Amsterdam’s hottest startups in 2024

Atomico’s State of Europe Technology Report 2023 revealed that the Netherlands has been extremely successful, cementing its position as a star player in the startup ecosystem. In terms of capital invested in its private technology companies, for example, it climbed back into the top five countries with a projected $2.1 billion. And while the UK’s share of European capital invested has fallen by almost 3 per cent over the past three years, the Netherlands comes out on top, posting the biggest gains in Europe at almost 2 per cent. The center of the Dutch startup ecosystem is Amsterdam, which hosts around 4,000 startups, including unicorns like Mollie, Mambu and Backbase. Known for its international focus, collaborative ecosystem, and diverse and skilled workforce, it is also dedicated to addressing pressing societal issues.

“Successful innovation in Amsterdam is driven by global challenges, such as the energy transition or an aging population,” explains Joel Dorey of StartupAmsterdam, which works to bring the public and private sectors together to support start-ups, scale-ups, entrepreneurs and other players in the local ecosystem “That’s what interests founders and the public in Amsterdam.” Even notes, however, that the city’s issues, such as a tight housing market and founders’ concerns about startup policies, must be addressed to attract and retain high-caliber talent to the capital .

Overstory

Vegetation is the single biggest factor behind power outages caused by trees falling on power lines or wildfires starting — and the problem is only getting worse with a changing climate and more frequent storms. “Using imagery from satellites and aircraft, we use computer vision to find trees and assess their height, health and species,” says Indra den Backer, who co-founded Overstory with Anniek Schouten in 2018. This allows power companies to focus their tree trimming efforts in areas where trees are more likely to come into contact with power lines. Having raised $25 million to date, backed by Pale Blue Dot, B Capital, CapitalT, Moxxie Ventures, Overstory’s clients now include four of the top 10 US utilities. One investor-owned utility, for example, saved more than $3 million in vegetation costs. overstory.com

Coolgradient

By 2030 data centers may use 3.2 percent of global electricity consumption. However, few data center operators can effectively control energy and water consumption, which is a looming climate disaster. Enter Coolgradient, founded by Jasper de Vries and René Gompel in 2023, with the goal of reducing 1% of global energy consumption by cooling data centers. Providing detailed visibility into the performance of all center assets, from the roof to the room, its machine learning models analyze data from existing data center assets, such as cooling systems and power distribution units. It then identifies inefficiencies and offers solutions for continuous optimization, saving up to 40 percent of utility usage. In May, it closed an undisclosed round of funding from early-stage investor 4impact. coolgradient.com

Monumental

More than half of European countries are struggling with a shortage of bricklayers, as 82 million Europeans are at risk of homelessness due to a lack of affordable housing. Monumental addresses these two issues with small autonomous ground vehicles that are a cheaper and more accessible source of labor on construction sites. Once loaded with materials by humans, a trio of his robots, set up with tower-style cranes, work as a team: one lays the mortar, one delivers the bricks, and one makes the actual building, driving along the wall until it’s finished. Since Salar al Khafaji and Sebastiaan Visser launched it in 2021, Monumental robots has built numerous projects for leading contractors in the Netherlands, including facades of free-standing villas, social housing, industrial buildings and quay walls. The company has raised $25 million to date from Plural, Hummingbird and Northzone. New products in the pipeline include robots specializing in concrete blocks, plus entry into new markets such as Germany and the UK. “We are working towards a future where beautiful, custom-made buildings are built within a day, with minimal labor,” says al-Khafaji. monumental.co

Weaviate

An open source database that stores and manages the vector data that is an integral part of many AI applications, Weaviate makes it easy for developers to build and extend AI applications that range from personalized search and recommendation systems to ChatGPT plugins. Founded by Bob van Luit and Etienne Dilocker in 2019, its cloud service gives developers the full power of the Weaviate database without any operational costs. It has more than a million monthly OSS downloads and 10,000 stars on GitHub (TripAdvisor for developers) and is involved in developing new product ideas through its own incubation center. Investors such as Index Ventures, NEA, Battery, Zetta and Cortical have provided around $67.6 million (€60.7 million) in funding. weaviate.io

Swing

According to data from European Bioplastics, replacing the annual global demand for fossil fuel-based polyethylene (PE) with bio-based PE would save more than 73 million metric tons of CO₂. However, protein design is a difficult, time-consuming and expensive trial-and-error task. Cradle’s AI platform, launched in 2021, allows biologists to upload a protein sequence they want to optimize, such as needing more stability at higher temperatures. From a wide range of variations generated by the model, he can find the most promising ones to test in the lab. It reduces experimental rounds by up to 12 times and uses 10 times less resources than conventional methods. This greatly increases the chances of success. For example, an American biotech discovered new, highly effective mutations that traditional methods had not identified. Cradle, founded by Elise de Reus and Stef van Grieken, has raised $34 million (€30 million) in funding led by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. cradle.bio

Carbon capital

Lara Kuhl, Jeff Gomez, Lisa Rubinstein and Jacqueline van den Ende founded Carbon Equity in 2021. based on two observations: “We need billions of dollars to fund climate technology solutions, and the massively wealthy high net worth individuals hold trillions of dollars but don’t have access to private markets,” says van den Ende, CEO of Carbon Equity. The company provides investors with unique access to a diversified portfolio of leading climate venture capital and growth equity funds. Since launch, nearly 1,000 investors have invested more than €250 million ($278 million) through the platform, helping to scale more than 120 unlisted climate technology companies ranging from CO₂– without cement (Sublime Systems) for long-term energy storage (Form Energy) and green steel (H2 Green Steel). Carbon Equity raised €9 million ($10 million), with lead investors including French fintech fund Blackfin Capital Partners and Netherlands-based venture capital fund 4Impact. Carbon Equity will soon open an international office in Berlin and offer its clients a new climate infrastructure fund and lower investment minimums. carbonequity.com

Bloom and Wolf

With the intensive use of water, pesticides, greenhouses and refrigerated transport, cut flower production is detrimental to the environment. Bloom & Wolf’s premium silk flower service offers an alternative that is four times cheaper than a typical new subscription and reduces carbon emissions by 85 times. The company’s flowers are produced in Asia, shipped overseas to a European wholesaler, then made into bouquets by the startup in Amsterdam. When the user is finished – usually changing their bouquet each season – it is collected, renewed and reused. Serving a number of clients since its launch in 2023, the firm’s circular model has gained significant traction in the premium office and hotel industry with clients including NH Hotel Group and Bilderberg. Founder Gwen Van de Pas has set her sights on Europe and the US, backed by a €1.4m seed round led by CapitalT. bloomandwolf.com

Solvimon

Launched in 2022. by Kim Verkooy and Etienne Gerts, who teamed up with Dutch fintech unicorn Adyen, Solvimon’s all-in-one billing and monetization platform is designed for fintech and SaaS businesses with complex billing needs. With fast-growing startups like TrueLayer, Yapily, Yuno, Hawk and SurePay in its current customer base, Solvimon’s vision is to make billing a tool that drives new business, rather than hindering it. The startup enables increased revenue operations across multiple countries and currencies, reduced manual billing efforts and improved financial management. Now a team of 23 and growing, Solvimon raised €9 million ($10 million) in a seed round led by Northzone in late 2023. solvimon.com