Why the Dutch innovation ecosystem needs fewer startups, not more
Merging the efforts of startups operating in the same domains, and picking winners; could this be the way to create more Dutch unicorns?
Published on November 11, 2025
Mauro swapped Sardinia for Eindhoven and has been an IO+ editor for 3 years. As a GREEN+ expert, he covers the energy transition with data-driven stories.
“If I were the Dutch government, I would pick five companies and focus on helping them become unicorns. I understand this can be subjective, but with thorough research, it can be done. And these unicorns would create a thriving ecosystem around them,” states Harm de Vries, partner and cofounder of Innovation Industries.
Innovation Industries is a venture capital (VC) firm, active in early-stage investments in deeptech startups—companies developing technologies based on scientific research. Among their portfolio companies are neurotherapy firm Salvia BioElectronics, industrial tech company Nearfield Instruments, and agritech startup Solynta.
In this new episode of ‘Why We Fail’, we talk with him and Mitja Caboni, acceleration manager of PortXL, about the struggles of the Dutch startup ecosystem and ways to improve it.
Why we fail - the struggles of the Dutch startup ecosystem
TechLeap’s State of Dutch Tech 2025 reveals a split: more scaleups, but fewer new startups secured €100K+ funding. In this series, we discuss the current status of the Dutch startup ecosystem and look for ways to improve it.
Consolidate rather than disperse
De Vries calls for “consolidation” at the university level to bring together similar ventures and create firms with a higher chance of scaling. “Rather than creating different ventures, universities should put all of their similar eggs in one basket. For a given technology, it would be better to group all of the patents and knowledge around it to form a single company,” he argues.
According to the investor, the focus should be on picking the right technologies to create unicorn companies from. A unicorn is a startup valued at over $1 billion. “There is so much attention to quantity that quality gets lost in the process. As a result, there is a lot of competition from many small companies for money and talent,” he argues.
The struggle of taking companies to the next level
Mitja Caboni is PortXL’s acceleration manager. PortXL is a startup accelerator—an organization that provides support to help startups grow—based in Rotterdam and active in the maritime tech sector. In the past 10 years, the organization has supported 141 startups. Companies entering the accelerator have already developed a prototype or a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and reached the technology readiness level 4 (TRL4).
Most of the startups passing through the Rotterdam accelerator are also deeptech ones. “In the maritime sector, there is a need for a lot of hardware, which means a lot of time and money to test innovations,” he explains.
In Caboni’s view, the Netherlands doesn’t lack financial support tools for early-stage startups. “In the province of South Holland only, there are nearly 100 organizations that can help a startup get off the ground. Across the country, there are plenty of initiatives to find a cofounder or to learn how to start a company. What the Dutch ecosystem has struggled with is finding larger investment opportunities to scale businesses,” explains Caboni.
Creating better companies
According to Innovation Industries’ partner, there is a lack of capital for scaleups. Still, more billions available don’t necessarily create better companies. The technology development and the innovation pipeline are the main aspects that need to be reorganized, in his view.
The investor disagrees with universities’ often-used modus operandi of taking a single patent and forming a company around it. “The outcome is the creation of many small single-product companies, which legitimately want to grow on their own. If you ask me, this is not a good vision at all.”
Yet, money wouldn’t be a problem if there were good enough companies to invest in. “The development of good technologies is the most important aspect. Then, for a VC to survive, there have to be exit opportunities, such as IPOs and trade sales, which are currently scarce. For us, this is a problem, as we still need to finance these companies, even in their loss–making years.”
Making it attractive for large companies to step in
To scale more companies, both interviewees agree that new ways are needed to help startups and larger companies collaborate.
De Vries advocates greater involvement by large companies in acquiring startups. “It worked really well in the biotech sector, where large pharmaceutical firms basically shut down their own internal research programs and focused on acquiring startups. The deeptech space is lacking this dynamic, which could help us make returns, pay back our investors, and then support more deeptech firms.”
Caboni calls on government-backed instruments to ease a corporate’s involvement in startups.“ There should be a way to incentivize corporates to support startups, conduct pilots, and offer guarantees if these don’t work out. At the same time, it shouldn’t be too bureaucratic for them to do so.”
Ideas to stimulate innovation
De Vries calls for further investment at the roots of innovation. “A way would be to allow pension funds to invest in innovation infrastructure, such as labs and clean rooms. Investing in the infrastructure would help more companies to scale faster and cheaper,” he proposes.
PortXL’s acceleration manager also has another idea to make more money available. “Assisting internal Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and rewarding corporate employees who supported innovation projects accordingly could be an idea.” In his view, it would help derisk and give innovation new impetus. Ideas that turn into action are direly needed, as more Dutch startups are considering moving abroad.