The Netherlands to fund Indian startups in certain sectors

By Raaghav G R

Posted on December 11, 2017

Of late the Scandinavian countries have shown a lot of interest to invest in Indian startups and to enhance trade and investment ties with India. A few days back, on November 27^th, 2017, Denmark’s external affairs minister, Mr. Anders Samuelsen, met his Indian counterpart, Mrs. Sushma Swaraj and discussed Denmark’s intention to boost its trade and investment ties with India and its intention to invest in startups belonging to certain sectors in India. The talks were a success and foreign investments will follow in the near future. Similarly, The Netherlands announced yesterday (10/12/2017) that it will invest in Indian startups belonging to the ports, logistics, clean tech and medical science sectors as it plans to develop them so that they can contribute to its flourishing port and port-related sectors as well as to its medical industry in the near future. Read more on Denmark

“Besides ports and logistics, the medical industry is big in Rotterdam. We are looking for Indian start-ups, mainly second-stage start-ups working in these fields to set up a base. We provide the necessary ecosystem for them to grow,” Maarten Struijvenberg, Vice Mayor, of the City of Rotterdam said.

Maarten said that the startup ecosystem in The Netherlands was conducive for the growth of startups belonging to any country and that The Netherlands has witnessed a 31% growth in the number of foreign startups doing business in that country due to its conducive startup ecosystem.

“We also do pretty well when it comes to venture capital that is injected into the start-up sector. In the Netherlands, universities, as well as pension funds, are investing substantially in start-ups. The largest Dutch pension funds for civil servants — ABP — has already invested €0.5 billion in total investment stocks in the Dutch start-up sector”, said Guido Tielman, Consul General of the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Mumbai.

The Netherlands is also looking at Indian companies to establish their base to expand their operations in Europe, considering that the major event, Brexit, has taken place.

“We are in discussions with various other India companies to use Rotterdam as their base for Europe and the western world. Many of these firms are seriously considering this, which is partly fuelled by the Brexit”, Maarten Struijvenberg said.

Currently, around 200 Indian companies have set up operations in The Netherlands but do not have Rotterdam as their base. Currently, The Netherlands is the sixth largest FDI investor in India. Read more on Startup News

The Netherlands to fund Indian startups in certain sectors