Stories, analysis and news from the Dutch startup and AI ecosystem, written by the dutchstartup.ai editorial team.
CuspAI, founded in 2024 and operating from Amsterdam and Cambridge, uses generative AI to design new materials that can be discovered up to ten times faster than through traditional methods. The company has raised $130 million to date and works with partners including ASML, Meta and Hyundai.
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Utrecht-based Moveshelf, active in motion analysis, has integrated its platform into the Motion and Sports Analysis Lab at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The company is also participating in RE:HOME, a European project focused on smart home care for neurological paediatric patients.
Paris-based AI company Gradium has raised a total of more than $100 million through a two-tranche seed round, with Nvidia joining as a new investor. Gradium builds real-time speech AI models with ultra-low latency for developers and enterprises.
Andy Yen, CEO of Swiss privacy company Proton, said on Reddit that the company will "probably" launch its own chat service. The statement followed a vote in the European Parliament on the controversial chat control legislation.
The Dutch healthcare and health sector counts 78 active startups in 2026, a large share of which deploy AI for diagnostics, hospital logistics and home care. Funding is concentrated among a handful of players; broad adoption and regulation remain the principal bottlenecks.
Leusden-based AI company Sygno has received a strategic investment from TIN Capital and ROM Utrecht Region. The funding will go towards the further development of explainable AI models for detecting financial crime and towards international growth.
French AI company Mistral released Robostral Navigate on 8 July 2026, an 8 billion parameter vision-language model that guides robots through unfamiliar environments using only a standard RGB camera. On the R2R-CE benchmark the model achieves 76.6 percent, well above the previous best systems.
The Cyber Security Raad warns in a new advisory report that the resilience of the Dutch digital telecommunications and internet infrastructure is under increasing pressure. TNO, the AIVD, the MIVD and the NCTV substantiate those concerns with concrete threat assessments.
The Dutch robotics sector counts at least 46 active startups in 2026, spread across sectors including logistics, construction, security and retail. Rising investment and a persistent labour shortage are accelerating demand for automated systems.
Enschede-based deeptech startup wearM.AI received the 100th project voucher from the cross-border subsidy programme INDUSTR_I4.0 on 17 June 2026, for the Motion2Load project, a collaboration with Virtualletics focused on smartphone-based muscle and joint analysis.
Chinese AI company DeepSeek is working on its own chips for AI inference, with the aim of reducing its dependence on both Nvidia and Huawei. The backdrop is US export regulations that deny Chinese companies access to the most advanced Nvidia chips.
Chinese authorities are holding talks with tech companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and Z.ai about restricting foreign access to advanced AI models. For Europe, which has increasingly come to rely on Chinese open-source alternatives to expensive American services, such a move would narrow the available options considerably.
Dutch deeptech startups raised hundreds of millions of euros in 2025 and early 2026, with large rounds in AI chips, defence technology and materials science. This overview maps the frontrunners, notable trends and structural challenges.
Amsterdam-based AI evaluation platform RankmyAI published its March 2026 rankings on 24 April 2026, supplemented by twelve new categories for military and defence AI tools. RankmyAI is a non-profit initiative of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and now catalogues more than 58,000 AI tools.
Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI, warns companies that by using closed AI models they are exposing their business processes to the providers of those models. According to Mensch, AI labs are storing increasing amounts of customer data, and some labs have used that knowledge to enter markets where their customers operate.
The Dutch startup scene counts around 126 companies with an education component in 2026, but the sector is more diffuse than the label suggests. An overview of the most notable players, funding rounds, and the trends shaping the field.
Enschede-based deeptech company ScoutinScience launched a collaboration with Yamaguchi University in Japan on 18 May 2026. The partnership focuses on using AI-driven publication analysis to identify promising research and accelerate technology transfer.
Mistral AI is a French AI company founded in 2023 by three researchers who previously worked at Google DeepMind and Meta. The company has raised more than three billion dollars to date and is valued at approximately $13.7 billion.
