Better connected business technology is essential for prosperity in the Netherlands

"In addition, Atomico reports that while overall funding across Europe declined year-on-year, the Netherlands has seen the largest absolute increase in investment - rising to €2.3 billion in 2024 compared to €1.66 billion in 2023. However, behind those unicorns lie hundreds, perhaps thousands, of startups that have failed to grow into scale-ups - in the Netherlands, only around 21.5% of startups actually progress to the scale-up phase."

"Scaleups typically have to integrate a wide range of systems, sometimes as many as 25 different solutions within the organization. From accounting and payroll to marketing and sales management, each system has its own dataset and the apps do not always work well together. In practice, this means that a large part of that data is lost."

"A fragmented working environment wastes more than just time. It also weakens the ability to make good decisions. Marketing teams cannot see how their campaigns affect working capital, and purchasing teams have no insight into the demand curve they need to plan for. With so many obstacles, there is effectively a hidden tax on growth, with innovation being slowed down by the effort it takes to"

The Netherlands ranks fourth in Europe for unicorn production with 32 high-growth companies, and received €2.3 billion in investment in 2024, the largest absolute increase in European funding. However, only 21.5% of Dutch startups progress to scale-up phase, indicating a significant gap. Scaling challenges stem from macroeconomic factors like inflation and skill shortages, but equally from operational complexity. Scaleups integrate up to 25 different systems across functions like accounting, payroll, and marketing, creating fragmented environments where data becomes siloed and inaccessible. This fragmentation wastes time, weakens decision-making, and creates a hidden tax on growth by slowing innovation and preventing teams from seeing cross-functional impacts on business performance.

Read at Techzine Global