vehicle fleet, expand its thoughtful assortment, and strengthen its network with high-quality, smaller producers for its customer base.
The startup was founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneurs Tom Peeters, Michiel Roodenburg, and Eric Klaassen, to help people eat better. It is an app-only supermarket for ultra-fresh food. The company’s service delivers groceries 7 days a week, and orders placed before 10 PM are delivered the next day. The marketplace stocks more than 2000 products from more than 650 farmers, growers, and makers and runs on proprietary software to enable zero inventory and negative working capital.
Tellow’s parent company raises funding; appoints new CEO
Tellow’s parent company Ageras raised $73M (nearly €60.2M) in growth capital from New York-based technology fund Lugard Road Capital. The company says this capital will be deployed to accelerate the group’s international growth, product development, and to continue its buy-and-build strategy.
Founded in 2012, Ageras Group is a B2B technology company that connects SMEs and microbusinesses in Scandinavia, Western Europe and the US with professional service providers such as accountants and bookkeepers.
Investcorp, a leading global private equity firm, acquired the majority of Ageras in 2017. Since then, the company has expanded its ecosystem actively through acquiring Danish accounting software firm Billy, servicing small and medium-sized companies, and by developing Meneto, a fully automated bookkeeping tool for micro-companies.
The company is active in six countries in Europe including the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia, and the US. For the Dutch market, the round will be used to further develop the accounting app Tellow and become the market leader. In order to execute this mission, Tellow appointed Thomas Vles as its new CEO.
Thomas Vles has founded and managed several companies, including Poopy Cat and Wedoido. Last year, he was active as director of the Dutch Startup Association. Vles took over from Roel Smelt. According to the company, he will use the funding to evolve the software and build a one-stop-shop where small businesses and the self-employed can arrange all their financial affairs.
Fastned charges itself with €150M through accelerated bookbuild offering
Fastned, a fast-charging network for electric vehicles company, raised €150M through an accelerated bookbuild offering of 1,875,000 New Securities, which was announced on 25 February 2021.
The company is using the proceeds to fund part of its CapEx plan that consists of expanding the capacity of its existing stations, building its committed pipeline of 164 charging stations, accelerating the development of its potential pipeline, and fund CapEx for significant upcoming government-related tenders, including in France and Germany, as well as for general corporate purposes.
Founded in 2012 by Michiel Langezaal and Bart Lubbers, Fastned aims to accelerate the transition to electric mobility by giving freedom to electric drivers. It specialises in developing and operating a fast-charging infrastructure where drivers can charge their electric vehicle with up to 300 km of range in 15 minutes before continuing their journey.
Currently, the company owns and operates a network of electric vehicle charging stations in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, the UK, and Belgium – the majority of its stations are located at Dutch highway rest areas. So far, it has built 129 fast-charging stations.
Just Eat Takeaway expands offices in Amsterdam
Online food delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway expanded its offices in Amsterdam. The company had said it will move to the location, in the centre of Piet heinkade, by the end of this year.
According to the company, the aim to move to this particular location was to offer not only a great place to work for its employees, but to also attract top-class talent for further growth. The new building will provide 14,500 sqm of space over eight floors and has a terrace overlooking the IJ river.
Just Eat Takeaway.com moved from Utrecht to Amsterdam prior to its Initial Public Offering (IPO) at Euronext Amsterdam in 2016. In addition to Amsterdam, the company has 26 offices worldwide, one of which in Enschede. It also has offices in Canada, Australia, Norway, Bulgaria, among others.
The company has more than 8,000 employees globally, of which more than 1,000 can be housed in the new Amsterdam office. Together, they help restaurants to grow and thereby create the best experience for consumers.
TomTom resumes share buyback program
TomTom, the location technology specialist, announced the resumption of its share buyback program to repurchase ordinary TomTom shares. The original program was to repurchase shares for an amount up to €50M. However, due to the rise of the pandemic in March 2020, the company had to withdraw its decision. This was because there was uncertainty regarding the duration of the pandemic’s economic impact, which could not have been assessed at that time.
“Until the program’s suspension, a total of 2.35 million shares were repurchased for an aggregate consideration of €16.6M leaving a remaining amount for the repurchase of €33.4M,” mentions the company in a press release.
TomTom said it will use the shares to cover the commitments of its long-term employee incentive plans.
Founded in 1991 by Corinne Vigreux and Peter Frans Pauwels, TomTom is a digital mapping and routing company that focuses on car navigation. They aim to gain a competitive advantage through superior products, a leading brand, and a flexible production structure.