Meta and Samsung are negotiating a $5.7 billion order under which Samsung's chip foundry would produce hundreds of thousands of 2nm AI chips for the US tech company. Meta intends to use the chips to train its own AI models and wants to lease surplus computing capacity to third parties.
The Trump administration has dropped restrictions on Anthropic's AI models Mythos and Fable. The administration's erratic AI policy is creating uncertainty among companies about which rules will apply to future model releases.
Claude Sonnet 5 uses the same token prices as its predecessor, but consumes approximately 40 percent more output tokens per task. As a result, the actual costs for users are nearly twice as high, a pattern Anthropic has already shown with previous model updates.
BOTS Capital is ending its direct crypto services and will focus exclusively on three multi-asset investment funds. Customers who wish to continue investing in crypto can transfer to Finst free of charge.
Noord-Holland currently has 67 data centres and expects that number to rise to 92 by 2035, an increase of more than 37 percent. The province welcomes the growth but is imposing stricter requirements on residual heat utilisation and water consumption.
The US government has lifted export controls on Anthropic's AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Fable 5 is available worldwide from 1 July 2026; access to the more powerful Mythos 5 remains temporarily restricted to selected partners through the Glasswing programme.
OpenAI has floated the idea with the US government of granting the state a five percent stake in the company. CEO Sam Altman discussed the proposal with, among others, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as a way to broaden support and temper criticism of AI, the Financial Times reports.
Large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini display a pattern of predictable, similar responses. A startup is working on an approach to diversify that output and reduce the tendency toward uniformity.
A nine-member jury in Oakland, California, unanimously rejected Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI on 18 May 2026. The jury ruled that Musk had missed the three-year statute of limitations.
Enschede-based AI company Teammaite has entered into a partnership with investment firm Twinning Participaties. With this move, the company, founded in 2025, aims to accelerate the further development of its AI agents for software teams.
With 67 startups in the DutchStartup database, Region Utrecht displays a varied ecosystem with strong clusters in AI, healthtech and sustainability. From fraud detection to sleep monitoring in premature babies: the region is building applications with clear sector specialisation.
Swiss tech company Proton released version 2.0 of its AI chatbot Lumo on 30 June 2026. The new version scores significantly higher on benchmarks than its predecessor and is available in two variants with corresponding subscription prices.
Meta is exploring whether it can open up its AI data centre infrastructure to external customers, in direct competition with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Bloomberg reported on the plans on 1 July; an internal unit called Meta Compute is coordinating the effort.
A Thai police station posted an AI-generated photo showing officers in glittering dresses arresting a drug dealer. The arrest was real; the clothing was not, as the officer who created the image admitted to news agency AFP.
TNO concludes that AI tools do save time, but do not automatically lead to higher productivity. How an organisation deploys the technology determines whether the time saved actually delivers results.
OpenAI is considering significantly lowering its API rates, according to sources speaking to The Wall Street Journal. The move is partly a response to expected price cuts by rival Anthropic.
Anthropic is positioning itself as an advocate for external AI oversight at a time when the era of unregulated self-regulation is coming under pressure. The company is simultaneously making its most capable model to date available again.
On 26 June 2026, OpenAI launched three new models under the name GPT-5.6 in a limited preview. At the request of the US government, access is temporarily restricted to a small group of trusted partners in the United States, due to the models' advanced cybersecurity and biology capabilities.
Rotterdam, The Hague, Delft, Rijswijk and Leiden together count 93 startups and scale-ups in the DutchStartup database. The region is emerging as a cluster for industrial AI, energy technology and deeptech, underpinned by the port, government and universities.
Voyc, the Hague-based AI platform for compliance monitoring of customer conversations, closed a $2 million seed round in May 2025. The company plans to use the funds to launch two new AI products and open offices in London and New York.
