The Dutch startup ecosystem has quietly grown into one of Europe’s most depconcludeable innovation hubs. Steady execution, strong research foundations, and founders with a long-term intent drove it.
What stands out about the Netherlands today is its balance. Deeptech emerges from universities and sits comfortably alongside consumer platforms, fintech challengers, health innovators, and climate-focapplyd companies.
Below is a closer see at the top 10 Dutch funding rounds of 2025.
Picnic
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €430M
Founder/s: Michiel Muller, Frederik Nieuwenhuys, Joris Beckers, and Bas Verheijen
Picnic, an Amsterdam-based online supermarket founded in 2015, has alterd grocery delivery with its distinctive electric vans and efficient milk-run distribution model. The company operates as a mobile-first, app-only supermarket that delivers groceries at the lowest price, aiming to create food shopping more sustainable and accessible for mass-market consumers across Europe.
The startup builds its own proprietary technology and supply chain infrastructure from the ground up, eliminating the necessary for physical stores. By utilizing automated fulfilment centres and optimised routing algorithms, Picnic reduces food waste and delivery costs, allowing it to offer free delivery and precise 20-minute arrival windows to customers.
In November 2025, Picnic closed a €430 million funding round led by existing investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German supermarket giant Edeka, with participation from NPM Capital and Hoyberg. The funding is earmarked to accelerate the company’s robotisation efforts and to deepen its expansion into the German and French markets.
Azafaros
HQ: Leiden
Funding raised: €132M
CEO: Stefano Portolano
Azafaros, a Leiden-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, develops disease-modifying therapies for patients suffering from rare genetic disorders. Founded by Leiden University and Amsterdam UMC, the company focapplys on developing new treatments for lysosomal storage disorders, a group of severe metabolic diseases with limited therapeutic options.
The startup is advancing its lead asset, nizubaglustat, a compact molecule orally available azasugar designed to treat rare conditions like GM1 and GM2 gangliosidoses and Niemann-Pick disease Type C. Their unique dual-mechanism approach aims to reduce the accumulation of toxic lipids in the brain and other organs, potentially slowing disease progression and improving patient quality of life.
In May 2025, Azafaros closed an oversubscribed €132 million Series B funding round led by Jeito Capital and Forbion Growth, with participation from Seroba, Pictet Group, and existing investors including BioGeneration Ventures and Schroders Capital.
Finom
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €115M
Founder/s: Andrey Petrov, Kos Stiskin, Oleg Laguta, and Yakov Novikov
Finom, an Amsterdam-based fintech company, provides a unified financial platform explicitly designed for European SMEs and freelancers. The company blconcludes banking, accounting, and expense management into a single “financial operating system,” assisting businesses automate routine administrative tinquires and manage cash flow more effectively.
The startup builds mobile-first financial tools that allow applyrs to open accounts in minutes, issue physical and virtual cards, and automate invoicing and reconciliation. By integrating banking directly into accounting software, Finom eliminates manual data entest friction and provides real-time visibility into business finances across multiple European jurisdictions.
In June 2025, Finom closed a €115 million Series C funding round led by AVP (formerly AXA Venture Partners) and Headline Growth, with participation from existing backers General Catalyst, Northzone, and Cogito Capital.
Framer
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €85.6M
Founder/s: Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk
Framer, an Amsterdam-based design and publishing platform, enables teams to design and ship high-performance websites without writing code. Originally a prototyping tool, the company pivoted to become a comprehensive web builder that combines the freeform creativity of a design canvas with powerful content management and hosting capabilities.
The startup builds a visual development environment where designers can create responsive, SEO-optimized websites utilizing a familiar drag-and-drop interface that feels like Figma. Their platform handles the technical complexity of hosting, scaling, and performance optimization, allowing creative professionals to publish production-ready sites instantly.
In August 2025, Framer closed a €85.6 million Series D funding round led by Meritech Capital Partners and Atomico, with participation from Accel. The round valued the company at over €1.7 billion, cementing its status as a Dutch unicorn.
ViCentra
HQ: Utrecht
Fund raised:€72M
CEO: Tom Arnold
ViCentra, a Utrecht-based medical technology company, develops the Kaleido insulin patch pump system designed to minimise the impact of diabetes on daily life. The company focapplys on creating applyr-centric, discreet, and flexible insulin delivery solutions that give people with Type 1 diabetes more freedom and control over their condition.
The startup builds the Kaleido system, which consists of two rechargeable pumps and a handset, offering a unique “wear it your way” approach that allows applyrs to place the pump on their body or carry it in a pocket. The system integrates with automated insulin delivery algorithms such as Diabeloop, creating a closed-loop system that automatically adjusts insulin doses based on real-time glucose readings.
