Why we’re now focusing on companies helping to flatten the climate curve

Since March we’ve all seen the impact that COVID-19 has had on the global economy, the workplace and beyond. During the past 4 months, we’ve seen that COVID-19 provided a catalyst for understanding how we as an organisation and stakeholders can best help startups/scaleups. Whether that was through the COL funding portal so companies could access vital financing, providing key peer support through the Rise Program or the other supportive initiatives launched by parties around the Netherlands.

Through this time we see on a startup level the varying needs and challenges companies face based on their sectors/industries. To help solve them and make a bigger impact, our activities require more focus to actually bring relevant stakeholders together; founders, investors, industry experts and others. With the ecosystem together centred around a theme, we believe that we can accomplish more through targeting our efforts. In the end, the theme will help shape our actions but our goals do not change, being the best startup ecosystem in Europe. Using data, resources and our network we can create the right environment for these companies to change the world, making the world a better place and keeping the Netherlands relevant in the global economy.

Below you can see our approach broken down and how we will pursue each theme as we move forward. We’ve not set a definitive timeline yet on how long we will pursue each theme but expect that to become more clear as we do this first one as a trial, compiling our learnings as we go so we can continue to improve our approach.

So now you know about why we’re moving to a thematic approach, why did we decide to choose the theme “Flattening the climate curve”? In short, tech companies rapidly innovating are our best chance of finding solutions the world needs and we believe we have those companies to do just that here in the Netherlands. In fields such as innovative mobility, smart home and smart cities, sustainable energy generation, industry 4.0 and energy efficiency.

From an international perspective, we see that as we come out of this crisis companies, countries and institutions see it as an opportunity to invest in a greener future. The likes of Amazon launching a $2 Billion climate pledge fund whilst the International Energy Agency says that only the rapid acceleration of clean energy innovations will make sure we hit international climate goals.

From a national perspective, we see through our research there are many initiatives ongoing to push the energy transition, yet we observe a lack of acceleration for several sectors and industries that are linked. There is also limited connectivity with international experts and investors, nor a focus on connecting the right investors to come to a more coordinated approach. The data analysis we did also showed a mature enough startup ecosystem with sufficient drivers and some blocking factors that appear to be addressable. As part of the research, we put together a list of 147 tech companies in the Netherlands currently that sit within the theme.

• Connecting multiple players, projects and initiatives to align national efforts
• Bringing more data insights into the actual state of innovation and making this available to (inter)national experts and relevant investors
• Providing acceleration programs to startups that can make a material impact
• Connecting promising startups with the right investors and VC funds
• Connecting Dutch LPs to credible VC funds

After the first data analysis and research, we are now validating the biggest challenges the companies have in this theme by gathering insights with a survey. The survey has been developed with the help of several stakeholders active in this theme. It contains questions to determine the actual impact and relevance of startups, perceived bottlenecks, required support and general market data to help make important decisions.

It has 2 phases; (1) general info in terms of impact, relevance and basic bottleneck observations and (2) obtaining more detailed information to power our support programs and market views. This survey is now closed with the results to follow shortly.

We’re excited to start working on this theme, with the inspirational Dutch companies in this field and you, the ecosystem to move it forward together.