Around March 2026, Google informed Meta that it could not deliver the full Gemini capacity requested, causing delays to internal AI projects at Meta. The situation illustrates how even the largest technology companies are running up against the limits of their AI infrastructure.
The US Supreme Court declared the independence of the Federal Trade Commission unconstitutional, with direct consequences for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Privacy organisation noyb announces a new legal challenge and calls on the European Commission to withdraw its adequacy decision for the United States.
The Amsterdam Metropolitan Area has more than 186 startups in the DutchStartup database in 2026, spread across sectors ranging from fintech to deeptech. AI is no longer a separate category here, but woven into healthcare, energy, HR and materials research.
Hilversum-based FieldWatch BV introduced an AI-driven monitoring platform for artificial turf pitches in early April 2024, with an initial pilot at football club 't Gooi. The development was partly financed by an investment from ROM Utrecht Region.
The Council for Culture wants providers of generative AI to pay a statutory content levy, with proceeds distributed to creators in the cultural and creative sector through collective management organisations. The advisory was presented in The Hague on 29 June 2026.
South Korea is launching a national investment programme worth over €450 billion targeting the semiconductor and AI industry. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will each build two new chip factories, though investors reacted cautiously: both stocks lost ground on Monday.
Dependence on American cloud providers is under intense scrutiny in the Netherlands and across Europe. Experts from Eurofiber, Rubrik and Thales see digital sovereignty shifting from an abstract ideal to a practical consideration for organisations.
Around Eindhoven, a cluster of startups is growing that combines AI with hardware, robotics, energy and life sciences. A look at forty companies from the DutchStartup database reveals which sectors dominate and where capital is flowing.
MKB-Nederland, tech companies, investors and policymakers gathered at Nieuwspoort to draw attention to AI technology aimed specifically at small and medium-sized enterprises. No concrete plans were presented, but the event signals that the sector is placing the topic high on its agenda.
IBM has presented a chip manufacturing process of 0.7 nanometres (7 angstroms), based on vertically stacked transistors in a so-called nanostack architecture. For now it remains a research process; commercial production is not expected until around 2030 or later.
Vattenfall, Amsterdam-based startup Project Enki and technology partner ABB are jointly investigating whether data centres can be connected directly to offshore wind farms. The facilities would run entirely on renewable wind energy, avoiding pressure on the electricity grid.
The Dutch cabinet wants to host DigiD on a sovereign government cloud in the longer term, but has named no concrete timeline. For now, the login service will remain with commercial parties, currently Solvinity, whose acquisition by US firm Kyndryl was blocked earlier this year.
Amsterdam-based startup Struck has raised €250,000 through a pre-seed investment from Antler and a Rabobank Innovation Loan. The company is developing an AI platform that helps architects and property developers navigate building regulations in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The 12th edition of the Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) will take place on 3 and 4 September 2026 in Amsterdam. The conference focuses on AI research and applications and expects around one thousand participants from more than fifty countries.
On 7 and 8 October 2026, Amsterdam will host the tenth edition of the World Summit AI, with more than 10,000 expected attendees, 300 speakers and 100 exhibitors. The event will be held at Taets Art & Event Park and is part of the broader World AI Week.
The AI & Big Data Expo Europe will take place on 20 and 21 October 2026 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre. Organiser TechEx expects more than 8,000 visitors and over 200 exhibitors.
38 percent of Europeans use generative AI to research products before making a purchase decision. This is according to research reported by Emerce.
The European Commission has provisionally designated Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act. A final decision is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026.
ASML and TNO are to collaborate on a pilot line for the mass production of photonic chips at High Tech Campus Eindhoven. ASML will supply DUV and I-line lithography machines for the facility, which is due to open in 2027 and deliver its first chips in 2028.
The Chinese supercomputer LineShine takes first place in the 67th edition of the TOP500 list, published on 23 June 2026. The system achieves 2.198 exaflops, making it more than twenty percent faster than the American former leader El Capitan.
