The Quarterly Startup Report for Q3 2022 is out! And this quarter, Dutch climate startups rake in the maximum investment.
The report was published in collaboration with Dealroom.co, Golden Egg Check, KPMG, the Regional Development Companies (ROMs), Dutch Association of Private Equity Companies (NVP), Dutch Startup Association (dSa), and Techleap.nl.
Raised €480M in VC
According to the report, Dutch startups and scale-ups raised €480M in venture capital in Q3 2022, compared to €1.5B in Q3 2021.
However, the report reveals the number of deals is slightly higher at 99 this year versus the same quarter last year. But the number of deals larger than 100M, which made last year a record year, is now significantly lower, which explains the big difference, adds the report.
The number of deals closed this quarter is slightly higher than last year’s, with 99 deals closed this year as opposed to the previous year.
However, the number of deals worth more than 100M is significantly lower this year, which the report attributes to the large difference in totals between this year and last.
The report also indicates that investors invested more in the early phase (< €10M) and less above that.
“It is particularly striking that the last category of larger investments almost all ended up in climate startups,” says the report.
Climate investment dominates
A large majority of investment rounds with an amount greater than €10M were for climate startups or ClimateTech. Some of the investment rounds include:
- Lightyear (solar car) – €81M
- Greener Power Solutions (mobile batteries) – €45M
- Elestor (batteries) – €30M
- Sympower (software for electricity network) – €22M
- LEAP24 (fast charging network) – €15M
- Thorizon (nuclear) – €12.5M
- Chaincraft (circular chemical production) – €11M
- Gradyent (software for efficient district heating) – €10M
- Strohm (hydrogen pipeline) – €10M
Dutch health tech company Xeltis was the only company in a sector other than Climate Tech to receive an investment of more than €10M.
Rise of early-stage deals
| Investments | 2021 | 2022 (Q1 to Q3) |
| <€1M | 70 | 170 |
| €1M-10M | 135 | 145 |
| €10M-50M | 53 | 29 |
| €50M-100M | 9 | 9 |
| €100M-500M | 7 | 3 |
| >€500M | 3 | 0 |
| Total | 277 | 293 |
According to the quarterly startup report, 107 deals worth less than €1M were made in the first three quarters of 2022, an increase of 40 deals compared to all of 2021.
In 2021, 53 deals were made in the €10-50M category. However, this number has decreased to 29 in 2022.
In the €100M+ category, the difference is especially significant; for the entirety of 2021, there were ten compared to just three investment rounds in 2022 by Backbase, Leyden Labs, and Pyramid Analytics through the third quarter.
“The turnaround in early-stage investments is a good development for the rapidly growing number of startups. In addition, it is very encouraging that it is a climate where startups are collecting large investments. It again underlines that the necessary innovation for the current crises and challenges we face will come from these companies,” says Lucien Burm of the Dutch Startup Association.
Venture capital
The report indicates that a considerable amount of capital is still available in the market. Moreover, in recent months, many venture capital firms have established new funds to invest in over the next few years.
Recently added new Dutch funds include:
New funds were also launched in the past quarter, one example being Newion, which recently announced its fourth fund of €130M.
“Investing in tech is investing in the future of the Netherlands. These companies have developed new solutions for the major social transitions in the climate, healthcare, and circular economy. They are indispensable for the earning capacity of our country, and their social importance will only increase in the coming years. It is encouraging that investors are moving along and now seem to be focusing mainly on these sustainable companies,” says Maurice van Tilburg, Managing Director of Techleap.nl.
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