Mews heads the top 10 funding rounds during a challenging quarter for Dutch technology.

      The hospitality software company Mews secured the largest funding round in the Dutch tech sector during the first quarter of 2025, amidst a challenging start for the industry. According to the Quarterly Startup Report, Dutch startups collected approximately €460 million this quarter, with a notable 59% decrease in growth-stage funding raising concerns. The top ten deals constituted over €320 million, representing more than 75% of the total funding for the last quarter.

      Here are the major Dutch deals from Q1 2025:

      1. Mews — €68 million ($75 million)

      Mews, located at TNW City in Amsterdam, has created a cloud-based platform that aids hotels and other hospitality businesses in streamlining tasks such as room bookings, guest check-ins and check-outs, and payment processing. This funding follows a $100 million credit financing round in September and a $110 million equity round in March 2024, when it achieved unicorn status.

      

      2. Alesta Therapeutics — €65 million

      Leiden-based Alesta Therapeutics is a biotech firm focused on creating new oral small-molecule treatments for rare diseases.

      3. Leyden Labs — €63 million ($70 million)

      Another biotech startup from Leiden, Leyden Labs, is working on developing intranasal medications to guard against respiratory viruses.

      4. Vivici — €32.5 million

      Vivici is a Dutch food tech startup utilizing precision fermentation to create animal-free dairy proteins intended to replace conventional dairy ingredients like whey and casein.

      5. QuantWare — €20 million

      QuantWare specializes in designing and manufacturing superconducting quantum processors. The startup claims to have developed a 3D chip architecture that offers an accelerated path to a 1-million qubit quantum computer, which it aims to sell to major tech companies.

      6. Thorizon — €16 million

      Thorizon is a deep tech startup that is creating modular molten salt reactors (MSRs) that use long-lived nuclear waste as a fuel source.

      7. Varmx — €15 million

      Varmx is a biotech startup working on a treatment designed to reverse bleeding in patients on blood thinners.

      8. Workwize — €12 million ($13 million)

      Workwize offers cloud-based software solutions for managing IT hardware in remote and hybrid work environments.

      9. Sirius Medical — €10 million

      Another biotech company, Sirius Medical, has developed a technology for tumor localization that assists surgeons in accurately locating and removing breast tumors.

      10. Stacks — €9 million ($10 million)

      Stacks, based in Amsterdam, provides an AI-based platform that optimizes the financial closing processes for businesses.

      Despite several noteworthy deals, the significant decline in growth-stage funding and a decrease in the number of deals overall raise worries about the long-term viability of the Dutch tech ecosystem.

      Fewer deals and reduced growth rounds in Dutch tech

      In total, only 79 deals were recorded in Q1 2025, marking an 11% reduction compared to the same quarter last year. This represents the fifth consecutive quarter of declining deal counts. Notably, later-stage funding saw a drastic reduction, with Series B+ rounds dropping from 14 in Q1 2024 to only seven this year. Late-stage startups raised a total of €287 million, a staggering decrease of €609 million year-on-year.

      Additionally, for the second consecutive quarter, there were no Dutch mega-deals exceeding €100 million, a stark difference from previous years when such transactions were more commonplace, according to the report.

      In contrast, early-stage startups emerged as a bright spot in an otherwise bleak scenario. Seed deals, typically ranging from €1 million to €4 million, made up nearly half of all investments in Q1 2025, with total funding in this segment increasing over 15% year-on-year to €58.4 million. This is a positive indicator for future innovation; however, without sufficient late-stage funding, promising Dutch startups may need to seek growth capital internationally.

      What’s on the horizon?

      The outlook for the remainder of 2025 is mixed. On one hand, the robustness of seed investments and a rising interest in deep tech and hardware, where Dutch startups like QuantWare and Thorizon excel, offer some grounds for optimism. "We can be proud of the Dutch entrepreneurs who, alongside investors, are achieving world-class deep tech innovations," stated Myrthe Hooijman, director of ecosystem change and governmental affairs at Techleap.

      Conversely, several issues are causing apprehension. Global trade tensions, a sluggish exit market, and the increasing caution of international investors could further slow growth-stage funding, according to the report. "We are not yet raising the alarm, but stagnation equates to regression," said Lucien Burm, chairman of the Dutch Startup Association. "Not only has Europe lost its international standing, but within Europe, the Netherlands is also becoming less significant."

      "In light of the current geopolitical and