The sun will come out… tomorrow! Here’s your weekly Dutch startup news update.
Funding & deals
Amsterdam-based startup Hotelchamp received an investment of 1.75 million euro from a group of informal investors, including Nalden, Thomas Joosten (M4N) and Marc Albert (former TMG). Hotelchamp develops software for hotels to engage with customers and increase the amount of bookings.
Human, the Dutch activity tracking startup based in San Francisco, has been acquihired by US company Mapbox.
Dutch scale-up Thuisbezorgd.nl, (parent company Takeaway.com), announced the selling of its British activities to competitor Just Eat.
Updates
The Universities of Utrecht, Groningen, Leiden and Delft are ranked in the top 100 of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities 2016. The free university in Amsterdam (VU) fell out of the top 100. Utrecht ranks highest with place 65. Harvard University (USA) is ranked #1.
Hyperloop One tells TechCrunch it might be building its crazy fast transportation system at the Jebel Ali port in Dubai if all goes according to plan. And it could be the first place to build an actual Hyperloop for commercial use, says CEO Rob Lloyd. “It’s got the infrastructure, regulatory movement and kind of capital in place needed to build it already.”
Monday Reads
Medium – You wake up at 6:30am after an Ambien-induced sleep. It’s Friday. Last night at The Rosewood was pretty intense — you had to check out Madera and see if there is any truth to the long running Silicon Valley rumors. You were disappointed, but at least you did get to see a few GPs from prominent VC firms at the bar. Did they notice you? Did you make eye contact? You remind yourself they are not real celebrities — only well known in a 15-mile radius to the Techcrunch-reading crowd. This is Your Life in Silicon Valley.
NY Times – Tech Giants Gobble Startups in an Anitrust Blind Spot
FT.com – On July 13, Thomas Wagner, one of Germany’s best-known internet entrepreneurs, boarded a chartered plane for Venice in an attempt to save his company. But instead of salvation, the trip brought disaster. The rise and tragic fall of German internet star.
Image credit: Flickr, Steve Jurvetson, Silicon Valley in 1953