The company claims to deliver better maps through a combination of its high-quality map database that is continuously kept up to date through input from its fleet of surveying vehicles and a large community of users. It regularly processes close to 2 billion map changes per month, which helps it maintain the freshest maps.
Felyx’s €24M deal: Everything you need to know
Felyx, an electric scooter company that forayed into the last mile mobility sector in 2016, raised €24M in its series A investment round. The round was led by De Hoge Dennen Capital, the investment vehicle for the De Rijcke family, and current major shareholder and entrepreneur Anne-Marie Rakhorst.
The funding was to help Felyc further fuel its expansion within Europe and launch its services in new regions, Germany and France, to further its Benelux expansion project. The company also mentioned considering expansion in France and Germany as it believes both these regions have notable potential.
Felyx was founded by Quinten Selhorst and Maarten Poot. The company offers its e-scooters via its app, available for both Android and iOS users. One can use the app to sign up, locate and reserve, and activate the nearest e-scooter by the company. The rides provided by the company cost €0.30 per minute and run entirely on green energy since they are charged using renewable energy.
Tripling its revenue in 2020, Otrium raised €102.3M
Fashion e-commerce startup Otrium raised $120M (approx €102.27M) in a Series C round of funding. The company has announced its launch in the US and aims at reducing unsold fashion in the future.
The round was co-led by BOND and Index Ventures. It also saw participation from existing investor Eight Roads Ventures. The raised capital will enable Otrium to accelerate its US expansion, develop its technology platform, and increase headcounts.
Founded by Max Klijnstra and Milan Daniels in 2015, Otrium is a technology platform via which fashion brands can sell their leftover stocks at a discount. The company’s full-service marketplace allows fashion brands to open an online outlet with minimal effort and all the advantages. Through their platform, fashion houses can sell both outlet collections and previous collections while retaining full control over pricing, merchandising, and visibility of their excess inventory.
Hiber – a ‘NewSpace’ startup, raised €26M
Hiber, a satellite and communications startup, raised €26M in EU funding and private investment to expand the world’s first global IoT (Internet of Things) satellite network. The funding has been awarded to Hiber by the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), the EU’s innovation agency, from their €278M Innovation Fund.
The EIC co-invested with an innovation credit provided by the Dutch government and existing shareholders. Other investors in the round included Finch Capital, Netherlands Enterprise Agency, and Hartenlust Group.
The capital was to help Hiber further expand its satellite network and grow its customer base.
The company was founded in 2016 by Coen Janssen, Erik Wienk, Ernst Peter Hovinga, Laurens Groenendijk, and Maarten Engelen. Hiber’s in-house-developed satellite constellation aims to bring IoT solutions to areas where there’s never been affordable cellular access or wifi. In simple terms, the company will ensure the possibility to track and monitor machines and devices for a wide range of IoT solutions in some of the world’s hardest-to-reach places.
MessageBird acquires 24sessions and Hull
Cloud communication unicorn MessageBird, announced the acquisition of two startups in its mission to transform the way businesses interact with their customers. The company acquired 24sessions – a video-first customer engagement platform, and Customer Data Platform (CDP) Hull.io – a startup that gathers all customer data in one place.
MessageBird was founded in 2011 by Adriaan Mol and Robert Vis. The company-owned services include SMS, voice, email, OTT, social, live chat, and push. Vis said, “The addition of 24sessions’ video platform gives us one of the world’s most comprehensive and powerful omnichannel offerings and is consistent with our having end-to-end control of the stack in order to create magical experiences for our customers.”
The Hull team joined the MessageBird CDP team to create an in-depth analytics layer between its extensive channel offering and the workflow solutions it provides to customers.
With these acquisitions, a total of 45 staff joined from 24sessions, while Hull brought in 14. The combined deals bring MessageBird’s total headcount to almost 500 people across its nine hubs globally.
Fixico raises funds for further expansion
Fixico, a digital car repair management platform, raised €5M extension to its Series A round funding, closing at €12M. The round was led by Autotech Ventures along with existing investor Finch Capital, and Madrid-based Mundi Ventures.
The funds were raised to accelerate Fixico’s product development, strengthen its core markets’ footprint and help expand its services across Europe.
Fixico offers a digital platform that handles car damage repairs for drivers, insurers, and fleet owners and enables smart ‘matchmaking’ between types of car damage and body repair shops. The company’s repair allocation process allows customers to identify the most suitable body repair shop for the job while taking critical factors such as availability, expertise, and price into consideration.
According to the company, its services are currently operational in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, and South Africa. It operates a network of 2,500 repair shops.
