TL;DR: Startups in Belgium News, November 2026 , Funding, Hubs and Tax Perks for Founders
Startups in Belgium news, November, 2026 shows you where Belgian money is moving, so you can raise faster and pick the right hub. Ghent, Antwerp and Leuven now lead deal flow in AI, life sciences and deeptech. Violetta Bonenkamp (Mean CEO), founder of CADChain and Fe/male Switch, tracked the 2026 rounds, rankings and grants.
- Funding is barbell-shaped. Kpler's $1B+ round topped Belgium's entire 2024 VC haul of €0.9B, and Conveo closed a $50M Series A. Most other deals sit at €1M to €4M. The €5M to €15M middle is thin, so start building ties with London and Paris funds at seed stage.
- AI and Ghent lead the pack. Six of the 11 tracked rounds carry AI tags, and three came from Ghent. Founders like Roeland Delrue of Aikido Security now invest as angels in the next wave.
- IP profits can be taxed at about 3.75%. The 80% patent income deduction pays off only if you assign and document IP from day one.
- Three regions give you three grant doors. You can apply to VLAIO (Flanders), SPW Recherche (Wallonia) or Innoviris (Brussels). Innoviris paid out €44.6M in 2024. Free accelerators like the KBC-backed program add six months of coaching at no cost. See how these programs work in our guide to Belgian startup grants.
- Security and compliance form a hidden cluster. Aikido, Itsme, Intigriti, GuardSquare and LEGALFLY all sell trust near EU regulators.
- Women founders are missing. All 8 founders named in the profiles reviewed were men, a gap that points to weak angel access for women.
For city-by-city context, compare this edition with the October Belgian startup news. Check who owns your code this week, then shortlist one grant and ten local founder-angels. The Ghent angel network is forming now, and early joiners get the warm intros.
Check out other fresh startup news and trends that you might like:
Startups in Austria News | November, 2026 (STARTUP EDITION)
This month’s Startups in Belgium news carries a signal that most founders scrolling past Brussels headlines will miss. The money, the talent and the deal flow in 2026 are concentrating in Ghent, Antwerp and Leuven, and the rounds closing this year lean heavily on AI, life sciences and deeptech. Belgium closed 2024 with roughly €0.9 billion in venture capital. In June 2026 a single company tagged to Brussels, Kpler, announced a growth round of more than $1 billion. That one deal is worth more than the country’s entire VC haul from two years ago.
I’m Violetta Bonenkamp, known online as Mean CEO. I’m a parallel entrepreneur building CADChain, a deeptech company for IP protection in CAD and 3D data, and Fe/male Switch, a game-based startup incubator for women. Belgium is personal for me. I completed an Advanced Master in Linguistics there in 2006 and 2007, long before I started building companies. Today I run my ventures out of the Dutch ecosystem next door, so I watch Belgian founders as neighbours, competitors and sometimes partners.
This article covers the November 2026 snapshot: who raised, who is ranked, where the public money sits, and what founders, freelancers and business owners can copy from the Belgian playbook. You will also get a step-by-step guide, a list of mistakes I see founders repeat, and a few opinions that some ecosystem builders will dislike. Let’s break it down.
What are the biggest Startups in Belgium news stories of 2026 so far?
Here is the quick snapshot for anyone who wants the headlines before the analysis. I pulled these from public funding trackers, rankings and ecosystem announcements published up to November 2026.
- Kpler, a trade intelligence company covering energy, maritime and commodities data, raised a $1B+ growth round from Sixth Street on 3 June 2026.
- Conveo, an Antwerp company running AI video interviews for consumer research, closed a $50M Series A on 2 September 2026, backed by DST Global Partners and Balderton Capital.
- Endo Tools Therapeutics from Wallonia raised a €20M Series C on 16 July 2026 for endoscopic devices used in minimally invasive gastrointestinal procedures.
- Tekst from Ghent landed an €11.5M Series A from Elephant and Entourage to automate enterprise back-office processes.
- Polysense closed a $10.7M seed round with Felix Capital and Fortino Ventures.
