Brainport Eindhoven

Where Brainport Eindhoven startups are based, each region shaded by its number of VC-backed startups. Darker means denser; hover a region for its count.

Funding into Brainport Eindhoven startups has grown nearly tenfold over the past five years, reaching $234M in 2025. With $462M raised in the first 6 months of 2026, the full year is on track to land at $924M, a +296% change versus 2025. The chart below shows annual funding totals; the latest year is annualised from observed-to-date data and represents the renderer's projection, not a closed quarter.

Yearly totals mask the quarter-by-quarter rhythm. The chart below shows Brainport Eindhoven startups funding raised in each of the last 21 complete quarters through Q2 2026. All bars are actual closed-quarter sums, no projections, no in-progress quarters.

Brainport Eindhoven's share of Dutch venture capital tracks how much of the Netherlands's startup capital lands in this market. In 2016, Brainport Eindhoven startups accounted for 4.6% of Dutch VC funding; by 2026 the share had reached 19.7%. The chart below splits each year's total Dutch VC funding into Brainport Eindhoven on the bottom and the rest of the market on top.

How capital deployed into Brainport Eindhoven startups is split across round sizes. In the trailing four quarters, 47% of capital landed in scaleup ($100M+) rounds, 37% in breakout ($15–100M), and 16% across startups (under $15M). Each panel below stacks the canonical sub-bands across Q2 2022 → Q2 2026.

The most active investors in Brainport Eindhoven startups ranked by the number of disclosed rounds they've participated in. EIC Fund leads with 17 rounds, followed by Startupbootcamp at 9. The table shows the top ten with their firm type, in-scope round count, total portfolio size, and headquarters.

Two views of leadership in Brainport Eindhoven startups: the most-funded companies all-time on the left, and the hottest companies right now by Dealroom Signal on the right. Total-funding figures include all capital sources tracked by Dealroom (VC plus grants, project finance, and other instruments). Signal is Dealroom's live growth ranking, these are the firms with the strongest recent momentum across team, timing, growth, and completeness.

Brainport's startup scene sits on top of a dense base of established tech giants. These companies are not venture-backed, so they never appear in the funding charts above, but they anchor the region: ASML alone is Europe's most valuable tech company, and Philips seeded a lineage of spinouts (NXP, Signify) and suppliers that still defines the cluster today.

Over the last 12 months (through Jul 2026), the largest VC rounds in Brainport Eindhoven startups reveal where capital is consolidating. The table below lists the 12 biggest disclosed rounds by amount, with date, company, round type, and lead investors. Funding events without a public amount are excluded; acquisitions sit in the Unicorns & Exits section.

Which industries pull in the most venture capital across Brainport Eindhoven startups, and where does the Brainport Eindhoven punch above its weight versus the rest of the world? Use the toggle to switch between absolute VC funding and each industry's over/under-index, and to change the time window. Over the last 12 months (to end of Q2 2026), Semiconductors leads at $373M, and the Brainport Eindhoven over-indexes only in Semiconductors (70% of Brainport Eindhoven venture capital versus 4% across the rest of the world, 17.00×), and under-indexes most in Marketing, AI, Security relative to the rest of the world. Industries are tracked through Dealroom's industry tags, which overlap, a company spanning, say, AI and fintech is counted in both, so these show where capital concentrates, not a mutually exclusive split of the total.

Brainport Eindhoven startups have minted 3 unicorns to date. Dealroom defines a unicorn as a company that has reached a $1B+ valuation or exit (verified and manually reviewed; other lists use different criteria, this is ours). Of those, 0 are decacorns, companies at a $10B+ valuation. The ecosystem also counts 2 thoroughbreds (companies generating $100M+ in revenue, a separate lens with some overlap): Sendcloud and Prodrive Technologies. The chart below shows the cumulative count climbing each year, with the line tracking new unicorns minted in that year, peaking at 1 in 2021. On exits, the sector has produced 29 tracked acquisitions since 2010 representing $3.8B in disclosed value. Notable acquisitions in the data include HERE Technologies ($3.1B, 2015), followed by Ebusco ($330M, 2021), Security Matters ($113M, 2018).

Entrepreneurship is a power law. Of every Brainport Eindhoven startup founded, only a fraction attract venture capital, and far fewer climb each successive funding level. This funnel traces VC-backed Brainport Eindhoven startups from first cheque through to the rarest valuation outcomes. Mouth figures are annual means (2010–2024); pool stages count VC-backed companies founded since 1990 by total funding.