5 Dutch startups to look out for in 2014

Startups are springing up everywhere in Europe at an increasing rate. At the beginning of this year, we took a look at major European countries and tried to come up with a list of 5 startups for each country to look out for in 2014. We started with France, have moved on to Spain, Greece, Italy, Poland, the UK, and now it’s time for The Netherlands.

As with all of the lists, it’s been hard to narrow this list down to just five. Despite this, we’ve decided to select five promising Dutch startups, each coming from different sectors. All of them entered the market within the last three years and each of the listed startups has something special to add to the web experience in 2014.

3D Hubs – Founded in 2013, 3D Hubs is a collaborative production platform for makers and 3D printer owners. Using the platform, anyone with a 3D printer can bring customised, locally produced goods to those around them. The majority of 3D printers is owned by consumers who use their device on average less than 10 hours per week. Thanks to 3D Hubs, their idle capacity can be used to 3D print products for neighbours, earning them money and establishing a social connection with fellow 3D enthusiasts. With a 3D printer around the corner, customers can actually experience the 3D printing process and hold the product in their hands the next day. In August 2013, 3D Hubs, which is based in Amsterdam, secured a seed investment from Balderton Capital and other investors.

Viedit – Viedit is a global platform where consumers and businesses can have their own (home) videos edited by an editor of their choice. Sign up is free for both editors and clients. Editors can set their fee according to movie length, and specify the genres and themes they want to edit. Viedit, which was founded in 2012, acts as a trusted third party to ensure compliance to the client’s preferences, and payment for editors. Before the project is posted, the client pays Viedit, who will in turn pay the editor once the job is successfully completed (Viedit’s fee is 10%). The Dordrecht-based startup launched its Beta phase in September of 2013, and further development in 2014 will be based on feedback from clients and editors.

HRMatches – HRMatches provides an matching system for candidates and companies, which quickly identifies best-fit candidates based on experience, skills, competences and organisational culture. With HRMatches, employers publish their vacancies in one click with easy-to-use templates across multiple job boards and social media, and then get a shortlist of candidates ranked on soft and hard skills. HRMatches, which was founded in 2012, also offers a specialised career platform, called Whoopaa.com. On this platform jobseekers can create a personalised profile (by completing high-end assessments) and then find matching job vacancies (Update – May 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).

Hellodialog – Hellodialog is a new kind of email service provider. The young company charges its clients for opened emails only and there are no monthly subscription fees. The email marketing service is entirely free for recipient lists with up to 2,000 subscribers. With its Autoimprover tool, Hellodialog also helps you to improve your future email campaigns and to increase your open rates. Hellodialog was founded in 2012 and is based in Haarlem.

Owlin – The Amsterdam-based Owlin team has created a service which extracts actionable intelligence from social media, newswires and tweets. The users of Owlin, who include financial firms and governmental institutions, no longer have to search for news, as it’s pushed straight to their dashboard. The system shows real-time and in-depth analysis of the news topics, as well as ‘online buzz’ and reliability. Founded in 2012, Owlin was selected out of 356 startups globally to be part of Rockstart’s Accelerator programme. In December 2012, Owlin secured €200K of funding from NoRo Venture Capital.

The above list was prepared with the help of the European Startup Initiative (esi). During their research they spoke to accelerators and startup enthusiasts from all EU member states and asked them which three startups from their home country are most likely to be successful on a global scale. These answers counted towards our calculations, and led us to the above list of 5 French startups to look out for in 2014.

By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!

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