- The Belgium Startup Ecosystem association met all three regional Ministers of Economy (Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia) in March 2026, a first step toward a unified national startup voice.
- The F6S ranking for November 2026 puts Aikido Security, Odoo, Paleo, Keyrock, Port of Antwerp and Amyl Therapeutics at the top of its list of Belgian companies.
You can check the full deal list in the ProjectStartups tracker of recently funded Belgian startups and the monthly ranking in the F6S list of top companies in Belgium for November 2026.
Which Belgian startups raised funding in 2026?
Below is the complete list of rounds I tracked between May and September 2026, sorted from largest to smallest. Read it slowly, because the pattern matters more than any single cheque.
- Kpler (Brussels, SaaS and AI): growth round of $1B+, investor Sixth Street, June 2026.
- Conveo (Antwerp, MarTech and AI): $50M Series A, investors DST Global Partners and Balderton Capital, September 2026.
- Endo Tools Therapeutics (Wallonia, MedTech hardware): €20M Series C, investors Capricorn Partners and MGFO, July 2026.
- Tekst (Ghent, AI and SaaS): €11.5M Series A, investors Elephant and Entourage, May 2026.
- Polysense: $10.7M seed, investors Felix Capital and Fortino Ventures, July 2026.
- ReVision Implant (Haasrode, MedTech): €4M seed for a cortical visual prosthesis that aims to restore functional vision in people with severe blindness, May 2026.
- Sightera Biosciences (Antwerp, techbio): €3M pre-seed from Entourage and Anacura to design small-molecule therapies with generative AI, July 2026.
- Ventory (Zaventem, enterprise SaaS): €2.65M seed+ from KBC Securities and Finindus for inventory software connecting ERP systems with field teams, May 2026.
- Exhibitly (Ghent, MarTech): €1.4M pre-seed from New School VC and 100IN for AI personalisation of B2B event websites, May 2026.
- Holmes (Ghent, AI and SaaS): €1.1M pre-seed from Syndicate One and Roeland Delrue for an autonomous software testing platform, May 2026.
- Maurice & Nora: €1M seed from Coformaco and Dries Buytaert, matching families and seniors with students for non-medical home assistance, May 2026.
What does this funding list tell founders?
I ran the numbers so you don’t have to. At least six of the eleven rounds carry an AI/ML tag. Three of them come from Ghent (Tekst, Exhibitly and Holmes), and that’s before you count Aikido Security, which is also a Ghent company. The eight smaller euro rounds (everything except Kpler, Conveo and Polysense) add up to roughly €44.65 million. That’s about the same as what Innoviris, the Brussels research and innovation agency, disbursed across 325 projects in all of 2024.
My read is blunt. Belgian money is BARBELL-SHAPED. One side holds a handful of huge rounds led by international funds. The other side holds a crowd of €1M to €4M pre-seed and seed rounds backed by local angels and Belgian funds. The middle, the €5M to €15M growth step, looks thin. If you are a founder who plans to raise there, prepare for a gap between your seed and your Series A.
“When the middle of a funding curve is thin, founders have to reach revenue earlier. I treat that as good news, because it forces discipline that cheap money never teaches,” is how I explain it to the women in my Fe/male Switch cohorts.
Why does Belgium punch above its weight with only €0.9 billion in VC?
Belgium is a small market of around 11.8 million people, split across Dutch-, French- and German-speaking communities. On paper, €0.9 billion in venture capital in 2024 looks modest next to France or Germany. The output per euro tells a different story. Here is why.
The patent income deduction
Belgium offers an 80% patent income deduction, which brings the effective tax rate on qualifying IP profits down to about 3.75%. That ranks among the most generous IP tax regimes in Europe. For any startup that owns patents, software copyrights or other qualifying IP, this changes the maths of where to book profits. You can read the breakdown in the EUACC guide to Belgium startup funding, EU grants and incubators.
