FUNDING FREEFALL & THE SILENT KILLERS OF SCALE

Let’s get one thing clear: raising money is no longer the biggest mountain to climb. It's proving that your startup deserves the money at all.

According to the latest Startup Struggle Survey by Slush, over 600 early-stage European founders laid bare what every microenterprise CEO in the Netherlands already feels in their gut: the game has changed, and nobody gave you a manual.

Fundraising is still hard (58.1% say it’s their #1 issue), but what's rising even faster is the pressure to grow, sustainably, scalably, and without excuses. Revenue growth is up 16 percentage points as the new killer metric. Translation? It’s no longer about impressing angels with a deck; it’s about showing cash efficiency and business maturity from day zero.

Welcome to the age of capital sobriety.

THE NEW FUNDING MATH: EFFICIENCY > VISION

Only 18% of founders think it’s “easy” to raise money in 2025. That means 4 out of 5 are struggling to even get a callback, let alone a cheque.

Investor engagement is down 6.6%. Why?

Because ideas without execution are just noise. Investors are tuning out if the books don’t speak compliance, governance, and go-to-market traction.

If you're still building your pitch on vibes, vision, and vaporware, your risk profile is uninvestable.

If you're a GRC or risk intelligence professional, here's your cue: startups don’t just need capital, they need credibility, and that's where you come in.

ACQUISITION: LEADS ARE NOT CUSTOMERS

Here’s the kicker: most founders say finding prospects is "easy enough"... but only 30% say they can convert them.

That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Why? Because awareness without traction is a false positive, it feels good until the runway disappears.

Sales strategies are running on trial and error. CAC is ballooning. Founders are having to choose between product and growth and there’s no safety net underneath.

Risk Intelligence red flag: This is exactly where compliance corners are cut. Desperate for MRR, startups will onboard shady clients, skip KYC, ignore IP protection, and duct-tape contracts. If you're not watching here, you’ll be cleaning up regulatory blood later.

TALENT WAR: PAYCHECKS VS PURPOSE

Hiring in 2025 is brutal, especially for technical roles. 1 in 5 startups can’t find coders. And when they do, they lose them to Big Tech’s padded salaries and job security.

But here's the deeper problem:

Most founders aren’t just looking for skills, they want attitude. Ownership. Grit. A culture fit that won’t flake when funding dries up.

This creates governance blind spots:

Founders hold onto misaligned hires because they're the only ones available. Or worse, they skip background checks, rush employment contracts, or skip payroll compliance to move fast.

To the HR auditors and Veritas-style investigators out there: this is your battlefield.

Poor hiring processes and unclear governance around roles and equity can kill a company faster than a cyberattack.

THE UNSPOKEN RISK: MENTAL WEIGHT

81% of founders say they’d do it all again. Noble. But 100% of them say it feels like "running into a wall every day."

The startup founder today isn’t just building a product. They’re:

• The product manager,
• The recruiter,
• The sales team,
• The customer support line,
• And occasionally, the janitor.

This emotional overload fuels compliance breakdowns.

Important decisions are made while half-asleep. Security protocols get postponed. Data retention policies? Forgotten in a Gmail inbox. Legal terms? Copied from someone else’s website.

Governance-by-design must become the founder’s autopilot.

We’re not talking about adding complexity, we're talking about removing chaos. That’s the GRC mission: make safety scalable, make compliance invisible, make trust a default.

FOR THE GRC ELITE: THIS IS YOUR WINDOW

This isn’t a wake-up call. This is a door kicked open.

Startups are fragile, but not hopeless. Their DNA is still forming and that’s where you, the compliance analyst, the cybersecurity strategist, the contract expert, become founding allies.

Here’s how:

• Legal Tech Pros: Design contract flows that don’t choke founders with jargon. Build templates they’ll actually use. Embed risk flags early.
• Cybersecurity Guards: Don’t pitch fear. Offer lean, deployable tools that protect customer data without killing UX.
• Governance Nerds (yes, us): Help startups build decision logs, ethics dashboards, scalable approval chains. Small habits now, big integrity later.

Remember: Europe is not Silicon Valley, and that’s a good thing.

We’ve got data ethics. We’ve got diversity baked in. We’ve got values that matter. But we’ve also got fragmented laws, risk-averse VCs, and outdated compliance mindsets.

The 2025 founder needs a risk intelligence partner, not a babysitter.

FINAL THOUGHT

There are over 400,000 micro-enterprises in the Netherlands. Most of them will never appear on a stage at Slush. But they face the same risks. They live the same chaos. And they deserve the same quality of support.

ZENTRIQ™ was built for them.

Not to save them. To arm them. With structure, ethics, and the kind of clarity that lets real growth happen without fear.

The startup battlefield is noisy. The job of a risk intelligence unit?

Filter the noise. Spot the fracture. Protect the vision.