Dutch startups raise 1.3 billion euros in venture capital
Investments are growing rapidly, but early-stage startups are finding it harder to secure funding
Published on August 1, 2026
Team IO+ selects and features the most important news stories on innovation and technology, carefully curated by our editors.
The global venture capital market continues to grow. In the second quarter of 2026, $227.4 billion was invested in startups and scale-ups worldwide. This made it the second-strongest quarter on record. The Netherlands also benefited: Dutch companies raised 1.3 billion euros in venture capital, a 32 percent increase compared to the previous quarter. This is according to the latest KPMG Venture Pulse report.
The situation in the Netherlands
The growth in the Netherlands is primarily due to a few large investment rounds. Three deals exceeding 100 million euros accounted for a large portion of the total amount. Mature scale-ups, in particular, managed to convince investors: so-called Series B+ rounds accounted for over 90 percent of the capital invested.
.png&w=2048&q=75){kind=logo}
At the same time, funding for young startups in the Netherlands is lagging behind. The number of early-stage investments, such as pre-seed rounds of less than 1 million euros, has declined. According to researchers, this indicates that investors are becoming more cautious and are primarily directing their funds toward companies that are already more developed.
AI the biggest driver
Globally, artificial intelligence (AI) remains the biggest driver of investment. Major AI companies raised billions, while defense technology is also attracting increasing amounts of capital due to geopolitical uncertainty.
Dutch scale-ups remain attractive
According to KPMG, the growth in the Netherlands shows that Dutch scale-ups remain attractive internationally. The challenge, according to the organization, is to ensure that new startups also have sufficient access to financing so that the next generation of growth companies can emerge.