Messagebird’s flight path to raising largest Series C in Europe
Cloud communication unicorn MessageBird, announced two key developments. Firstly, it acquired US-based SparkPost, a predictive email intelligence platform, for $600M (approx €497M). And secondly, the company extended its Series C and raised $1B (approx €828.3M).
SparkPost was founded by George Schlossnagle and Theo Schlossnagle in 2008. It is an email sending and deliverability platform that helps senders reliably reach the inbox with solutions to help them plan, execute, and optimise their email programs.
MessageBird currently allows businesses to communicate with their customers on the channels they use every day. Currently, the channels include Live-chat, Video, SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google Business Messages, Apple Business Chat, Voice, Messenger, WeChat, RCS, Line, and Telegram. And with the acquisition of SparkPost, email was added to MessageBird’s suite – which it believes is the largest business communication channel by volume.
The extended $1B Series C round was led by Eurazeo, Tiger Global, Owl Rock, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. All existing investors also participated in the round.
BUX raises €66.5M; CEO hands over the reins to COO
Neo-broker BUX raised $80M (approx €66.47M) in a fresh round of funding. Besides the funding, the company also announced that its founder and CEO Nick Bortot stepped down and the company’s COO Yorick Naeff was appointed as the new CEO. According to the company, Bortot will remain involved with BUX as a member of the non-executive board.
The round was led by Prosus Ventures and Tencent, with participation from additional new investors ABN Amro Ventures, Citius, Optiver, and Endeit Capital. In addition, existing investors including HV Capital and Velocity Capital Fintech Ventures also participated in the round.
BUX said it will use the investment as an additional impetus to expand its commission-free investment app BUX Zero.
BUX is a neo broker and has been making it easy and affordable for Europeans to do more with their money since 2014. The company was founded by Egbert Pronk, Joost van de Wijgerd, Nick Bortot, and Robbert Bos.
With over 500,000 customers, BUX currently offers three apps to explore the financial markets, including BUX Zero, its flagship platform that makes commission-free trading possible, allowing users to invest in the brands and companies they care about. BUX Zero is currently available in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France, and Belgium.
Dott raised funds to expand its micro-mobility services
Micro-mobility company Dott raised $85M (approx €70.47M) in its Series B round of funding. The round was led by Sofina, a Belgium-based investment company listed on Euronext Brussels, and a supportive partner of entrepreneurs and families managing growing companies.
In addition, new and existing investors also participated in this round including EQT Ventures, Prosus Ventures, Aberdeen Standard Investments, Estari (as co-lead), Expon Capital, Felix Capital, FJ Labs, Invest-NL, McRock Capital, Quadia, and various angel investors.
The funds were raised to enable Dott to launch new micro-mobility vehicles in European cities, starting with e-bikes. The company also expanded its services to new cities and countries such as Spain and the UK.
Founded in October 2018 by Henri Moissinac and Maxim Romain, Dott is a European micro-mobility operator with a mission to free cities with clean rides for everyone. Currently, the platform operates over 30,000 e-scooters in cities including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland. In July 2020, Dott won two of the biggest micro-mobility tenders in the world, ranking first both in Paris and in Lyon.
Lumicks raised funds to develop single-molecule analysis technologies for cancer research
Lumicks is a next-generation life science tools company that develops single-molecule analysis technologies for cancer research and cancer immunotherapy. The company raised $93M (approx €77.6M) in its Series D round of funding.
The round was led by new investors Farallon Capital Management and Lauxera Capital Partners. In addition, investors Softbank Vision Fund 2, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Parian Global Management, Pura Vida Investments, and Irving Investors also participated in this round. Existing investor Gilde Healthcare and select members of the Lumicks management team also contributed to this round.
Lumicks was founded in 2014 as an academic spin-off from the research group of Prof. Gijs Wuite, Prof. Erwin Peterman, and Prof. Iddo Heller at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Founded by Andrea Candelli and Olivier Heyning, Lumicks is a life science tools company that develops equipment for Dynamic Single-Molecule and Cell Avidity analysis, two rapidly emerging areas in biology research and immuno-oncology.
The product portfolio of the company includes C-Trap, an integrated system with optical tweezers, confocal microscope, and microfluidic system to analyse protein folding, DNA repair, DNA organisation, Protein polymer, and filaments, etc.
A majority of the raised capital was to be used to accelerate growth initiatives, including the expansion of both research and development, and commercial activities for the z-Movi Cell Avidity Analyzer.