Amsterdam-based alpha.one has raised €1.8 million in growth capital, led by Orange Mills Ventures. The company uses neuroscience to predict the effectiveness of marketing content and plans to expand the platform with an active optimisation engine.
Anthropic has shut down its Fable model for users outside the US, including Europeans. It is one of the first times an advanced American AI model has been explicitly restricted to US citizens.
On 23 June 2026, the Netherlands joined Pax Silica, a US-led alliance aimed at diversifying the chip supply chain and reducing dependence on any single region. The Netherlands is the fifteenth member; South Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom are also part of the alliance.
Of the 21 Dutch fintech startups featured in this overview, the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is by far the most strongly represented. Historical financial infrastructure, international talent pools and innovation-friendly regulation explain why so many companies settle there in particular.
Around the Port of Rotterdam and the mainport infrastructure of the Randstad, a notable number of AI startups in logistics and mobility are clustering. The presence of major shippers, port operators and logistics service providers is proving to be a concrete draw for young technology companies.
IT Circle Nederland announced a partnership with U-tech in its June newsletter. Together, the two parties are organising roundtable sessions on Diversity & Inclusion; the second edition took place on 22 May 2026.
Dutch company Rappit has launched an agentic AI platform for enterprise application development that combines AI agents with human oversight and governance. The company, which emerged from Vanenburg Software, aims to resolve the tension between speed and control in software development.
AMD has announced the Helios rack-scale AI architecture, aimed at large enterprises in the EMEA region. The approach differs from traditional data centre models by integrating compute, memory and networking at the rack level.
From 1 May to 17 July 2026, The Hague Tech in The Hague will host a weekly session on AI-assisted programming for the public sector. The gatherings explore how 'vibe coding' can be applied within government contexts.
Amsterdam-based payments company Mollie has announced an investment of €350 million over the next five years, aimed at deepening its position in the European Economic Area. The announcement coincides with its launch in Croatia and Iceland, making Mollie active in all EEA countries.
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Work, an AI agent within ChatGPT that independently executes complex projects and delivers end products such as spreadsheets, presentations and web applications. The launch is accompanied by the merger of the Codex app into the ChatGPT desktop app and the introduction of the GPT-5.6 model family.
Physical AI startup Prometheus, co-founded by Jeff Bezos and former Google executive Vik Bajaj, closed a $12 billion Series B round in June 2026. The valuation now stands at approximately $41 billion, just over half a year after the company was founded in late 2025.
Google Research has announced TurboQuant, an algorithm that compresses the Key-Value cache of large language models from 16 bits to 3 bits, delivering memory reductions of up to six times and speed gains of up to eight times on NVIDIA H100 GPUs.
Parloa, Vapi and Decagon together raised more than $880 million in early 2026 for AI platforms focused on customer service and voice automation. At the same time, Microsoft made its Service Agent generally available and Zoom acquired the platform Common Room.
Figure AI's Figure 03 robots are autonomously performing logistics tasks at BMW's plant in Spartanburg, while Boston Dynamics unveils a simplified fifth-generation Atlas designed for mass production.
Meta's FAIR team has presented Brain2Qwerty v2, a system that converts brain signals recorded outside the skull into typed text without surgery. The average word accuracy rate rose to 61 percent, compared with 8 percent for earlier non-invasive methods.
Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5 on 30 June 2026, a model that combines stronger agentic capabilities with a lower price point than the heavier Opus model. It positions itself as an affordable alternative for those looking to deploy autonomous AI agents.
The Remote Labor Index shows that AI agents can now complete 16.1 percent of paid freelance projects at professional level, compared to 2.5 percent eight months ago. The benchmark is run jointly by the Center for AI Safety and Scale AI.
The US government has lifted export controls on Anthropic's AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Both models had been blocked for two weeks due to concerns about their ability to detect software vulnerabilities.
Elastic is acquiring AI startup DeductiveAI for a sum of up to $85 million. DeductiveAI, founded in 2023, develops technology that automatically detects and resolves software issues, and will be integrated into Elastic's observability platform.
