Why more than half of Dutch media and entertainment startups are located in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area

Of the 34 Dutch media and entertainment startups in the DutchStartup database, more than half are based in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. Cities such as Amsterdam, Hilversum, Naarden and Mijdrecht together form a cluster with no equal in the Netherlands. The rest of the country does have players of its own, from Groningen to Roermond, but the density in the west is striking.

That pattern is no coincidence. Amsterdam ranks twentieth globally in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index for entertainment, third in Western Europe and first in the Netherlands. Understanding why so many startups choose to settle there also means understanding how the Dutch media landscape has evolved in recent years.

A cluster around Amsterdam, Hilversum and the surrounding area

Amsterdam itself is home to companies such as Dubformer, Framer, AmberScript, Wonderkind and Volareo. Just outside the city, in Naarden, is Medal.tv, a platform that lets gamers record and share gameplay moments. In Mijdrecht, CopyRobin operates, combining AI content production with human editing. And in Hilversum, XS2Content is active, automatically repurposing and distributing existing media content.

That spread across the region is telling. Hilversum has historically had the heaviest media base in the Netherlands: Media Park houses around 150 companies and some 6,000 employees, ranging from public broadcasters to production companies. Startups in that vicinity can connect directly to a complete media production chain, from content creation to distribution. XS2Content, founded in 2020 and having raised over eighteen million euros to date, visibly benefits from this: its clients are media organisations that have been based in and around Hilversum for decades.

Amsterdam itself attracts a different kind of company: internationally oriented platforms that serve not only the Dutch market but also Europe or the wider world. Framer, founded in 2014 by Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk, built a website builder out of Amsterdam that is now used by hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. In August 2025, the company raised one hundred million dollars in a Series D round, at a valuation of two billion dollars. With around 45 employees it is a compact team for that scale, but it started in Amsterdam and still has its roots there.

Talent and international orientation as a magnet

A recurring argument for Amsterdam as a place of business is access to international talent. The city attracts people from dozens of countries, partly due to the high density of international companies and institutions. For media and entertainment startups, that is particularly relevant: products in this sector almost always cross the Dutch border.

AmberScript, founded in 2017, illustrates this well. The Amsterdam-based company converts audio and video to text in more than 25 languages and works for clients including Disney, Netflix, Warner Brothers and public broadcasters in the Netherlands and Germany. In 2021 it raised ten million dollars through Endeit Capital. The team now numbers 242 employees. That growth from Amsterdam is partly made possible by the availability of multilingual talent in the city.

Dubformer, founded in 2023 by Anton Dvorkovich, a former NLP and speech specialist at Yandex, also chose Amsterdam as its home base. The company offers AI dubbing from script to broadcast-ready audio and raised around 3.4 million euros in early 2025 through Almaz Capital. Clients such as Paramount and Little Dot Studios show that the company operates directly in the international market. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam, but it also has offices in Wilmington and Belgrade.

Amsterdam is also the permanent home of IBC, the International Broadcasting Convention, one of the world's largest trade shows for media and entertainment technology. That annual gathering of international media professionals and buyers makes the city a logical hub for companies looking to present their product to a global audience.

The rest of the Netherlands: dispersed but active

Outside the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, thirteen media and entertainment startups are spread across the country. Their sectors and propositions vary, but these companies show that there is room for this type of venture elsewhere in the Netherlands as well.

In Groningen, Smart11, founded in 2020, offers AI video analysis for football coaches and analysts. The company already raised a Series B round of 3.6 million euros in 2021, which is unusually high for a young company at that stage. The choice of Groningen is likely related to the proximity of university expertise and the northern football ecosystem, though the exact reasons for that location choice have not been publicly explained.

In Utrecht, Podego is active, a company founded in 2024 that creates multilingual audio guides for museums and heritage institutions. Roermond has THE REAL MAG., which uses bespoke 3D solutions and AI for product presentations. And in Eindhoven, Resleeve applies AI visualisations in the fashion industry to accelerate the design process. With its technical university and design traditions, Eindhoven has its own fertile ground for this type of company, even though the city's focus has traditionally leaned more towards deep tech than media.

What stands out about companies outside Amsterdam is that they often serve a specific vertical domain: sport, heritage, fashion, marketing. The breadth of the Amsterdam cluster, with platforms targeting multiple sectors, is less prevalent outside the region.

Ecosystem as a self-reinforcing mechanism

The concentration in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is partly explained by what economists call an agglomeration effect: companies locate where other companies, investors and talent are already present, which in turn attracts more of the same. In the media and entertainment sector, that mechanism is clearly at work.

Venture capital is relatively accessible in Amsterdam for media companies. Endeit Capital, which funded AmberScript, is based in Amsterdam and focuses explicitly on digital media companies. Atomico, one of the investors in Framer, has its European office in London but is regularly active in the Dutch market. That presence of specialist investors in turn attracts founders who want to build specifically in that segment.

For other regions in the Netherlands, attracting media and entertainment startups requires targeted investment in ecosystem, not just office space or subsidies. Groningen shows with Smart11 that it is possible, but it remains an exception. Founders outside Amsterdam who are active in this domain will more often than their Amsterdam counterparts need to convince investors and clients from a distance. That is not an insurmountable barrier, but it is a structural difference that is visible in the data.