StuDocu raises Series B funding from Partech
Edtech scale-up StuDocu (locally known as StudeerSnel), an online platform where students can share knowledge, raised $50M (approx €41.1M) in its Series B round of funding from Paris-based VC firm Partech. The raised capital helped the company to boost its growth as well as increase its workforce.
The edtech platform was founded in 2013 by four friends, Marnix Broer, Jacques Huppes, Lucas van den Houten, and Sander Kuijk’s dorm rooms in Delft, Netherlands. As students themselves, they figured that collecting all useful study resources from their study friends could be done way more efficiently. And this is how the idea of StuDocu was born – an online platform where students can share their study materials – lecture notes, summaries and practice materials – to exchange knowledge with fellow students.
Orderchamp raises €16.6M
Orderchamp raised $20M (approx €16.6M) funding in a Series A round led by Prime Ventures. Other investors including, henQ and several angel investors, also participated. The investment helped the company to accelerate its business and expand in Europe.
Orderchamp is an online B2B marketplace where brands and retailers come together to remain relevant to local consumers. The Dutch company collaborates with brands that meet specific quality criteria, meaning the products need to incorporate values like handmade, natural, sustainable, or ethical. In this way, it allows retailers to stand out from the crowd with their unique product assortment.
On its platform, the Amsterdam-based scaleup offers an assortment of more than 200,000 products from over 1,800 different European brands, in categories such as Home & Living, Kitchen & Dining, Baby & Kids, Stationery, Jewelry & Accessories, Food & Beverage and Beauty & Health.
Goodwell Investments launched €50M fund to back African SMEs
Goodwell Investments is an impact investment firm focused on inclusive growth in sectors providing basic goods and services, and income generation opportunities to underserved communities in Africa and India.
The firm announced a €50M new fund – Goodwell V. The fund will constitute a new portfolio of companies in different sectors in Africa. In a statement, the firm confirmed that a minimum of a third of the amount was to be invested in financial inclusion, a quarter in agriculture, and remaining in mobility and other impact sectors such as education and health.
Goodwell Investments invests in enterprises that are financially sustainable, scalable, and that deliver investors financial returns accompanied by serious social impact. Founded in 2006, Goodwell Investments has teams in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and The Netherlands. The firm has already provided over €150M in funding to 35 inclusive businesses across Asia and Africa over the past 15 years.
Rockstart closes its AgriFood fund at €22+M
Rockstart, a global accelerator-VC that supports purpose-driven founders across three domains, including Energy, AgriFood and Emerging Tech, announced the closing of its AgriFood fund at €22M. The company said the raised capital helped them further invest in top Agritech and Foodtech startups as well as co-invest in its AgriFood portfolio companies up to series B round.
The round saw participation from Vaekstfonden’s Green Future Fund, alongside new informal investors such as Joke Pronk and longtime Rockstart investors Marcel Beemsterboer, Jasper de Rooij and Hans Maltha, and new investor global dairy cooperative Arla Foods.
Launched in 2011 in Amsterdam, Rockstart claims to be one of Europe’s first startup accelerators. It is a domain-focused accelerator-VC with follow-on growth funding across four domains – energy, health, AgriFood, and emerging technologies. The firm provides startups with access to the capital, market, community, and expertise by connecting them to partners, investors, mentors and the wider Rockstart network.
The firm also creates programmes customised to help collaborate between startups and corporates, commercial partnerships, and investment. Rockstart has experience in designing and executing programmes for Maersk, Shell, the Dutch Ministry of Health, and many others.
Wonderflow raises funds to help businesses makes sense of customer feedback
Wonderflow, a company that uses AI to analyse the Voice of the Customer, secured $20M (approx €16.7M) funding in a Series B round led by Toronto-based Klass Capital. Existing investors Italian venture capital firm P101, ITALIA 500 (Azimut Group), and renowned Dutch top manager Jan Bennink, also participated in the financing round.
Besides cementing its leadership position in the European market, Wonderflow said it will use the funding to hire new talent across its three offices in Amsterdam, Milan, and Trento. Further, the company also aimed to expand internationally by launching a new office in North America.
Founded in 2014 by Italian entrepreneurs Riccardo Osti, Giovanni Gaglione, and Michele Ruin, Wonderflow helps global brands in their path to becoming more consumer-centric. It helps companies understand what consumers think about their products and services and what improvements will drive the best results.
Amsterdam, the home of the first music tech accelerator in Europe
WeWork, the flexible space provider, joined hands with boutique innovation consultancy firm BW Ventures to launch the first accelerator programme for the music tech industry in Europe, based in Amsterdam.
