Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium · Startup Aerospacelab designs, builds and operates satellites end-to-end, offering versatile platforms (150 kg–1 t), payloads spanning earth observation and telecom, and full mission operations. Founded in 2018 by ex-NASA and ESA engineer Benoît Deper, the company is 90% vertically integrated and ITAR-free. It raised a €94 M Series B in August 2025 (including €37.5 M from the EIB) and is completing a Megafactory in Charleroi — Europe's largest satellite plant, targeting 500 units per year by 2026. Aerospacelab is one of two finalists competing to build the LEO layer of the EU's IRIS² secure-comms constellation.
Brussels, Belgium · Event FinTech Belgium, Sailpeak and Vlerick Business School unveil the third edition of the AI Barometer at SilverSquare North, tracking how Belgian financial institutions are moving from AI experimentation to enterprise-scale deployment, with keynotes, use cases, panel and networking.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Aikido Security is a unified developer-first application security platform covering code scanning, cloud posture, runtime monitoring and AI-driven penetration testing — all from one console. Founded in 2022 in Ghent by serial entrepreneurs Willem Delbare, Roeland Delrue, Felix Garriau and Madeline Lawrence, it became Europe's fastest cybersecurity unicorn after closing a $60 M Series B led by DST Global and PSG Equity in 2025 at a $1 B+ valuation. Annual recurring revenue hit $20 M in 2025 with a target of $60 M. Aikido serves developers and security teams at mid-market and enterprise companies from offices in Ghent, San Francisco, London and Chicago.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Ann Mettler is Vice President for Europe at Breakthrough Energy, the climate-focused investment and advocacy organization founded by Bill Gates to accelerate clean energy innovation globally. She previously led the European Political Strategy Centre, the in-house think tank of the European Commission, and served as Executive Director of The Lisbon Council from 2003 to 2014. She is a prominent voice on European clean energy technology and innovation policy, and a confirmed speaker at the ONS 2026 Strategic Conference.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Aphea.Bio develops microbial-based biological crop solutions that replace synthetic pesticides and fertilisers — biostimulants, biofungicides, bioherbicides and bioinsecticides — using its proprietary APEXbio™ platform. The technology was spun out of research at Ghent University, KU Leuven and VIB. Co-founded in 2017 by Isabel Vercauteren (CEO) and Steven Vandenabeele, the company raised a €70 M Series C in July 2023 backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, SFPIM, BNP Paribas Fortis and Innovation Industries. In 2025 it secured a VLAIO grant to launch its TRANSCEND platform screening 5,000 proprietary microorganism candidates. Aphea.Bio holds B Corp certification and is a Ghent biotech hub anchor.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Audrey Scozzaro Ferrazzini serves as Vice President of Government Affairs at Qualcomm, one of the world's leading semiconductor and wireless technology corporations. Based in Europe, she represents Qualcomm before EU institutions and national governments on matters including the European Chips Act, 5G spectrum policy, mobile connectivity standards, and digital competitiveness strategy. She is a prominent industry voice in European technology and semiconductor policy discussions, regularly engaging with senior EU officials and member state governments.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Azumuta provides a connected-worker platform for manufacturing that combines digital work instructions, quality assurance checklists, skills & training tracking and AI-assisted audits in a single shop-floor system. It replaces paper, spreadsheets and fragmented tools with operator-centric workflows that cut quality incidents and improve productivity. Founded in 2016 by Batis Leman in Ghent, the company raised an €8 M Series A in November 2025 led by Keen Venture Partners and Capricorn Partners. Customers include Atlas Copco, Toyota and Cummins across aerospace, pharma, food & beverage and electronics. Azumuta operates in Ghent and targets European and North American mid-market manufacturers.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Bart Groothuis is a Dutch Member of the European Parliament (MEP) who played a central role in shaping European cybersecurity legislation, including the NIS2 Directive. Prior to his parliamentary career, he held positions at the Dutch Ministry of Defence with a focus on cyber operations and digital security. He is widely regarded as one of Europe's leading political voices on cybersecurity, digital sovereignty, and cyber defense policy.
Brussels, Belgium · Event A full-day national startup gathering at The Egg Brussels with stages for founders, investors, service providers, and corporates, plus a live pitch competition for a €100,000 convertible loan. The flagship convening point for the Belgian startup ecosystem.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event The inaugural, biennial Breakbulk Summit draws on Antwerp’s breakbulk heritage to convene the international breakbulk community to share insights, discuss trends and strategise on the opportunities and challenges shaping modern breakbulk logistics. The programme spans two days at venues including the Kinepolis Business Center, with an evening networking reception.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl is the Director General of DIGITALEUROPE, Europe's leading digital industry trade association, a position she has held since 2019. A Danish national based in Brussels, she is one of the most influential voices in European technology policy, regularly engaging with EU institutions on legislation covering artificial intelligence, data governance, cybersecurity, and the digital single market. She serves as the primary spokesperson for the digital industry in European legislative processes and oversees major industry events including the DIGITALEUROPE Summer Summit.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Christine Leurquin is CEO Belgium and Senior Director of European and Public Affairs at Aldoria, a French space safety and sustainability startup specializing in space debris tracking and collision avoidance services. Aldoria operates a ground-based radar network dedicated to monitoring objects in low Earth orbit, providing commercial and institutional clients with conjunction analysis and space traffic alerting services. Her dual role combines executive leadership for Belgian operations with EU-level public affairs activities, making her a key interface between the space sustainability startup ecosystem and European policymakers.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Focused networking for the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking. Price: free with application/registration. Targets SMEs and startups collaborating on hydrogen and electric flight tech proposals.