Imec and the university engine
Imec, the semiconductor and nanoelectronics research centre in Leuven, is famous worldwide and has seeded an entire chip-design and deeptech cluster. Around it sit four heavyweight universities: KU Leuven, Ghent University, ULB and UCLouvain. Belgium spends about 3.2% of GDP on R&D according to Eurostat figures cited by EUACC, which places it above the EU average. Two imec.xpand-adjacent deeptech names, VerticalCompute and Swave Photonics, made the EU-Startups “10 Belgian startups to watch in 2026” list, as Olivier Rousseaux of imec.DeepTechVentures celebrated in a LinkedIn post on the 10 Belgian startups to watch in 2026.
The Brussels effect
Brussels hosts the European Commission, the European Parliament and over 1,000 international organisations. For startups selling compliance, legal tech, cybersecurity or anything touched by EU regulation, being a metro ride away from the people who write the rules is an unfair advantage. Brussels alone hosts 319 active tech startups, around one third of all Belgian startups, according to StartupBlink data quoted by Startup Guide’s Brussels ecosystem overview.
Life sciences pedigree
Belgium has produced globally competitive biotech and pharma companies such as UCB, Galapagos and argenx. That legacy creates a talent pool of scientists, regulatory specialists and business developers who know how to take a molecule or device through trials. The 2026 rounds for Endo Tools Therapeutics, ReVision Implant, Sightera Biosciences and Amyl Therapeutics (ranked in F6S’s November list) show that pipeline is still producing.
Which Belgian startups should you watch in late 2026?
Rankings disagree, and that disagreement is useful. Each list measures something different: funding, web traffic, editorial judgement or momentum. When a company appears on several lists at once, pay attention.
The EU-Startups “10 to watch” list
- Aikido Security: developer-first code and cloud security platform from Ghent.
- Bnewable
- Conveo: AI consumer research interviews, fresh off a $50M Series A.
- Karomia
- LEGALFLY: legal AI, a natural fit for a country next to EU regulators.
- PANTERA
- Sirona Technologies
- Spica Therapeutics
- Swave Photonics: holographic display technology from the imec orbit.
- VerticalCompute: memory and compute hardware out of Louvain-la-Neuve.
The cross-list champions
Aikido Security is the name that appears everywhere: number one on Failory’s Top 100, number two on Seedtable, top of the F6S November list and on the EU-Startups watchlist. Founded in Ghent in 2022 by Felix Garriau, Roeland Delrue and Willem Delbare, it consolidates alerts from security scanners so developers fix the vulnerabilities that matter. Conveo and VerticalCompute appear on both the Seedtable ranking of startups in Belgium and the EU-Startups list. Kpler sits at number one on Seedtable.
City-by-city leaders
The StartupBlink ranking of top startups in Belgium breaks the leaders down by city, and it reveals how specialised each hub is.
- Brussels: Itsme (digital identity and cybersecurity), Cowboy (e-bikes and apps), Urbantz (delivery logistics software).
- Leuven: Materialise (3D printing software), GuardSquare (mobile app security), THEO Technologies (video streaming).
- Antwerp: Loop Earplugs (consumer goods), Intigriti (bug bounty cybersecurity), Pom (payments app).
- National: CrazyGames ranks first in StartupBlink’s 2026 famous startups list, a reminder that Belgium also builds consumer gaming hits.
Notice something? Cybersecurity shows up in all three cities: Itsme, GuardSquare, Intigriti and Aikido. Belgium is quietly building one of Europe’s densest security clusters, and nobody markets it as such.
Deeptech and climate names under the radar
- Pharrowtech (Leuven): wireless chips and antennas aimed at Wi-Fi 8.
- Xenomatix (Heverlee): LiDAR technology for European car makers.
- Resortecs: thermal disassembly to recycle multi-material garments.
- Novobiom (Liège): fungi-based platform to turn waste streams into value.
- Bio Sourcing (Liège): production platform for new biotherapeutics.
- Veoware Space: satellite imagery access for the space sector.
For an even wider view, Failory’s list of the top 100 Belgium startups to watch in 2026 notes that the 90 companies beyond its top ten have raised over $2 billion combined.
How does startup support work across Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels?