Named Music Tech Accelerator, the programme aims to support eight early-stage startups to grow their business and network and help them develop a commercially and technically feasible product.
BW Ventures provided individual learning and coaching sessions to participating startups to support them in reaching a state of problem-solution, product-market, and product-channel fit through continuous experimentation.
Through WeWork Labs, WeWork’s digital startup platform, the accelerator teams received access to a global platform with events and education programmes and service discounts from software partners. Furthermore, the startups also got a free WeWork All-Access pass that provides workspace at +770 locations around the world, including four locations in Amsterdam.
Mollie valued over €5B after raising €672M
Payment service provider Mollie secured $800M (approx €672M) in a Series C funding led by Blackstone Growth (BXG), Blackstone’s growth equity investing business. Other investors in the round included, EQT Growth, General Atlantic, HMI Capital, TCV, and Alkeon Capital.
The round valued the company at $6.5B (approx €5.4B), making it one of the top five most valuable privately-held fintechs in Europe and one of the top 20 in the world.
Mollie said it will use the funds to fuel international expansion, scale up the team, and develop product and engineering. It also planned to invest in its technology platform and expand its product portfolio beyond payments into financial services for SMEs, following the arrival of the new Chief Product Officer, Rogier Schoute.
Founded by Adrian Mol in 2004, Mollie is a payments platform that offers an easy-to-implement process for integrating payments into a site or app. With a payments-API, Mollie offers multiple payment methods uniformly. The company is on a mission to make online payment simple for merchants by taking away the complexity from payment methods and offering a simple, but powerful API.
Reveall launches with big clients on board
Reveall is a customer insights platform that helps teams gather and share learnings from customer research and feedback. According to its description, it provides teams with a single source of truth about their customer by turning customer data into actionable insights and breaking down silos between teams. This way, companies can start putting their most important asset – the customer – at the centre of their actions.
Reveall was founded by Ferdinand Goetzen and Marcel Hagedoorn. Both founders started their venture not only with a polished product but also with a wide range of launching customers, many of them massive international companies.
Goetzen explains, “After I had the idea I started to talk to people to validate it. Someone mentioned I should talk to UX agency Valsplat.” Turns out, they built a UX research repository tool somewhat similar to what Goetzen was thinking of — Sticktail. “It was very focused on internal use. They didn’t want to push it as a product to sell.”
Castor aims to make every clinical trial faster and patient-focused
Castor raised $45M (approx €38M) in funding in a Series B financing round led by Eight Roads Ventures and F-Prime Capital with participation from existing investors Two Sigma Ventures and Inkef Capital.
The funding was raised to accelerate product development with a particular focus on scaling direct-to-patient trials globally. The company also had plans to expand its operations, particularly in the US and APAC regions.
Founded in 2012 by Derk Arts, Castor offers a cloud-based clinical data platform that simplifies and streamlines clinical trials processes. The company offers a self-service clinical research platform enabling the researcher to design studies and integrate data from any source in real-time. Interested patients can enroll themselves in trials and share their data online or via a mobile app.
CarNext raises €400M
An online B2C and B2B used car marketplaces, CarNext, announced that it has carved out from LeasePlan — a Dutch company that manages a fleet of 1.8 million cars in 30 countries. As part of this deal, CarNext became a fully independent business owned by a consortium of investors including TDR Capital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), GIC, PGGM, ATP, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management
The company also raised €400M in a fresh round of funding to accelerate its next phase of growth.
CarNext provides a B2C marketplace across Europe and an integrated online platform that enables retail customers to buy high-quality used cars online; both from LeasePlan’s Car-as-a-Service fleet, and from a network of trusted third-party suppliers.
The company offers fixed all-in pricing, a 228-point reconditioning check, a 12-month warranty, home delivery, and a 14-day no-questions-asked return guarantee. Besides, users can also part exchange their old car and access a suite of necessary services, such as financing and extended warranties, fully online. CarNext also operates as a B2B auction platform and digital trader app in 22 countries.
In 2020, CarNext sold close to 250,000 vehicles. Currently, CarNext’s B2B operations are present in 22 countries, while its B2C marketplace is operational in seven of the largest markets across Europe.
Another Amsterdam unicorn! bunq raises €193M
Challenger bank bunq secured €193M in a funding round led by Pollen Street Capital, at a valuation of €1.6B. Ali Niknam, bunq founder, also participated in the investment round. Notably, this was the largest series A investment round ever secured by a European fintech.
With the first external capital raised, the challenger bank incorporated M&A as a business growth strategy. As a part of the deal, the company acquired Capitalflow Group, a privately held Irish lending company with strong ties to the Irish community.
