Here's an overview of notable new launches of startups and apps in The Netherlands (June/July 2016).
Geardropper
Geardropper, founded by Bas Sonnevelt and Nick van den Berg, simply sends your camping gear ahead of you. This summer they are testing their business in The Netherlands and in Sardinia, Italy. The startup has their own supplies, so you don't have to worry about a thing when traveling to that one adventurous location.
Rightsshare
Amsterdam-based Rightsshare creates a blockchain technology solution for open standard music licensing. This eventually must solve digital music distribution and rights issues, like an honest and transparent way of remuneration. A hot topic for sure.
Weparc
Weparc is a valet parking app for crowdy cities. Founders Tim Wanders and Iskander Feltmann, like many others, got fed up with the lack of parking space in Amsterdam. For 35 euro a day you stop wherever you want, let the valet bring your car to a garage, and let him or her bring it back at any place.
E-bike Network
E-bike Network is a platform for renting e-bikes. The ultimate goal of Fleur Schraven and her team is to have a city without cars. The startup aims at both consumers and businesses.
Powow
Powow, based in Almere, is a geo-located social network startup. It is 'your own community with no central organizer', Sitesh Shrivastava explains in a Medium post. You decide how wide or narrow your comfort radius for community is and you are implicitly part of it. "We still think connecting people who are nearest, is still the hardest." They might have a point.
Plekk
Plekk is a dating app with a twist: it lets you discover singles who share your favourite spots to go. This way you immediately have a nice location to go for on a date. Not to be mistaken with the popular venue Pllek in Amsterdam. I'm sure the universe would explode if two people would meet at Pllek through Plekk.
Tooter
Tooter lets you find the best used cars (occasions in Dutch) in an app. Obviously the business model isn't meant for recurring users, but hey, business is business.
The Vault app by Sherlocked
Escape room Sherlocked was one of the first escape rooms in The Netherlands, and did such a great job it's one of the most popular ones in Europe right now. With their new 'break in room', they developed a digital prologue. Not for fun, but out of necessity: people just don't know how to crack a safe anymore. Simple, clever, fun.
Main image: WeParc