“Amsterdam is a global city, with a population of less than one million,” says Ferdinand Goetzen, CEO of Reveall, an Amsterdam-based digital company. That, in a nutshell, is how Amsterdam has become a tech powerhouse, with unicorns such as Booking.com and Adyen, and an impressive crop of sustainability-focused startups. The city has the advantages of being mid-sized (efficient public services, cycling opportunities, and a tight-knit business community), but in the same breath, it’s instinctively outward-looking, dynamic, and business-friendly.
The people of Amsterdam speak impeccable English, its Schiphol airport is the third busiest in the EU and, from 2020, the city has secured a direct Eurostar connection to London. As part of a business cluster known as Randstad – which also includes Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam, and is Europe’s third most productive region – it is no surprise that the business scene Amsterdam startups flourish; its tech companies are worth a total of $230 billion as of July 2022, according to Dealroom. That some of Europe’s leading tech rainmakers, chief among which is conference and coworking space brand The Next Web, are calling the city home, doesn’t hurt either. Let’s get to know Amsterdam movers.
Jorn Eiting van Liempt and Joost Kamermans, co-founders of the recycling platform Seenons.Courtesy of Seenons
TestGorilla
TestGorilla thinks resumes are dead, or at least they should be. Founded in 2019 by former Bain & Company consultants Wouter Durville and Otto Verhage, the company runs a platform that provides companies with skills tests designed to streamline hiring by bringing out the cream of job candidates. “We have a full in-house test development team, and we also rely on subject matter experts,” says Claudia Baijens, Head of International Development at TestGorilla. “But we think it’s not only necessary to look at job-specific skills, but also to test cognitive abilities, like logic and math. The result of this combination of tests is the best prediction of whether someone will be successful in their job. The company has 70 employees (100 more hires are on the way, all to be hired through TestGorilla’s own testing, according to Baijens), and it serves 5,000 customers in 120 countries. Investors have also shown interest; in June, TestGorilla raised $70 million in a Series A round led by Atomico and Balderton Capital, which Crunchbase said brought its total funding to $81.2 million. testgorilla.com
seeons
Founded in 2019 by Joost Kamermans and Jorn Eiting van Liempt, Seenons is a platform that connects companies that want to get rid of waste with people who can use it – i.e. the circular economy – who, in times of trade disruption and the climate crisis, it’s far better than landfills or incinerators. “Companies open our app and tell us, ‘I have this type of waste,'” Kamermans says. “Depending on the location, volume and type of waste, we select the best transport solution. Then we connect them with anyone who can use their waste as an input for their production process. Users pay Seenons a subscription fee, but for some materials they can get money back from buyers. Seenons’ 50-strong team is constantly on the lookout for companies that use niche waste – orange peels are used to make liqueurs and avocado pits can dye fabrics. Biggest unresolved challenge? Human waste from hospitals. “So they cut off your leg, right?” Currently, this leg is burning,” says Kamermans. “But there must be better things to do with it.” vuons.com
Overstory
Funded in late 2018 by Indra den Bakker and Anniek Schouten, Overstory keeps a watchful eye on trees, blending satellite imagery and machine learning to monitor deforestation, prevent forest fires, and prevent damage from falling trees to infrastructure and to the electrical networks. To train its AI to recognize and assess a myriad of tree types in different growth stages and health conditions, Overstory first relied on data from its own customers. “The forestry industry has a lot of data on trees that it has been collecting for years, even centuries. And we got it from them to train our algorithms,” says den Bakker. “Over time, we also started collecting our own data. Now we have our own arborists working in the field, we even have customers working in the field. Overstory’s team has grown to 34 staff members scattered across Europe and North America, and the company has so far raised $5.9 million in funding. overstory.com
The manufacturer