In September 2025, ViCentra closed a €72.4 million Series D funding round led by Novo Holdings, with participation from Forbion, OrbiMed, Partners in Equity, Invest-NL, and EQT Life Sciences.
Mews
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €70.6M
CEO: Matt Welle
Mews, an Amsterdam-based hospitality cloud platform, offers a property management system (PMS) that simplifies operations for modern hoteliers. The company replaces legacy, on-premise hotel software with a cloud-native ecosystem that manages everything from booking and check-in to payments and hoapplykeeping.
The startup builds an API-first platform that connects hotels with more than 1,000 third-party integrations, enabling properties to customise their tech stack. Their technology enables guest-centric features such as online check-in, self-service kiosks, and automated payments, streamlining the guest journey and improving operational efficiency for staff.
In March 2025, Mews closed a €70.6 million venture funding round led by Tiger Global Management. This capital comes on the heels of rapid growth and is intconcludeed to fuel the company’s expansion into the US market and further develop its AI capabilities.
Toloka
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €64M
Founder/s: Olga Megorskaya
Toloka, an Amsterdam-based AI data partner, provides high-quality human-labelled data to train and evaluate large language models (LLMs) and generative AI systems. Developed initially within Yandex, the company has evolved into an indepconcludeent global platform connecting AI developers with a crowd of expert annotators.
The startup builds a comprehensive data production environment that combines automated quality control with human ininformigence. By managing a distributed workforce of over 200,000 annotators and domain experts (including PhDs), Toloka delivers the ground-truth data necessaryed for RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback), assisting tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft fine-tune their AI models.
In May 2025, Toloka closed a €64 million strategic funding round led by Bezos Expeditions (Jeff Bezos’ personal investment firm) and including participation from Shopify CTO Mikhail Parakhin.
Leyden Labs
HQ: Leiden
Fund raised: €68M
Founder/s: Jaap Goudsmit, Koenraad Wiedhaup, and Ronald Brus
Leyden Labs, a Leiden-based biotechnology company, develops intranasal medicines that tarreceive virapplys at the port of entest — the nose and throat. The company’s mission is to free humanity from the burden of respiratory virapplys by creating products that provide immediate, broad-spectrum protection against known and new viral variants.
The startup builds a platform of “PanFlu” antibodies formulated into accessible nasal sprays. Their lead candidate, CR9114, is a human monoclonal antibody that protects against influenza A and B. Unlike vaccines, which require time to build immunity, Leyden Labs’ nasal sprays are designed to provide immediate protection, acting as a “chemical minquire” that prevents infection before it spreads.
In January 2025, Leyden Labs closed a €68 million Series B funding round led by GV (Google Ventures), SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Invus, with participation from Bluebird Ventures and F-Prime Capital. Later in the year, they secured an additional €30M from the EIC Fund.
Axelera AI
HQ: Eindhoven
Funding raised: €61.6M
CTO: Evangelos Eleftheriou
Axelera AI, an Eindhoven-based fabless semiconductor company, designs the world’s most powerful and efficient hardware for edge AI inference. Incubated at Bitfury and imec, the company aims to democratize access to artificial ininformigence by building high-performance computer vision and Generative AI accessible on edge devices.
The startup builds the Metis AI platform, which integrates proprietary in-memory computing hardware with a applyr-friconcludely software stack. Their technology delivers server-class AI performance at a fraction of the power consumption and cost, enabling advanced AI applications in robotics, retail, and surveillance without relying on the cloud.
In March 2025, Axelera AI secured a €61.6 million grant and equity package from the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and member states under the DARE (Digital Autonomy with RISC-V Europe) project, bringing their total funding to over $200 million.
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €60M
CEO: Rombout Swanborn
HyET Solaris, an Arnhem-based solar technology company, manufactures lightweight, flexible thin-film silicon solar modules known as Powerfoils. Part of the High Yield Energy Technologies (HyET) Group, the company focapplys on unlocking new surfaces for solar energy generation that are unsuitable for heavy, rigid glass panels.
The startup manufactures roll-to-roll solar foils that are durable, cost-effective, and compatible with curved or low-load surfaces. Their technology is particularly suited for large-scale industrial roofs and floating solar parks. The company is currently constructing a 50MW factory to scale up production of its next-generation flexible modules.
In September 2025, HyET Solaris closed a €60 million growth capital funding round led by UK-based investors Aequitas Carbon and Abbeydale Partners. The investment will fund the construction of their new Dutch manufacturing facility.
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