Vattenfall, Amsterdam-based deeptech startup Project Enki and automation company ABB are set to investigate the feasibility of AI data centres connected directly to offshore wind farms. The data centres would absorb excess electricity, thereby helping to reduce grid congestion.
RIPE NCC, the Amsterdam-based internet registry for Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, plans to fully renew its technical infrastructure between 2026 and 2028, moving away from AWS, Google and Cloudflare in the process. The estimated cost is €5 million.
At VivaTech 2026 in Paris, the integration of AI into product design, factories and core business processes takes centre stage. Artificial intelligence is evolving from a software feature into a technology with direct physical applications.
The Quantum Communication Fieldlab Rotterdam (QCFR) was officially launched on 18 June 2025. Cisco, Eurofiber, INSPIR8ION, Q*Bird and CGI are working together to test and operationalise quantum-secure communication technology for ports, energy networks and governments.
The European Commission intends to designate Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act. Bloomberg reported this based on sources familiar with the matter; the official announcement is expected next week.
Immersive Tech Week 2026 is once again on the agenda as one of the larger Dutch events focused on augmented reality, virtual reality and related AI applications. The event brings together startups, investors and corporates around the latest developments in immersive technology.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is warning of significant risks posed by so-called 'shadow AI': employees using AI tools without their organisation's authorisation. This can lead to data breaches and violations of privacy legislation.
Intel has moved its 18A-P manufacturing process, a further development of the existing 18A process, into the risk production phase. This marks an intermediate step on the road to large-scale commercial chip manufacturing.
In September 2026, The Stack will open, a 4,500-square-metre AI hub at Jacob Bontiusplaats 9 in Amsterdam Oostenburg. The initiative was founded by three Dutch AI entrepreneurs and Techleap, financed with more than €10 million in private capital, and aims to bring European AI companies together under one roof…
Curiosity VC, a venture investor focused on AI startups, has announced a second fund. The fund has so far raised seventeen million euros in commitments.
Solvinity, the company that manages the platform on which DigiD runs, is appealing against the ban on its planned acquisition by American firm Kyndryl. State Secretary Willemijn Aerdts previously blocked the deal on grounds of digital sovereignty.
AI is shifting from experimental pilots to permanent IT infrastructure, while the global technology landscape is under pressure. European organisations face the task of building an AI stack that combines performance with digital sovereignty.
Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fin, formerly known as Intercom, for approximately €3.1 billion. The company intends to integrate Fin into its Agentforce platform for AI-driven customer service.
Anthropic has blocked access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for users outside the United States at Washington's direction. The trigger is a jailbreak that the US government says poses a risk to national security.
Zorg & ICT is one of the largest trade fairs in the Netherlands at the intersection of healthcare and digitalisation. The event brings together healthcare providers, technology companies, startups and policymakers around themes such as AI, interoperability and digital health infrastructure.
OpenAI is acquiring Ona, formerly known as Gitpod, a startup that runs AI agents in cloud sandboxes. The acquisition strengthens Codex and enables OpenAI to let agents execute tasks that take hours or even days to complete.
GoDataFest is a recurring Dutch event focused on data, AI and analytics for professionals from the startup and tech scene. It brings together speakers, workshops and networking opportunities around current developments in the data profession.
PyData Amsterdam is one of the longest-running community events for data and AI professionals in the Netherlands. It brings together scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs around open-source tools and applied machine learning.
The AI & Big Data Expo Europe is one of the larger European trade shows in the field of artificial intelligence, data analytics and cloud technology. The event draws thousands of visitors from the tech and business world each year, including a substantial contingent from the Netherlands.
World AI Week annually brings together founders, investors and policymakers in Amsterdam for conferences, side events and networking sessions around artificial intelligence. The event is growing into a fixed anchor point on the Dutch AI calendar.
