Seems like summer has started on this beautiful Monday. Let’s make it even brighter with some startup news and must reads.
Funding
Our quarterly funding report is here: Dutch startups have raised 76.2 million euro in the second quarter of 2016. We saw slightly more funding activity compared to the previous quarter.
L1nda, the personnel planning platform for the hospitality sector, received a 1 million euro investment from existing shareholder DHG and Dutch VC Newion Investments.
Amsterdam-based startup Autheos received an undisclosed amount of funding from Dutch VC Holland Venture and US investor Guy Bradley.
News & updates
We’ve had quite some Demo days over the past days, including Port XL Shakedown and Rockstart accelerator’s Web and Mobile Demo Day.
Techstars and Dealroom launched a digital map with more than 500 investors active in European tech.
Startup incubator UtrechtInc opened a new space in their office: the Garage. An entire renovated wing will be used to experiment on solutions that will have an impact on a healthier society.
Crowdfunding in The Netherlands is growing again, but it's stagnating. According to research from Douw&Koren, last semester 86 million euro was crowdfunded by Dutch entrepreneurs.
Amsterdam will get an incubator aimed at Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) innovation. From October VRBASE must make Europe a central hub for innovation in the sector. (Link in Dutch).
Many companies choose to hire people as freelancers (Dutch: ZZP) this is however not without risks, as the rules have recently been changed. We provided a practical summary on how to hire freelancers under the new rules.
Eindhoven-based sport accelerator Sport eXperience expands to Denmark and is planning a European tour. (Link in Dutch)
18 months have passed since the launch of the ‘Dutch ministry of startups’ StartupDelta. Starting from July 1st StartupDelta will be continued by a new team, led by new special envoy Prince Constantijn van Oranje. The team of Neelie Kroes therefore presented their “final results”, claiming to have successfully positioned The Netherlands in the top league of startup ecosystems.
SME credit lender Spotcap announced a funding round of 14 million euro to invest in the Dutch market.
Einhoven’s mayor Rob van Gijzel has been named the first ‘European Digital Leader’ by internatonal Chief Information Officer-network CIONET.
Launches
JuriBlox wants to atomize and update the legal sector with a brand new SAAS-product that helps jurists to set up legal documents online.
Dutch social travel network Flamyngo launched a mobile app that enables users to collect all travel tips suggested by friends in one social travel guide, with all the info like opening hours and contact details you need.
Monday Reads
Of the ten most important metrics on a startup’s financial statements, revenue might seem to be the most important. But it isn’t. Gross margin matters more because it is directly tied to a company’s ability spend to grow and achieve profitability.
London’s crown as the global capital of fintech is under threat by the decision to leave the EU amid worries about a squeeze on future funding and a brain drain of talent out of the UK.
YouTube has gotten very good at figuring out when people upload copyrighted material to the video-streaming site, and taking things down. But what if you upload a video in a video? Smart pirates are fooling YouTube’s copyright bots by hiding movies in 360-degree videos.
Image credit: Wikipedia