Research
PE & VC at Work
In 2024, 2,748 Dutch companies had a private equity or venture capital investor as a shareholder. Of these, 2,008 companies received their investment since 2016 and are still part of the portfolio of a private equity or venture capital fund.
Employment in 2023: over 790,000 jobs[1]
Companies backed by private equity or venture capital make a substantial contribution to the Dutch labor market:
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789,911 employees work at these companies
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That’s 7.8% of the total Dutch workforce (10.1 million people)
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1,504 SMEs account for 72,858 jobs
Employment by investment stage:
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Buy-out stage: 591,401 jobs
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Growth stage: 147,925 jobs
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Venture stage: 35,726 jobs
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Other (restructuring or replacement capital): 14,860 jobs
Growth: faster than average
Private equity- and venture capital-backed companies show remarkably strong employment growth:
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In 2023, a net 26,668 new jobs were created
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Employment grew by +5.3%, compared to the national growth rate of +1.6%[2]
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Among SMEs with PE/VC investments, growth was slightly higher at +5.8%
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(Larger) companies that underwent a buy-out grew the fastest, with +7% employment growth
Investments in the Netherlands: €91.6 billion
Between 2007 and 2024, Dutch companies received a total of:
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€91.6 billion in PE/VC funding, of which:
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€83 billion private equity
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€8.6 billion venture capital
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Want to know more?
Check out the key figures and insights in the factsheet or read the report:
The employment figures are based on a representative sample of 1,143 portfolio companies. The results have been extrapolated to the full portfolio of PE/VC-backed companies in the Netherlands.
[1] These are jobs at companies based in the Netherlands, including foreign branch offices. Dutch branch offices of foreign companies backed by private equity or venture capital are not explicitly included, but they roughly balance out the total.