Black Duck's 'State of AI-Powered Software Development' report shows that 97 percent of large companies use AI coding tools, yet only one third have put governance in place. Teams that do report higher efficiency.
Finnish venture builder Reaktor Ecosystem is opening its first international hub in Amsterdam, where it is looking for experienced founders to co-build AI and tech consultancies.
Data Expo and Dutch Startup AI are joining forces to better connect AI startups with organisations that apply data and AI in practice.
Duna wants to use AI to build a digital passport for businesses. With €40 million in funding and Alphabet on board, two Stripe veterans are reinventing compliance from Amsterdam.
Techleap and a group of founders are building the National AI Hub in Amsterdam, the central gathering place for the Dutch AI ecosystem. Opening is planned for mid-summer 2026.
The Hague-based AI startup GreenAnt started out growing ants to replace pesticides, but ultimately built a radar platform that predicts floods for vulnerable farmers in Southeast Asia.
Dutch healthcare is buckling under administrative pressure, with nearly half of all staff spending a quarter of their time on paperwork. One doctor is tackling this challenge by building AI himself, and is looking for the boldness needed to transform the system.
Robert Keus had a problem: nobody could tell him how much energy AI solutions consume. This insight is essential for sustainable innovation in the AI world.
A restaurant manager films the stock room and 24 hours later receives an alert about abnormal tomato consumption. This is how Peckish, an Amsterdam-based startup, uses AI to stop revenue leakage in the hospitality sector.
Distinguishing a chair may seem trivial, but for years it was a major challenge for computers. Discover how this fundamental AI breakthrough is leading to unprecedented accuracy in care monitoring.
A silent customer is not always a satisfied customer, especially not in the dynamic world of SaaS. Discover how silence can be a precursor to churn and how AI solutions are breaking this pattern.
While data centres fight for grid connections and AI drives up energy consumption, Axelera AI is tackling the problem at its root. The company develops chips that run AI locally, efficiently, and without the cloud.
The Netherlands is the world's second-largest agricultural exporter, yet still struggles with the age-old problem of weeds. Organic farmers are often still on their knees, but Odd.Bot's AI robotics offer a scalable solution.
While AI flooded office work, field sales remained largely analogue. Dashmote sees an opportunity here and raised €5.4 million to digitise this overlooked market.
One in five patients develops an infection after surgery, resulting in high costs and serious risks. Find out how Healthplus.ai is tackling this data problem with preventive AI.
Funding for capital-intensive deeptech frequently lags behind, but Destinus is breaking that pattern with €50 million in credit. This is not just about speed, it is primarily about the AI that makes safety manageable.
Failure is penalised in the Netherlands, while in Silicon Valley it is celebrated as proof of ambition. That culture makes the difference between incremental improvements and breakthroughs that change the world.
Will we become a player or a prisoner in the global AI landscape? AIC4NL frames an existential question and attaches a €5 billion price tag to it.
DutchStartup.ai launches today as the central platform bringing together the Dutch AI sector. The initiative aims to significantly improve the visibility of local AI companies for investors and talent.
Peter Wennink's report is an uncomfortable confrontation: despite the country's talent, the Netherlands risks falling structurally behind without immediate and large-scale investment in AI.
The Dutch government has released the brakes on Generative AI: in the space of one year, the number of GenAI applications grew from 8 to 81. This is no longer an experiment, it is a rapid transformation.
Nijmegen-born Pim de Witte turned down OpenAI's half-billion-dollar offer for his gaming platform. Now, with $134 million in funding, he is building an AI lab that bets on video rather than text.
ROMs and Invest-NL have unveiled the 96 AI-native startups that form the backbone of the Dutch AI economy. A joint 'Deep Dive' analysis lays bare where the Netherlands stands in the global AI race.
Invest-NL presents an ambitious AI plan: not focused on large-scale language models, but on critical niches where AI and the physical world converge.
