The chip industry in the Netherlands appears to be raising a lot of investment money for start-ups. The total amount of investment money for this sector is already growing for the fifth year in a row.
Dutch start-ups operating in the semiconductor sector are attracting a lot of attention from investors. That’s according to figures from Techleap, an organization sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate.
Five years of growth
For the fifth year in a row, the sector appeared to obtain more investment money. The total amount reached 216 million euros by 2023.
A major driver for investing in the Dutch chip industry appears to be the presence of ASML. This chip machine manufacturer is gaining increasing international recognition. This is also evidenced by the good stock market results the company has achieved in recent years. The report thus once again emphasizes ASML’s value to the Dutch investment landscape. The company has threatened to leave the Netherlands in the past because of disagreement with government policy. The administration is now trying to prevent that from happening, and it clearly has every reason to do so.
Read also: Dutch government works on strategy to keep ASML in the Netherlands
More interesting names
However, the sector has more interesting names within the Netherlands. For example, ASM International supplies chip machines and NXP manufactures chips. Incidentally, these companies are themselves investing in the sector. For example, Smart Photonics from Eindhoven received a sum of 100 million euros last year. The investment was made to help the company achieve a stronger position in the field of photonic chips. Among others, ASML and NXP invested.
Smart Photonics, along with Effect Photonics, is also mentioned in Techleap’s report as start-ups that received significant investments.
Scaling is difficult
A pain point the report further points out are the difficulties within scaling up. If they do succeed, it takes longer to find additional investment money. According to the report, competitors from the UK, Germany and France do this better.
19 hours ago