Belgium is a federal state, and that structure confuses almost every foreign founder I talk to. Startup support is split across three regions, each with its own agency, grants and rules. Here is the map.
- Flanders (Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven): VLAIO, the Flemish agency for innovation and entrepreneurship, runs grants for R&D projects and company development.
- Wallonia (Liège, Mons, Louvain-la-Neuve, Namur): SPW Recherche handles research funding, and regional investors such as Noshaq and S.R.I.W. back local companies like I-care Group.
- Brussels-Capital Region: Innoviris financed 325 research and innovation projects in 2024, disbursing €44.6 million to 215 unique beneficiaries.
On the private side, Belgium’s largest startup accelerator is free and backed by KBC Bank, offering six months of one-on-one coaching, investor readiness training and corporate introductions. StartLab.Brussels targets first-time founders and academics with fee-free programmes and has helped launch more than 185 startups.
The fragmentation is real, and some people are trying to fix it. The Belgium Startup Ecosystem association runs the Belgium Startup Awards and, in March 2026, met all three regional Ministers of Economy, including Laurent Hublet for Brussels and Matthias Diependaele for Flanders. You can follow their updates on the Belgium Startup Ecosystem LinkedIn page.
“Three regions means three doors to knock on. Founders who complain about fragmentation miss that they also get three chances at public money,” I tell anyone who asks me whether Belgium is too complicated.
What are the most shocking stats about startups in Belgium?
- 3.75%: the effective tax rate on qualifying IP profits under the patent income deduction.
- $1B+: the size of one 2026 round (Kpler), larger than Belgium’s total 2024 venture capital of about €0.9 billion.
- 1 in 3: the share of Belgian tech startups located in Brussels.
- €76,000: estimated GDP per capita in the Brussels region in 2024, which makes it a wealthy test market for B2C products.
- 7,000+: paying customers reported by Teamleader, a Belgian CRM that StartupBlink lists with only $37M in funding.
- 8 out of 8: founders named in the Failory company profiles I reviewed for this article who are men. More on that below.
- Over $2 billion: raised by the 90 Belgian startups Failory lists outside its top ten.
What do the headlines miss about the Belgian startup scene?
This is where I put on my Mean CEO hat. After twenty years of international work and years of building startups in parallel, I read funding news looking for mechanics. Here are five patterns I see in the 2026 Belgian data.
1. Founder money is recycling into the next generation
Look at the cap tables. Roeland Delrue, a co-founder of Aikido Security, invested personally in Holmes, a Ghent pre-seed company building autonomous software testing. Dries Buytaert, the Belgian creator of Drupal, backed Maurice & Nora. Syndicate One appears both as an Aikido investor and a Holmes investor. This is the flywheel that made Silicon Valley work: successful founders write the first cheques for the next wave. Ghent is building that loop right now, and that explains a lot of its dense deal flow.
Tip: if you are raising a pre-seed in Belgium, map the exited and late-stage founders in your sector before you pitch any fund. Angels who built something similar move faster and bring customer introductions.
2. The patent box is underused by software founders
My company CADChain lives at the intersection of IP and engineering data, so I have strong opinions here. Most early-stage founders treat IP as legal paperwork they will sort out “after product-market fit”. In Belgium, that delay costs real money. If your IP is documented, owned by the company and tied to your revenue streams, the patent income deduction can cut your tax on those profits dramatically once you become profitable.
“Protection and compliance should be invisible. If your engineers have to stop working to think about IP, your system is broken,” is a principle I build every CADChain product around. Belgian founders who embed IP hygiene into daily workflows from day one will capture the tax benefit. Founders who reconstruct their IP history in a panic before due diligence will not.
3. Boring B2B wins in Belgium
Odoo (open source ERP and CRM), Teamleader (CRM and invoicing for small companies), Showpad (sales enablement), Collibra (data governance), Ventory (inventory software) and Tekst (back-office automation). The Belgian success list is full of software that nobody brags about at dinner parties. These companies sell to SMEs and enterprises, charge monthly, and grow through a multilingual home market that forces them to build for several languages from the start.
