Prince Constantijn Van Oranje Wants To Make The Netherlands "A Unicorn Nation”

Dutch government takes big ambition step with government-wide support for startups and scale-ups and a new initiative: TechLeap.NL

As a leading innovation nation, the Netherlands wants to play a bigger role in developing solutions for a better world and building companies that can make a positive impact on a global scale.

To ensure this, the Dutch government today launched at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in The Hague a broad package of measures and a new initiative: TechLeap.NL, a major collective effort to bolster the growth and standing of Dutch scale-ups.

2018 was a good year for the Netherlands. Not only did Amsterdam-StartupDelta experienced the largest increase in the Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking, rising from #19 in 2017 to #15 in 2019, it also experienced high growth in funding, startup output, as well as strong performance in Life Sciences and Deep Tech. Its position was also helped by the successful exits of Adyen (a Fintech company now valued at almost $23 billion) and Elastic (a search and data company now valued at over $6 billion).

To maintain such production of billion-dollar startups, the Dutch government will make 65 million euros available for startup and scale-up policies. A list of actions also includes an adjustment of the stock option tax regime by moving the moment of taxation to the moment of disposal, the appointment of six startup liaisons in six priority international metropolitan areas ('hubs') and a pilot for the granting of a residence permit for key personnel of a startup, originating from outside the EU.

StartupDelta becomes TechLeap.NL
In order to achieve the ambitions of becoming the best European ecosystem, the government also sees a key role for the current accelerator of the Dutch ecosystem, StartupDelta. Prince Constantijn van Oranje is prepared to continue his efforts to strengthen the climate for startups and scale-ups, even after mid-2019, as Special Envoy for the program under the new name of TechLeap.NL:

TechLeap.NL will focus on knowledge development about the startup ecosystem, creating new initiatives in the ecosystem and connecting Dutch top scale-ups with the best investors and programs. The emphasis will be on the themes of capital, talent, and market in relation to rapid growth.

The organization will be renewed as TechLeap.NL until 2023, TechLeap.NL will announce their first yearly plan January 2020.

Prince Constantijn van Oranje. "With TechLeap.NL the Netherlands is running for European leadership in tech. Being one interconnected nation we're in a position where we can work as one unit to push the Netherlands forward together”.

Mona Keijzer, state secretary of Economic Affairs and Climate: “The success of the Netherlands is driven by an international culture of openness, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. With this new action plan, we want to build the best ecosystem in Europe.”

By Chris Koney, The Hague, Netherlands