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Rise Europe’s new startup landscape features 20 Dutch companies working on everything from quantum computing to newborn care. Their technologies illustrate both Europe’s scientific strengths and the challenge of building businesses around them.
A premature baby monitored without adhesive electrodes. A quantum computer whose growth depends on better cables. A piece of fruit carrying a laser marking instead of a sticker. Europe’s deep tech ambitions become much easier to understand when you look at what its startups are actually building.
All three examples appear in the European Startup & Scaleup Landscape 2026, published by Rise Europe. The report profiles 168 ventures from a network of 17 startup hubs across 12 European countries. Twenty of the featured companies are identified as Dutch, with a particularly strong presence in quantum technology, photonics and advanced manufacturing. Together, they bring a central European question into focus: how do you turn scientific expertise into products that customers buy, industries adopt and companies can manufacture at scale?
Nine of the twenty Dutch examples are former Gerard & Anton Award winners.
The money is moving towards deep tech
The report presents a continent with substantial ingredients for success. Citing the 2026 European Deep Tech Report by Lakestar, Walden Catalyst Ventures and Dealroom, it notes that Europe hosts 30% of the world’s leading deep tech universities. Deep tech now attracts 32% of European venture capital funding, up from 15% a decade ago. Yet roughly 70% of late-stage funding for European deep tech still comes from outside Europe, according to the same source. That leaves a critical part of the growth journey heavily dependent on international investors.
For companies developing new chips, medical devices or industrial equipment, reaching that stage can require years of engineering, testing and investment. A laboratory breakthrough is the beginning of the commercial challenge. Manufacturing, certification, integration and winning a first major customer all come afterwards. The Dutch companies in the landscape show how varied that journey can be.
Quantum computing needs more than a processor
Six of the 18 companies in the report’s Quantum & Semicon cluster are Dutch. Their activities reveal how many different technologies must mature before the next generation of computing can fulfil its promise.
QuantWare develops quantum processors using a three-dimensional scaling architecture designed to accommodate thousands of qubits. Making larger processors useful also requires the infrastructure around them to keep pace.
That is where Delft Circuits comes in. Its superconducting cryogenic cabling addresses a practical bottleneck: connecting quantum hardware operating at extremely low temperatures. As systems grow, wiring becomes an engineering challenge in its own right.
Single Quantum, meanwhile, develops superconducting detectors that can detect individual photons, with applications in quantum computing, communication, and sensing.
These companies illustrate an opportunity for European industry: supplying the specialised components on which entire technology platforms depend. A processor, a cable and a detector each solve a different problem. Progress requires them to work together.
Light connects the digital and industrial worlds
The Dutch photonics examples extend beyond quantum technology.
Astrape Networks develops optical networking for high-speed data transmission across racks and data centres, targeting the demands of AI and high-performance computing. As computing capacity grows, moving data between machines becomes an increasingly important part of the system.
Aircision takes optical communication outside the data centre. Its technology transmits data through the air without fibre, targeting telecom, enterprise and defence applications.
Senergetics uses photonic sensing to detect corrosion, leaks and energy losses in industrial assets, combining sensors with a cloud platform for continuous monitoring.
The common thread is the use of light to tackle specific industrial constraints: moving more data, reaching locations without fibre connections, or identifying problems inside infrastructure.
Teaching machines to handle the physical world
Another group of Dutch companies operates where AI meets movement, perception and physical work.
MANUS develops data gloves that capture human hand movements with millimetre precision. Those movements provide training data for robotic manipulation models. A seemingly simple human action, such as picking up an object, contains information that a robot must somehow learn.
Perciv AI tackles machine perception through radar software. The report describes its approach as aiming to deliver environmental understanding comparable to LiDAR at a fraction of the cost.
Fiducial and Vydar address another constraint: autonomous operation when satellite navigation is unavailable. Fiducial develops computer-vision software for applications including drone detection and navigation, while Vydar builds drone navigation modules for stable flight without GPS.
These examples show how physical AI depends on more than increasingly capable models. Machines also need reliable sensory information, training data and ways to navigate difficult environments.
Precision manufacturing, down to the label
Some of the most accessible examples sit in the report’s advanced materials and manufacturing cluster.
InPhocal develops laser marking technology that writes directly onto food, produce and packaging without damaging the surface. Its intended benefit is immediately understandable: replacing stickers and labels.
Keiron applies laser technology to electronics manufacturing. Its contactless printing equipment deposits solder paste with micron precision, replacing stencils in high-density electronics production.
Arceon develops carbon-ceramic composites for propulsion nozzles and heat shields that withstand temperatures above 1,500°C. Carbyon works on capturing CO₂ directly from the atmosphere, including for use as a feedstock for alternative fuels.
The applications differ enormously, but the commercial task is similar: demonstrate that a new process or material performs reliably enough to earn a place in an existing industrial chain.
Technology that makes care less intrusive
The report’s Dutch healthcare examples bring that challenge into a more personal setting.
Bambi Medical develops a wireless monitoring belt for newborns. The report describes a system that tracks breathing, heart rate and temperature without adhesive electrodes, helping keep premature babies connected to their parents.
Onera Health combines patch-based sensors with a cloud platform for sleep diagnostics. Its self-applied wireless system brings clinical-grade sleep measurements into the home.
Both approaches aim to change the experience around a medical measurement. For a family with a premature baby, or someone undergoing a sleep study, how monitoring happens matters alongside the information it produces.
A European network around specialised strengths
Rise Europe’s proposed answer to the scaling challenge is closer cooperation between innovation hubs. Its network includes YES!Delft and Eindhoven’s HighTechXL, connecting local expertise with talent, partners and market access elsewhere in Europe.
The landscape should be read in that context. It is a curated selection from the network, with companies chosen on funding, team, market, press visibility and partnerships. It offers neither a comprehensive census nor a national league table.
What it does provide is a picture of European deep tech becoming tangible. The Dutch examples suggest a substantial role for companies that solve precise, difficult problems within larger systems.
The next test is whether those solutions can move from promising technology to repeat orders, reliable production and international growth. That is where Europe’s scientific strengths must translate into industrial staying power.