The National AI Deltaplan is the much-needed foundation for a digital mainport. But you cannot build a house on a foundation alone. Startups argue that much still needs to be done on the fronts of funding and space.
The Netherlands invests in foundations (AI Factory, ICAI). France provides direct support (Mistral AI). Which approach leads to success for your AI startup or scale-up? Discover how to navigate these different landscapes.
ASML invested €1.3 billion in French AI developer Mistral AI. A strategic partnership linking two European tech giants at a time of global AI competition. What are the implications?
Jelle Prins, builder of the very first Uber app, is now using AI in his startup Cradle to redesign proteins ("Photoshop for molecules"). With $73M in funding he aims to cure diseases, but no Dutch capital is involved.
Amsterdam is a surprisingly powerful hub for AI investment. This is the first signal of a much larger potential: the opportunity to elevate our digital infrastructure to become the Netherlands' new mainport and the engine of the European AI economy.
The Netherlands secures its largest AI investment to date: €200 million for an AI Factory in Groningen. This European hub will offer startups and scale-ups free access to high-end computing power.
After the AI hype, we are seeing who is truly building value. Domain experts are solving concrete problems in energy and agriculture. A focus on specialist knowledge: the Dutch AI success story.
Sweden has produced 41 unicorns through reinvestment (Klarna, Spotify). The Netherlands stands at 15. Our analysis examines why Dutch tech successes do not reinvest their profits, and what that costs.
The Dutch AI ecosystem: strong AI talent, unique hubs, but struggling with scaling, funding and talent retention. Can it realise its potential?
Rotterdam-based Crownstone is building an indoor positioning system using Bluetooth modules mounted behind power outlets that draw power from the electrical grid. The system localises people and objects at room level and targets applications in healthcare, safety and building management.
Planck Network, based in Harderwijk, is building a decentralised GPU network on which developers can train and deploy AI models without depending on centralised cloud providers. The company, founded in 2023, raised €200 million in a Series B round in early 2025.
Sybotanica B.V. from Arnhem sells specialised potting soil mixes and care products for houseplant enthusiasts across Europe. The company, founded in 2020 by Sybren Bies, focuses on plant species that thrive in loose, porous soil rather than standard universal potting compost.
Textkernel, founded in Amsterdam in 2001, builds software that enables recruitment professionals to process CVs, match candidates and analyse labour market data. The company has been part of US-based Bullhorn since early 2024 and continues to operate from Amsterdam as an independent unit.
Genzai B.V. from Venlo helps mid-sized companies implement AI and invests in technology companies through its own venture arm. The company operates through a dual structure: a consulting division and Genzai Ventures.
General Intuition, which emerged from Dutch video platform Medal in 2025, trains AI agents on two billion gameplay clips per year to develop spatial and temporal reasoning. The Amsterdam-based deeptech company raised €114 million in a seed round.
Clember, a Utrecht-based AI platform founded by two experienced security consultants, automates the manual and repetitive side of cybersecurity consulting. The platform connects uploaded client documents and existing security tools to compliance frameworks such as NIS2, ISO and GDPR to generate immediate insights.
THE REAL MAG. from Roermond develops custom 3D visualisations and AI applications that enable companies to present products, buildings and activities digitally. The agency focuses on improving sales and reducing costs through digital innovation.
Destinus, based in Katwijk, is developing AI-driven drones and turbojet technology for the defence and energy sectors. The company raised a Series A round of €400 million in early 2025.
Baseboard Pro, based in Hellendoorn, develops software that enables machine builders to digitally capture assembly processes and centrally manage work instructions, quality checks and bills of materials. The platform targets SME manufacturers engaged in complex, low-volume production.
Amsterdam-based Weaviate builds an open-source vector database that allows developers to search data by semantic meaning rather than keywords. The company closed a Series B round of over €45 million in 2024.
Thirty hours scrolling through camera footage for a single incident: a frustrating reality in healthcare. That story became the foundation for Oddity.ai's AI-driven solution.