Bunq said it recorded its first-ever profitable month of business and expected to break even on a monthly basis before year-end. Founded in 2012, Ali Nikam invested €98.7M of his own capital into his venture. Notably, the Dutch fintech company is the only self-funded challenger bank that branched into 30 European markets without a penny of VC funds.
bunq is currently available in 30 European markets: the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Ireland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Iceland.
EclecticIQ receives €15M in EU financing
Cybersecurity scale-up EclecticlQ raised €3M in a fresh round of funding from cybersecurity investor Dutch Security TechFund, part of TIIN Capital. In addition, the European Investment Bank (EIB) also supported EclecticIQ with a further €15M financing deal.
Besides, EclecticlQ is also supported by French cyber growth investor Ace Capital Partners and other investors including Keen Venture Partners, KPN Ventures, INKEF Capital, Invest-NL, Arches Capital, Capricorn Digital Growth Fund, and Quest for Growth.
The company used the proceeds to develop its cybersecurity platform through investments in research and development. Funds were also used to expand to new countries and sectors by investing in sales and marketing.
EclecticIQ (formerly Intelworks) was founded in 2014 by Joep Gommers and Raymon van der Velde. The founders claim to have firsthand experience of running threat intelligence teams in the industry, and of the importance of analysts, tools, and data in the cybersecurity battle.
With EclecticIQ, they are set out to build analyst-centric products and services which improve organisations’ cybersecurity defenses. The company helps governments, large enterprises, and service providers manage threat intelligence, create situational awareness, and adopt an intelligence-led cybersecurity approach.
Just Eat Takeaway joined hands with Adyen
Just Eat Takeaway.com, a food delivery giant, launched Takeaway Pay Card in collaboration with homegrown fintech unicorn Adyen.
Adyen’s solution enables Just Eat Takeaway to issue pre-funded cards to employees for meal expenses. The card is an addition to the company’s Takeaway Pay employee benefit service. The new debit card will allow Takeaway Pay corporate clients to use their meal allowance at thousands of selected food and beverage merchants that accept Mastercard and Maestro worldwide.
Initially, the card was rolled out to Just Eat Takeaway.com’s employees in Europe. The product was also available to Just Eat Takeaway.com’s corporate clients in the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, with more countries to follow soon. Takeaway Pay is already available in 12 countries.
Picnic raises €600M from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Online supermarket Picnic announced that it raised €600M in its Series D round of funding to accelerate its growth and become the ‘most’ sustainable grocery delivery service in Europe.
The funding was led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which holds investments that support the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Existing investors also participated in the round.
The proceeds were raised to help Picnic accelerate the roll-out of its services in Europe, especially Germany and France. The funds were also invested in the company’s automated fulfilment centres, electric vehicles, and the expansion of Picnic’s tech team. The company also had plans to invest in technological innovations to serve the growing demands of its customers.
Founded in 2015 by Michiel Muller, Frederik Nieuwenhuys, Joris Beckers, and Bas Verheijen, Picnic quickly became a household name in the Netherlands, and their small electric vans a familiar sight. The company has developed the modern-day milkman, a mass-market home delivery system for fast-moving consumer goods.
The company’s ‘innovative concept’ meant they could offer the same products at the same price as regular supermarkets, but deliver them right at the door of their customers. The products are fresher and cheaper as the company does not own any stores. Besides controlling the entire supply chain itself, the company also delivers everything free of charge in 100 per cent electric cars.
E-bike startup VanMoof secures €108M
VanMoof pulled off the largest-ever Series C investment for a European e-bike brand. The company that develops and designs urban e-bikes, secured $128M (approx €108M) in funding. VanMoof used the funds to enhance its production capabilities, develop new technologies, and improve bike specs and reliability.
Asia-based private equity firm Hillhouse Investment led the round, along with the participation from Gillian Tans, former CEO of Booking.com. Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Felix Capital, Balderton Capital, and TriplePoint Capital also participated.
Two Dutch brothers, Taco Carlier and Ties Carlier, founded VanMoof in 2009 with a vision of creating a perfect city bike. VanMoof is known for its sleek, high-tech, and feature-rich e-bikes that help modern city-dwellers get from one place to another faster with a slew of integrated digital devices like anti-theft systems, intelligent motor, and automatic electronic gear shifting.
VanMoof Brand Stores are now available in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seattle, and Tokyo.