Launched in 2018 by Kerry Murphy, Amber Slooten, and Adriana Hoppenbrouwer-Pereira, The Maker was ahead of the metaverse party. The company bills itself as a fashion house designing “digital-only clothing” for online avatars to wear. In 2021, the company honed its meta-pivot with the launch of The Fabricator Studio, a platform where users can customize virtual garments and mint them as NFTs on the Flow gaming blockchain. The goal is to help people build their “metaverse wardrobe”. The company has so far raised $14 million in funding, most of it in an April 2022 Series A round led by actor-turned-VC Ashton Kutcher. lefabricant.com
Terraform
Founded in 2021 by Salar al Khafaji and Sebastiaan Visser, both from stints at Palantir after acquiring their previous startup, Silk, Terraform aims to disrupt construction through robotics and software. The idea is to create smart machines that can fully automate construction on site, thereby reducing costs. This should usher in an era of affordable housing without compromising aesthetics (robots would produce complex designs at no extra cost), while improving efficiency, safety (no human workers would be harmed), and sustainability. Amid a flood of remote startups, Terraform is keen for its staff to work full-time from its central office in Amsterdam. terraform.ai
Otto Verhage and Wouter Durville of TestGorilla.Courtesy of TestGorilla
Fibreplane
Fiberplane founder Micha Hernandez van Leuffen has a proven track record in the tech industry, having sold his previous startup to Oracle in 2017. Three years later, he launched a new company focused on building tools remote collaborative work for IT professionals resolving technical incidents. , such as online outages or app bugs. At the end of 2021, the company had 13 employees working from its Amsterdam office as well as from the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and the United States. In September 2021, Fiberplane raised an $8.8 million funding round co-led by Crane Venture Partners and Notion Capital. fiberplane.dev
SingularityNET
A notable survivor of the initial coin offering (ICO) craze of 2017, SingularityNET wants to use the decentralized structure of crypto to democratize artificial intelligence and ensure that AI singularity happens on a network owned by people, not in the lab of a tech giant. Founded by AI developer and thinker Ben Goertzel and robotics entrepreneur David Hanson, the company has created an “AI Marketplace” where developers can create AI applications that take advantage of technology from decentralized blockchain. Along with funds raised in its ICO – $36 million in ether cryptocurrency – SingularityNET and its sister organization SingularityDAO also secured $25 million from alternative investment firm LDA Capital in May 2022. singularitynet.io
Hadrian
Launched in 2021 by a quartet of cybersecurity experts (Roger Fischer, Olivier Beg, Tijl Van Vliet and Maurice Clin), Hadrian is a security company that has adopted a “hacker’s eye” approach to help its customers spot and correct vulnerabilities in their computer systems. Rather than focusing on what a client company sees as its weak points, Hadrian’s team of six hackers begins looking for entry points from the outside in, like a real attacker would. . The company raised a $2.6m pre-seed funding round from startup venture capital firm Village Global in 2021, and a $10m funding round from Germany’s HV Capital in June 2022. hadrian.io
Point
One of Europe’s most successful micro-mobility companies, Dott was founded in 2018 by French entrepreneurs Maxim Romain and Henri Moissinac, both formerly of Chinese bike-sharing giant Ofo. Today, Dott manages a fleet of 40,000 scooters and 10,000 e-bikes in 17 cities across Europe, and has offices in 12 countries. The company prides itself on both its sustainability (it powers all of its vehicles with renewable energy) and its ability to win over regulators, having secured hard-to-get licenses to operate in London and Paris. It has also raised $210.8 million in funding so far. ridedott.com
Crisp
An online grocery store focused on high-quality, seasonal fresh produce, Crisp was launched in 2018 by Eric Klaassen, Michiel Roodenburg and Tom Peeters. Available in the Netherlands and Belgium, the company’s business model is based on a marriage of quality and convenience underpinned by partnerships with local food producers (over 600 in the Netherlands alone, but making deals across Europe is the largest plan). Crisp is also committed to sustainability, aiming for zero food waste and using an electric fleet for its deliveries. To date, the company has raised $46 million in four funding rounds. crispy.nl
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