Seems like we should do a local HN meetup, because all of a sudden lots of Dutch hackers are coming out of the woodworks, with you and Skrebbel from Eindhoven and me in Tilburg (~25 minutes by train). Anyway, the environment for startups in Eindhoven is great. There is the Technical University, Philips and a number of technical spinoffs from these two places, including a lot of startups. Although I'm highly skeptical of this ranking, the fact that the region around Eindhoven is ranked as the "smartest region in the world" is a good indicator[1].

[1] See http://www.intelligentcommunity.org/index.php?src=news&r... and http://www.brainportdevelopment.nl/en/news/brainport-eindhov..., although I tend to take this "studies" and competitions with a healthy grain of salt.