Another interesting week for the Dutch startup scene. Sit down, have some coffee – here’s what you need to know.
News & Updates
Active Cues has won the New Venture 2015 award for most innovative startup. The company helps dementia patients in their social and physical activities with interactive animations with a product called Tovertafel. Active Cues won 25.000 euro, runners-up Bedrijfsoorcheck (online hearing test) and PowerWindow (energy generating windows) each got 10.000 euro.
Last week StartupDelta’s Neelie Kroes shook things up a bit by sending a letter to the parliament, asking for special tax relief measures for startups in the country’s new tax plans.
And sometimes competitions don’t go as planned: The Next Women pitch competition was initially won by Swipe & Shop. But afterwards, the organization found out it was an intrapreneurs’ project from Sanoma Media – thus didn’t meeting criteria. Vastari was chosen as the new winner by the jury, Printr won the audience award.
Funding & Deals
HackerOne received 25 million dollars (22,7 million euro) in series B funding. The company, originally from Groningen, offers a platform running bug bounty programs. HackerOne encourages hackers to find exploits and report them, rewarding them with money.
Virtualization software startup Immodio last week was acquired by giant VMware. Immodio has clients in 25 countries.
Great med tech news: the breast cancer screening startup SigmaScreening from Amsterdam got funded by Dutch insurance company DFZ.
Events
This Friday (June 3th) Startupbootcamp has their demo day of the Smart City & Living programme. Be sure to be there at B.Amsterdam.
Also, tomorrow (June 30th) in Den Haag, the Healthcare Innovation Transfers hosts a Seminar on Digital Health.
Check out all events on our events page.
Monday morning read
Advice from growth hacking experts – Four quick tips to help you get the most out of growth hacking. (Medium)
Why the Netherlands is telling its tech startups to leave the country – The title’s a bit misleading, but partially true and interesting nonetheless. An insightful article on why it’s sometimes better to make it in the US first. (Forbes)
How to stay innovative while growing – Some great examples of avoiding the ‘innovation dilemma’. (Medium)