That multilingual point matters to me as a linguist. A Belgian startup has to ship in Dutch and French on day one, often with English and German on top. That constraint turns into an export advantage, because the product is already built for a multi-language Europe.
4. Regulation is a product category in Brussels
LEGALFLY, Aikido, Itsme, Intigriti, GuardSquare. Belgium keeps producing companies that sell trust, security and compliance. With the EU AI Act, the Cyber Resilience Act and NIS2 hitting companies across Europe, the demand for this kind of tooling will keep climbing. My advice to founders: if your product helps companies obey EU rules without hiring lawyers, Brussels is the most credible postcode you can put on your pitch deck (the funding presentation you send to investors).
5. The women are missing from the founder profiles
Here comes the uncomfortable part. In the Failory profiles I reviewed for this article (Aikido Security, I-care Group and a Ghent company founded in 2018), all eight named founders are men. That’s a small sample, and I won’t pretend it represents the whole country. It still matches what I see in most European rankings.
“Women do not need more inspiration. They need infrastructure,” is the line I keep repeating, and Belgium proves the point. The country has excellent universities, generous IP taxation and free accelerators. What women founders often lack is access to the angel recycling loop I described above, where one exit funds the next five startups through personal networks. That’s a systems problem, and it needs system fixes: dedicated angel syndicates, IP education built into incubators, and safe practice spaces where women can rehearse pitching and negotiation before they face real investors. That’s exactly why I built Fe/male Switch as a game.
How do you launch or relocate a startup to Belgium? A step-by-step guide
This guide is for founders, freelancers and small business owners who are considering Belgium as a base, a second office or a funding source. Next steps, in order.
- Pick your region before you pick your city. Your region decides which agency funds you: VLAIO for Flanders, SPW Recherche for Wallonia, Innoviris for Brussels. Compare their grant programmes for your sector first.
- Match your sector to a hub. Chips and photonics belong near imec in Leuven. Developer tools and AI SaaS fit Ghent. Logistics and ports point to Antwerp, home of the Port of Antwerp. EU policy, legal and compliance products belong in Brussels. Biotech spreads across Ghent, Leuven, Liège and Wallonia’s medtech corridor.
- Set up your IP structure on day one. Assign all IP to the company, document authorship of code and designs, and talk to a Belgian tax adviser about the patent income deduction before you have profits to protect.
- Apply to a free accelerator. The KBC-backed accelerator offers six months of coaching at no cost. StartLab.Brussels suits first-time and academic founders.
- Build an angel map. List Belgian founders who exited or scaled in your space. The 2026 rounds show people like Roeland Delrue and Dries Buytaert writing early cheques.
- Stack public and private money. Pair a regional grant with a pre-seed round from Belgian funds such as Entourage, Fortino, Capricorn Partners or Syndicate One. Public money stretches your runway without dilution.
- Ship in two languages from launch. Dutch and French at minimum. Use AI translation tools for drafts and native speakers for review.
- Plan for the Series A gap early. If the €5M to €15M step is thin locally, start building relationships with London and Paris funds such as Balderton Capital or Atomico at seed stage, long before you need them.
- Enter the Belgium Startup Awards. The awards season includes masterclasses and media exposure, and the visibility costs you mostly time.
A practical example
Picture a solo founder building a no-code compliance checker for small manufacturers. She registers in Ghent, applies to VLAIO for a development grant, joins the KBC-backed accelerator, and documents her rule engine as company-owned IP. She sells her first version in Dutch and French to SMEs in Flanders and Wallonia. Twelve months later she raises a €1.5M pre-seed from a syndicate that includes two Ghent founders who sold security companies. Every element of that story already exists in the 2026 data. Only the founder is hypothetical.
And yes, she should build that first version with no-code tools. My rule is simple: “Default to no-code until you hit a hard wall.” Belgian pre-seed rounds of €1M to €1.4M go much further when you haven’t burned half of them on custom engineering before validating demand.
What mistakes do founders make in the Belgian startup market?
- Treating Belgium as one market. Flanders and Wallonia differ in language, buying habits and public funding. A campaign that works in Antwerp can fall flat in Liège.
