4 female tech founders in the Netherlands share their tips for success

There’s never been a better time to do business in the thriving Dutch tech industry, where a robust digital infrastructure and national entrepreneurship initiatives have created fertile ground for innovation.

In the Netherlands, there are female-led companies in the fields of fintech, education and healthcare technology, agritech, and AI – though there is still a long way to go to achieve gender equality in the tech sector. The Diversity & Inclusion Taskforce, part of the Netherlands’ Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, found that only 18% of IT professionals in the Netherlands are female, with only a fraction of that number holding top management roles in tech companies. The Dutch government hopes to raise that number to 50% by 2030.

Even within a thriving Dutch entrepreneurship ecosystem with more than 4,000 startups, women are struggling to get funding: European startups founded by women won only 1% of funding last year, and 5.7% of total funding in the Netherlands in 2019. In the Netherlands, there is a noticeable lack of women leading funding rounds, with only 6% of partners at venture capitalist funds being female — far below the European average of 12%. With VC firms and investors largely dominated by men, one can only wonder how many female tech entrepreneurs’ ideas and innovations never come to fruition.

However, there are also encouraging signs of support for women in tech in the Netherlands. The Dutch Chamber of Commerce found that the number of female entrepreneurs is on the rise, increasing 62% between 2013 and 2022. The share of women holding top positions is gradually increasing, too.

Diversity and Inclusion, IT Leadership