Otrium voted winner of Deloitte Technology Fast 50 again
For the 22nd consecutive time, Deloitte organised the Technology Fast 50, an annual ranking that recognises fast-growing technology startups in the Netherlands for their exceptional growth performance.
Otrium grabbed the #1 spot in the rankings for the 2nd year in a row. In second place this year was Rotterdam-based Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR) while the third spot was grabbed by Amsterdam-based Storage Share.
Otrium finished 1st with a turnover growth of 4846 per cent and bears this title for the second time (Winner of the Rising Star award in 2019).
Founded in 2015 by Max Klijnstra and Milan Daniels, Otrium is a technology platform where fashion brands can sell their leftover stocks at a discount. Its full-service marketplace allows fashion brands to open an online outlet with minimal effort and all the advantages.
Through their platform, fashion houses can sell both outlet collections and previous collections while retaining full control over pricing, merchandising, and visibility of their excess inventory. The company also arranges the storage, sale and shipment of the relevant collections. Fashion brands can simply select their available stock and Otrium takes care of the rest.
Accel Club raises €151.45M
Accel Club, a company that buys and scales businesses selling on Amazon, raised $170M (approx €151.45M) in an equity and venture debt funding round. Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) roll-up firms like Accel Club are companies that acquire and consolidate Amazon third-party sellers under one business.
The equity round was led by Redseed, with participation of Flyer One Ventures, while the debt round was led by a European special situations investor North Wall Capital through the firm’s dedicated e-commerce lending strategy.
Founded February 2021 by Max Firsov and Nick Tuzenko, the strategy of Accel Club is to build, buy and boost growth of e-commerce brands leveraging the technology, tools, and resources of its platform.
The сompany claims to offer tailored terms and proposals for a smooth acquisition process, providing independent online merchants an opportunity to unlock significant value from their businesses. Besides Amsterdam, the company has offices across Europe, the US, and China. Currently, Accel Club focuses its operations primarily on the US market and expects to expand to European and Asian platforms in the future.
NorthSea secures funds to develop treatment for metabolic disorders
NorthSea Therapeutics (NST), a clinical-stage biotech company developing first-in class, oral, structurally-engineered lipid therapeutics, raised $80M (approx €70.84M) in its Series C round of funding.
The round was co-led by Ysios Capital and Forbion Growth. New investors including a large managed care organisation and Hercules Capital, and existing investors Forbion Ventures, venBio, Novo Seeds, Sofinnova, BGV, and New Science Ventures also participated in the round.
The funds were used to advance the development of NorthSea Therapeutics’ pipeline of Structural Engineered Fatty Acids (SEFA) clinical-stage programs in NASH and other metabolic disorders.
NorthSea Therapeutics was founded in 2017 by David A. Fraser, Hilde H. Steineger, Patrick Round, Rob de Ree, and Tore Skjæret. It is a biotech company focused on developing structurally engineered fatty acids (‘SEFAs’) for the treatment of NASH and other metabolic disorders. NorthSea has licensed the rights to its lead compound icosabutate and a library of SEFAs from Pronova BioPharma Norge AS.
Silverflow raised €15M
Fintech startup Silverflow raised $17M (approx €15M) in its Series A round of funding led by Coatue Management. The round also saw participation from existing investors Crane Venture Partners and INKEF Capital, along with Global Paytech Ventures.
In addition, angel investors Jason Gardner, founder and CEO of Marqeta, and Gokul Rajaram, a former Square product lead and current Coinbase board member, also invested in this round.
The funds were raised to help the company grow its team from 24 to 70 people over the next two years, expand its services in the US, and strengthen its balance sheet.
Silverflow started in early 2019 with Robert Kraal and Anne Willem de Vries discussing the company’s core idea. The company’s founding team comprises co-founder and CEO Anne Willem de Vries, co-founder and CTO Paul Buying, and the co-founder and CBDO, Robert Kraal.
Kraal previously was at Adyen in 2010 as the COO and has over two decades of experience in the online payment segment. Similarly, De Vries also gained experience in card payments at Adyen, where he joined the cards acquiring team.
According to the company, the global payments landscape is built on legacy platforms despite billions of credit card transactions per year. Existing platforms are outdated, hard to use, and challenging to integrate with fresh innovation in the market. The platform wants to upgrade the current payment systems with the first cloud-native card payments platform.
Soft skill scaleup Lepaya secures €35.5M
Lepaya, a provider of soft skill training that combines both online and offline learning, secured $40M (approx €35.5M) in the Series B round of funding, making it one of the largest financing rounds to date for an edtech company in Europe.