- Ignoring regional grants. Innoviris alone handed out €44.6 million in 2024. Founders who skip public funding leave free runway on the table.
- Leaving IP ownership messy. Code written by freelancers without assignment contracts can block both the patent income deduction and your next funding round.
- Pitching only Belgian VCs. The biggest 2026 rounds came from DST Global Partners, Balderton Capital and Sixth Street. Local funds lead early rounds. International funds lead large ones.
- Underestimating Brussels as a customer. Over 1,000 international organisations sit there, and many buy software, research and services.
- Copying the AI hype without a buyer. Six of the eleven 2026 rounds carry AI tags, and every one of them targets a named business problem: research interviews, back-office processes, software testing, drug design. “AI for everything” pitches do not appear on the list.
- Waiting for “inspiration” programmes. Founders, especially women, gain more from a grant application, a signed customer letter and an IP assignment contract than from another motivational panel.
Is Belgium a better startup base than Amsterdam, Paris or Berlin?
Here is my provocative take. For a consumer app chasing hype and fast follow-on rounds, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam still offer deeper local capital. For a deeptech, biotech, security or compliance company with real IP, Belgium is one of the smartest bases in Europe, and too few founders know it.
The combination is hard to match elsewhere: a 3.75% effective rate on qualifying IP profits, imec on your doorstep, four research universities, three regional grant systems and the EU’s regulators within walking distance. The trade-off is a smaller domestic VC pool and a thinner growth stage. As someone running companies across the border in the Netherlands, I’ll admit some envy about that IP tax treatment.
FOMO warning: the angel recycling loop in Ghent is forming right now. Founders who plug into it in 2026 and 2027 will get warm introductions that newcomers in 2029 will have to pay for with years of networking.
Frequently asked questions about startups in Belgium
How much venture capital do Belgian startups raise?
Belgium attracted approximately €0.9 billion in venture capital in 2024. In 2026, Kpler’s growth round of more than $1 billion alone exceeded that annual figure, and Conveo raised a $50M Series A.
What are the most successful Belgian startups?
Established successes include Odoo, Collibra, Showpad and Teamleader in software, plus UCB, Galapagos and argenx in life sciences. Rising names in 2026 include Aikido Security, Conveo, VerticalCompute, Swave Photonics and LEGALFLY.
Which Belgian city is best for startups?
Brussels hosts about one third of Belgian tech startups and suits policy, legal tech and identity products. Ghent leads in developer tools and AI SaaS. Leuven leads in semiconductors and deeptech around imec. Antwerp combines logistics, consumer brands and AI research tools.
What is the Belgian patent income deduction?
It’s a tax incentive that deducts 80% of qualifying IP income, bringing the effective tax rate on those profits to about 3.75%. Startups with patents or qualifying software IP should plan for it early with a tax adviser.
Which public agencies fund Belgian startups?
VLAIO in Flanders, SPW Recherche in Wallonia and Innoviris in Brussels. Each region runs its own instruments, so your company’s registered region determines your eligibility.
What should founders do next with this Belgian startup news?
The November 2026 picture is clear. Belgium is a small country with an outsized IP tax advantage, a world-class chip research centre, a security cluster spread across three cities and a founder-angel loop forming in Ghent. Its funding curve is barbell-shaped, so early rounds are accessible and the growth stage demands international investors. Its founder lists still look overwhelmingly male, which tells me the infrastructure for women is lagging behind the infrastructure for technology.
Here is what I would do this month if I were you:
- Audit your IP ownership and ask a tax adviser whether the patent income deduction applies to you.
- Bookmark the funding trackers and review new Belgian rounds monthly to spot active investors in your sector.
- Shortlist one regional grant and one free accelerator, and apply to both before the end of the quarter.
- List ten Belgian founder-angels in your space and find a warm path to each of them.
- Test your product in Dutch and French with no-code tools before writing custom code.
I treat every startup like a strategic game. The goal is to collect information, assets and relationships faster than your competitors. Belgium hands you more free assets than most European countries do. Pick them up before everyone else notices they’re lying on the table.
