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Updates

Check out the latest news about Upstream Festival.

Not every startup needs to feel like a family

How do you keep moving quickly when a startup becomes a scale-up?

Venture Capital in the Netherlands: A guide for startups

Raising venture capital can feel like a world of its own. There are rounds, terms, decks, introductions, valuations, partner meetings, due diligence processes and a lot of advice that sounds confident until it starts contradicting the next

Founder turned investor

What makes someone a better investor? For Thijn van Helvoirt, the answer was to become a founder first.

What founders and investors need from each other

Should founders bootstrap for as long as possible? Does founder–market fit matter more than market size? And when a startup is ready to raise a meaningful round, should it immediately look beyond the Netherlands?

Barbara Barend on building HERA United

What do you do when the system was never designed to include you? You question it. You challenge it. And, sometimes, you build something new.

Upstream Festival 2026 - launchpad for founder-focused initiatives

From follow-on support for promising startups to new founder programmes and ecosystem collaboration, this year’s Upstream Festival showed how ideas can keep gaining momentum beyond the event itself.

Impact Report 2026

Upstream Festival 2026 brought together founders, investors, ecosystem builders, corporates, students, and partners from across the Netherlands and beyond for a week centred around one thing: meaningful connections.

All photos and videos of Upstream Festival 2026

Last week, founders, investors, ecosystem builders, and innovators came together in Rotterdam for Upstream Festival 2026. And what a day it was!

Our Platform is live

The platform is live, and you can book your meetings now.