Amsterdam is the best place in the world for founders. At least, that is what anyone from Amsterdam will gladly tell you. In reality, the city might not be the epicentre of global tech. According to research by Dealroom, Amsterdam attracts a smaller percentage of funding from outside Europe than other European startup hubs. VCs Two Sigma Ventures, from New York, and PeakSpan, from Silicon Valley both, invested in Amsterdam-based startups this year and know all about Amsterdam as a best-kept startup secret.
Amsterdam’s funding comes from home
Dealroom and StartupAmsterdam recently put the numbers together in their ‘Startups & Venture Capital in Amsterdam’ report (pdf here). With over 2,700 startups and scaleups founded in the city after the year 2000, all of them good for a total value of € 7.3B and adding 77,000 jobs. Over 130 active VCs, accelerators and workspaces in the city result in €2.8B in venture capital invested.