Violetta Bonenkamp (Mean CEO), founder of CADChain and Fe/male Switch
People Also Ask:
What is a startup in Belgium?
A startup in Belgium is a young company built around a new product, service, or business model, with plans to grow fast. Most Belgian startups are based in or around Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and Leuven, often close to universities and research centers like KU Leuven and imec. Belgium also uses its own startup definition for tax purposes. Small companies founded less than four years ago can qualify their investors for the startup tax shelter, which gives a personal income tax reduction on money invested.
What do startups do?
Startups turn an idea into a product or service that solves a problem for a specific group of customers. In the early stages, founders test the idea, build a first version, find paying customers, and raise money from angel investors, venture capital funds, or public programs. The goal is fast growth, which sets a startup apart from a traditional small business that aims for steady, local income.
Is 4000 euro a good salary in Belgium?
A gross monthly salary of €4,000 is close to the Belgian average, so it is a decent income by local standards. Belgium has high social security contributions and income tax, so a single person would take home roughly €2,500 to €2,700 net per month. Many employers add extras like meal vouchers, hospitalization insurance, a company car, or stock options at startups, which raise the real value of the package. Housing costs in Brussels and Antwerp can take a large share of that income.
What are the biggest tech companies in Belgium?
The best-known Belgian tech companies include Odoo (business management software), Collibra (data intelligence), Deliverect (software for food delivery and restaurants), Showpad (sales enablement software), Teamleader (CRM for small businesses), Materialise (3D printing software and services), and Barco (visualization and display technology). Odoo and Collibra have both reached valuations above one billion dollars. Proximus is the largest telecom and IT services group in the country.
What are the hottest startups right now?
A recent list of Belgian startups to watch in 2026 names Aikido Security, Bnewable, Conveo, Karomia, LEGALFLY, PANTERA, Sirona Technologies, Spica Therapeutics, Swave Photonics, and VerticalCompute. Aikido Security builds security tools for software developers. LEGALFLY works on AI for legal teams. Swave Photonics develops holographic display technology. VerticalCompute works on memory chips for AI workloads. Several of these companies came out of research centers like imec, which shows how much of the Belgian scene grows out of deep tech research.
Is Belgium a good place to start a startup?
Belgium has several advantages for founders. It sits in the middle of Europe, close to Paris, Amsterdam, London, and Germany. It has a multilingual, well-educated workforce, top research centers, and public funding through regional agencies. Tax incentives like the startup tax shelter and reduced payroll tax for R&D staff also help. The downsides include high labor costs, a small home market, and a support system split across three regions.
How do you set up a startup in Belgium?
Most founders set up a private limited company, called a BV in Dutch or an SRL in French. A BV has no fixed minimum capital, but founders must bring in enough starting equity and prepare a financial plan. The steps are:
- Sign the deed: A notary drafts and signs the company's founding deed.
- Register the company: Register with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises through an approved business counter to get an enterprise number.
- Handle VAT: Register for VAT if the company will charge it.
- Open a bank account: Set up a business bank account for the company.
Founders from outside the EU usually need a professional card or a work permit before they can run a business.
What support is available for startups in Belgium?
Each Belgian region runs its own support programs. In Flanders, VLAIO gives grants and loans, and Startup.Flanders helps young companies grow internationally. In Brussels, hub.brussels, Innoviris, and finance&invest.brussels give advice, research funding, and investment. In Wallonia, Wallonie Entreprendre and Digital Wallonia back new companies. Incubators and accelerators like imec.istart and Start it @KBC give coaching, office space, and access to investors.
Which sectors are Belgian startups strongest in?
Belgian startups stand out in biotech and life sciences, helped by a long history in pharma and strong universities. Semiconductors and photonics benefit from imec in Leuven. Cybersecurity, fintech, legal tech, and business software (SaaS) have also produced fast-growing companies. Clean energy and climate tech are growing too, with startups working on renewable energy, batteries, and energy management.
What challenges do startups face in Belgium?