The round was led by Target Global, along with the participation from Noor van Boven (formerly N26), Anna Brandt (formerly Mollie), entrepreneurs Jordy Kool (Urban Gym) and Chris Zadeh (formerly Ohpen), as well as existing investors Mediahuis Ventures and Tablomonto.
The funding helped Lepaya to grow its international presence and accelerate its momentum across all markets, further consolidating the edtech market in 2022 with targets in Germany, the Nordics, and the UK. The company also has plans to scale its international team further, doubling its headcount to 200 employees in the coming year.
Lepaya was established in 2018 by René Janssen and Peter Kuperus. The company has built a mobile learning app that allows companies across all industries to tailor training as per employees’ and executives’ needs. The platform combines over 50 soft and hard skill training modules into power skill development programs, offering learning interventions and real-time data on learner behaviour and impact.
Mambu raises €235M at €4.9B valuation
Mambu, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) banking engine provider, raised €235M in its Series E round of funding – the largest financing round to date for a banking software platform. With this round, the company’s valuation reached €4.9B, making it one of the highest valued B2B SaaS companies founded in Europe.
The Series E round was led by EQT Growth, the growth equity strategy of the purpose-driven global investment organisation EQT.
Founded in 2011 by Eugene Danilkis, Frederik Pfisterer and Sofia Nunes, Mambu helps financial institutions of all sizes to design, launch, service, and scale their banking and lending portfolio. “Our vision in creating Mambu was always to create an industry-leading platform that will enable more than a billion people to have brilliant banking experiences,” says Danilkis.
The funding helped Mambu to accelerate innovation of its platform, and in rolling out both new functional and technical capabilities. The company also invested in global expansion and customer success model to support its international customer base, which is active across 65 countries, with a specific focus on twelve key markets.
Crypto investment firm Maven 11 Capital closes its second fund
Maven 11 Capital, a venture capital fund in blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), closed its second fund, Venture Fund II, at $120M (approx €106.35M). The firm continues to scale its backing of founders that are looking to build novel infrastructure protocols, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) primitives, and Web 3.0 applications in the crypto industry.
The investors in Venture Fund II include high net worth individuals with a background in finance and technology, crypto entrepreneurs, family offices, and institutional backers.
Founded in 2015, Maven 11 Capital is an investment fund solely focused on investing in blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT). It invests in ventures, digital assets, and digital currencies that adopt this technology. The firm supports the companies in which it invests by taking an active role in the sector and contributing to the development of its portfolio companies.
With the fresh funding, the firm aimed to partner and back phenomenal projects from inception to launch. From Venture Fund II, investments have already been made into Merit Circle, Maple Finance, Anoma, and Zapper, among others.
Adyen issues 1.25% shares to online marketplace eBay
In 2018, eBay signed an agreement with fintech unicorn Adyen to become its main payments processing partner. As a part of the agreement, “eBay is entitled to acquire a fixed number of shares in a series of four tranches (each a “Tranche”) for cash, at a specified price per share upon the terms and conditions set forth in the warrant agreement.”
Adyen issued 403,724 shares following eBay exercising the first tranche of the warrant. This entitles eBay to acquire a fixed number of Adyen shares in a series of four tranches subject to certain processing milestones being met. These were exercised at €240 per share and represented 1.25 per cent of Adyen’s issue-date diluted share volume.
Adyen is a payments platform providing end-to-end infrastructure connecting directly to Visa, Mastercard, and other payment methods. It offers payment services across online, mobile, and in-store channels. The fintech unicorn serves customers including Facebook, Uber, Spotify, Casper, Bonobos, and L’Oréal.
Convious raises €10.6M
AI-driven ecommerce platform for leisure operators, Convious, raised $12M (approx €10.6M) in a Series A round of funding led by Begin Capital. Other investors including Market One Capital, MillionMonkeys, and FJ Labs also participated in the round along with existing investor Capital Mills.
With the leisure industry bearing the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic, Convious raised capital to help its customers attract and convert more visitors. The capital will also help them accelerate its global expansion and open offices in the US, France, the UK, Germany, and other countries. The company also intends to hire more talent and increase its current headcount of 65 people to 125 by next year.
Convious provides a one-stop cloud platform for all core operations of leisure operators. It enables them to connect with their customers directly thereby enhancing their experience and increasing conversions while managing all operations in a single place. It processes all sales transactions, including tickets, food, and even hotel accommodations.
The company claims that its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based platform provides personalised offers to customers leading to better conversions. It sells tickets at dynamic real-time prices and smoothens the buying experience.
The platform also provides data on guest experience, which the leisure provider can use to improve services.