Antwerp, Belgium · Startup Antwerp-based platform for Scope 3 supply-chain emissions management that helps companies measure, report, and reduce indirect carbon emissions through collaborative supplier engagement. Focuses on the Food & Beverages sector. 800+ companies share sustainability data through the platform. Raised €3.5M seed led by Expon Capital.
Brussels, Belgium · Startup Collibra is a Brussels-founded data intelligence company that became one of Europe's most important enterprise software success stories by focusing on data governance, cataloging, lineage, and trust. Its software helps large organizations understand what data they have, where it came from, who owns it, and whether it can be safely used for analytics, compliance, and AI systems. That function has become significantly more important as companies face growing regulatory pressure around privacy, AI accountability, and internal data quality. Collibra operates in the layer beneath many other modern software workflows: before a company can run serious analytics or train advanced models, it needs confidence in the underlying data estate. That makes the business strategically important to data-heavy industries such as finance, healthcare, and industrial technology. In the European ecosystem, Collibra stands out because it turned a difficult, top-down enterprise problem into a large software platform category. It is a useful addition to the directory because it represents the governance backbone that increasingly underpins other ambitious AI and data companies.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Deliverect provides omnichannel digital ordering infrastructure for restaurants and food retail, integrating 1,000+ third-party platforms — Uber Eats, DoorDash, Deliveroo — directly into point-of-sale systems, with tools for menu management, fleet dispatch, loyalty and in-store kiosks. Founded in 2018 in Ghent by Zhong Xu, Jan Hollez, Jelte Vrijhoef and Jerome Laredo, the company reached unicorn status in January 2022 after a $208 M Series D at a $1.4 B valuation. Total funding exceeds $332 M from Coatue, DST Global and Redpoint. Deliverect now serves 96,000+ locations across 52 countries including KFC, Burger King and Chipotle.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Chief executive of Creative Navy, a UX design agency, and a confirmed speaker at SmashingConf Antwerp 2026. He focuses on evidence-based user experience design, usability and the design of complex interfaces for digital products.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event Europe's largest community-driven developer conference at Kinepolis Antwerp, themed 'From Developer to Builder'. Five days covering Java, architecture, GenAI agents, Model Context Protocol, security and modern development practices for thousands of developers worldwide.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Organisator DIGITALEUROPE is the leading trade association representing digitally transforming industries across Europe, headquartered in Brussels at Rue de la Science 37. It represents over 56,000 businesses through 134 global corporate members and 45 national trade associations spanning 35 EU countries plus Ukraine, Moldova, the UK, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey. The organization engages EU institutions across 15 policy priority areas including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, connectivity, data governance, and digital skills. It organises the annual Summer Summit as its flagship policy convening event, bringing together senior representatives from member states, the European Commission, and leading global technology companies.
Brussels, Belgium · Event DIGITALEUROPE's annual policy summit convening EU Member State representatives, the European Commission and global tech industry leaders on Europe's digital sovereignty, AI regulation, data governance and sustainability under the theme 'Scaling the Digital Frontier'.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup VIB-linked biotech developing Treg-based immune modulators for hard-to-treat autoimmune diseases. Lead program DT-001 is a TNFR2 antibody agonist in IND-enabling studies. Founded 2020; raised EUR 40M Series A in 2023.
Ghent, Belgium · Event Organisator EAI (European Alliance for Innovation) is a global non-profit professional society for researchers in information and communication technology, with offices in Belgium, the United States, and Slovakia. It organizes more than 200 academic conferences annually across 150+ countries and serves a community of over 250,000 members worldwide. EAI is the official organizer of the ICDF2C conference series, dedicated to digital forensics and cybercrime research, with proceedings published through Springer's LNICST series and the EU Digital Library (EUDL).
Ghent, Belgium · Event The annual conference of the EGI Federation, gathering digital and research-infrastructure providers, data scientists, and innovators to advance data-intensive science. Relevant for deeptech and research-spinout founders building on European compute infrastructure.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Design practitioner at Ampersand and a confirmed speaker at SmashingConf Antwerp 2026, where she shares hands-on techniques and workflows for designers and design engineers working on product design and user interfaces.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at Port of Antwerp-Bruges, leading the port's digital transformation and innovation strategy. He is a confirmed speaker at the DroneHorizon summit during Port of the Future Week 2026 in Antwerp.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Conference on open source policy, bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, and open source community members to discuss current trends and future directions in Brussels.
