Deloitte Scale-ups Confidence survey 2024

Rotterdam, 25 April 2024

Despite increased confidence, the uncertain economic climate remains a major challenge for scale-up entrepreneurs, as it limits their ability to raise money and grow their business. While they struggle to win new customers (36 per cent), many Dutch scale-ups also point out they don't have sufficient liquidity (38 per cent). Liquidity was less of an issue in 2023, when only 26 per cent of respondents cited it as a major challenge. Nevertheless, 48 per cent of companies indicate they have met their growth expectations last year, up from 31 per cent a year earlier.

Scale-Ups Confidence Survey 2024 - Download the report

Talent remains scarce

40 per cent of respondents see finding the right talent as the biggest challenge. This hasn't changed much from 2023 (37 per cent). 34 per cent of respondents indicate that candidates' expectations regarding financial rewards are a challenge for them. They struggle to reconcile the potential employees' salary demands with the liquidity problems they are experiencing.

Some scale-ups are also struggling to execute their strategies: 28 per cent of respondents identified operational challenges as one of the biggest obstacles to achieving their growth ambitions (22 per cent in 2023), while 22 per cent said product development issues had resulted in lower sales (12 per cent in 2023). Only 10 per cent of respondents said sourcing/supply chain issues were among their biggest challenges, down from 18 per cent in 2023.

Jan-Piet Nelissen, Partner Scale-up Ecosystem at Deloitte: "These findings imply that many scale-ups remain resilient, despite the ongoing uncertainty of the economy and the increasingly tense geopolitical environment. In fact, 85 per cent of respondents indicated that the current economic climate has had only a limited impact on the valuation of their company. This indicates that many scale-ups and their investors have been taking into account a high degree of economic uncertainty for a long time."

Looking for extra income

Of the scale-ups surveyed, 60 per cent are actively seeking additional funding, slightly down from the 68 per cent in 2023. The top three types of funding being considered by the scale-ups surveyed are additional equity funding by new investors (58 per cent), additional equity funding by existing shareholders (40 per cent) and government grants and subsidies (36 per cent).

Confidence in the future

Dutch scale-ups are now more confident about future growth than they were in 2023. Despite the challenges identified in this report and the economic and geopolitical uncertainty, 91 per cent of Dutch scale-ups surveyed said they are confident that they can continue or even accelerate their growth trajectory, compared to 80 per cent in 2023. This finding could reflect the fact that many of these scale-ups have already experienced tough times, such as the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, and have realistic growth ambitions.

Research accountability

In total, we surveyed 50 scale-ups based in the Netherlands for the Scale-Ups Confidence Survey 2024. Thirty-eight of the respondents held the position of CEO or co-founder in their respective organisations. Scale-ups from multiple segments participated in the survey, with the enterprise software, fintech and digital commerce sectors best represented. More than 90 per cent of the respondents operate at least in the B2B sector, but there are major differences in size. While 42 per cent generate less than €1 million in annual revenue, 12 per cent generate more than €10 million in annual revenue. More than half of respondents have between 10 and 50 full-time employees, while 6 per cent have more than 100 employees.