Belgian startups deal with high labor costs and taxes, which make hiring expensive in the early years. The home market is small and split between Dutch, French, and German speakers, so many founders sell abroad from day one. Support programs differ by region, which can be confusing for newcomers. Raising large, later-stage funding rounds is also harder than in bigger hubs like London or Paris, so growing companies often turn to foreign investors.
FAQ on Startups in Belgium in 2026
How big is Belgium's startup economy, and is it growing fast enough?
Belgium counts about 1,325 ranked startups, four unicorns and an estimated US$72.88 billion startup economy. Its 7.5% growth rate trails Western European and global averages, so founders should plan to export from day one and benchmark traction against Dutch and French peers. Read the September 2026 Belgian startup ecosystem report.
How do I write a Belgian startup grant application that actually wins?
Skip generic templates and rushed timelines. Evaluators want detailed financial projections, tailored impact goals and a clear scalability story. VLAIO can cover up to 50% of R&D costs for high-tech projects, so tie your milestones to measurable technical risk. Start drafting three months early. Get Belgian grant application tips from the March 2026 edition.
What obligations come with non-dilutive startup funding in Belgium?
Belgian grants are non-repayable but conditional. You must report spending, hit agreed milestones and keep strict records, or you risk clawbacks. Funders favour EU "strategic autonomy" sectors such as manufacturing tech, energy, semiconductors and health. Set up a compliance tracker before the first euro arrives. See how Belgian grants and private capital work together.
Which Belgian sectors beyond AI and biotech are quietly growing?
Edtech and food-tech deserve attention. Belgium hosts 23 edtech startups worth an estimated US$406.1 million, led by Wooclap, BookWidgets and MobieTrain. Paleo, founded in 2020, uses fermentation to produce animal proteins without animals. Both niches reward founders who sell into schools, corporates and food manufacturers. Explore Belgian edtech and food-tech leaders.
Can a startup succeed outside Belgium's big hubs, in towns like Waterloo?
Yes, if visibility makes up for location. Smaller hubs such as Waterloo lack dense investor networks, so founders must invest in SEO, content marketing and visibility inside AI search tools. Publish expert articles, earn guest posts and track rankings monthly to stay discoverable to buyers and investors. Discover the best startups in Waterloo, Belgium.
Do corporate venture arms invest in Belgian startups?
They do, especially in B2B AI. Ghent-based TechWolf, founded in 2018, raised $55.6M with Workday Ventures and SAP among its top investors, alongside Fortino Capital and Stride.VC. If your product plugs into a major software platform, pitch that vendor's venture arm for both capital and distribution. Browse Failory's top Belgian startups and their investors.
Is Brussels a welcoming base for women, LGBTQI+ and international founders?
Brussels ranks as Europe's second-friendliest city for LGBTQI+ inclusion and gender diversity, scoring 85.3% on ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map 2025. It also offers more than 8,000 hectares of green space and strong public transport, which helps when recruiting international talent. Highlight these perks in your hiring pitches. Read the Startup Guide overview of the Brussels ecosystem.
Which international VC funds back Belgian startups at later stages?
London's Atomico, with a $1.24 billion fund, invests at Series A, Series B and growth stage. Balderton Capital is also active in Belgium. Research each fund's portfolio, find a Belgian founder they backed, and request a warm introduction a year before you plan to raise. Check EUACC's directory of VC funds active in Belgium.
How can Belgian freelancers and self-employed professionals simplify bookkeeping and taxes?
Use local fintech built for the self-employed. Brussels-based Accountable combines an AI tax advisor, guaranteed error-free tax returns and personal tax coaches across Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain. Automate invoicing and receipt capture early so you claim deductions accurately and spend more time on clients. Discover Brussels fintech tools like Accountable.
How should a Belgian startup expand across Europe after proving its home market?
Use Belgium's multilingual market as a launchpad. Validate in Flanders and Wallonia, then enter the Netherlands and France, where the languages overlap. Layer EU programmes on top of regional grants, register trademarks EU-wide, and hire country managers only after inbound demand appears. Follow the European Startup Playbook.