Brussels, Belgium · Event The European Dialogue on Internet Governance is an open multi-stakeholder platform on internet governance, hosted by EURid at the European Commission's Charlemagne Building. The 2026 edition celebrates 20 years of .eu under the theme 'European Voices for the Future of the Internet'.
Brussels, Belgium · Event The largest annual event dedicated to the European hydrogen sector, combining policy, business, and exhibition tracks at Brussels Expo. Relevant for hydrogen and clean-energy founders seeking EU funding, partners, and procurement channels.
Brussels, Belgium · Event The 6th edition of a Brussels policy-and-business forum at the intersection of the European space industry and EU institutions. Relevant for NewSpace founders navigating funding, regulation, and procurement.
Brussels, Belgium · Event The 20th edition of the EU's largest sustainable-energy conference. Cleantech and energy founders use it to engage policymakers, EU funding bodies, and corporates shaping the regulatory environment.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Organisator Forum Europe is a policy-focused event management company that has been organizing high-level conferences at the heart of the European Union since 1989. The organization specializes in convening senior policymakers, industry leaders, and stakeholders around critical European and international policy issues spanning technology, space, defence, and digital governance. Forum Europe is the organizer of the annual European Space Forum and the European Space, Security and Defence Forum, as well as a growing portfolio of global events through its Forum Global division. Registered in England and Wales and operating primarily from Brussels, Forum Europe provides in-person, virtual, and hybrid event solutions for institutional and industry clients.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Free and open source software developers' conference, covering a wide range of topics and technologies. A major community-driven event for open source enthusiasts and professionals in Brussels.
Ghent, Belgium · Event Annual full-day event organized by the City of Ghent and Start it @KBC showcasing the Flemish startup ecosystem: founder panels, investor office hours, corporate-innovation matchmaking, and a pitch competition with EUR 25K+ in prizes. 800+ attendees. Free admission. Ghent is home to TechWolf, Showpad, and a growing AI cluster around the IMEC/UGent research nexus.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Hans Roth is Senior Vice President and General Manager for EMEA at Red Hat, the world's leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions and an IBM subsidiary. In this role he oversees Red Hat's business across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, driving enterprise adoption of open source technologies including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift Kubernetes platform, and Ansible automation. He is a senior technology industry executive with significant influence in the European enterprise software and cloud infrastructure market.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Henchman is a Belgian legal tech company based in Ghent, founded in 2020 by Gilles Mattelin, Jorn Vanysacker and Wouter Van Respaille. Its software connects to a law firm's or legal team's document management system and enriches that internal data so lawyers can draft contracts faster by surfacing and reusing clauses and definitions from their own past documents. The company served law firms and in-house legal teams across Europe and the United States. In June 2024 LexisNexis Legal & Professional (part of RELX) announced an agreement to acquire Henchman, completing the acquisition later in 2024.
Online, Belgium · Event Information day on funding opportunities for health-related projects under the Horizon Europe framework programme, specifically for Cluster 1 (Health). Provides guidance for applicants and consortia.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Matchmaking event for Horizon Europe mobility calls. Price: free with registration. Focused on 1:1 meetings to build consortia for non-dilutive EU funding.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event imec's flagship technology forum, bringing the global semiconductor and nano-electronics value chain to Antwerp. Founders in chip design, AI hardware, quantum, and sensing get direct exposure to imec research roadmaps and corporate R&D leads.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Product designer and author working with Fuller, and a confirmed speaker at SmashingConf Antwerp 2026. He specialises in mobile app design, design systems and product design, sharing practical methods for designers and design engineers.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Chief Security Officer at Hamburg Port Authority and a confirmed speaker at the DroneHorizon summit during Port of the Future Week 2026 in Antwerp, addressing port security, resilience and the use of unmanned systems for critical infrastructure.
Hasselt, Belgium · Person Koen Vandewal is a professor at Hasselt University researching organic semiconductors, photovoltaics and optoelectronic devices, with a focus on charge-transfer states and solar energy conversion. He is a keynote speaker at NANOTEXNOLOGY 2026 in Thessaloniki.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup LegalFly is an AI-native legal operating system for in-house legal, compliance and procurement teams. The platform automates contract review, drafting, legal research and due diligence, integrating with Microsoft Word and Teams, and maintains full audit trails across 60+ jurisdictions. Founded by ex-Tinder product leaders Ruben Miessen, Kasper Verbeeck, Dennis Montégnies and Gregory Vekemans, the company raised a €15 M Series A led by Notion Capital in July 2024. It reported 800%+ revenue growth in 2025 and counts Slaughter & May and Allianz among strategic partners. LegalFly was preparing a new growth round for mid-2026.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Head of Strategy and Communications at Hamburg Port Authority and a confirmed speaker at the DroneHorizon summit during Port of the Future Week 2026 in Antwerp, focusing on port strategy and cross-port collaboration on autonomous technology.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Designer at UWV and a confirmed speaker at SmashingConf Antwerp 2026, presenting hands-on approaches to design systems, accessibility and user experience for large-scale digital services.
Brussels, Belgium · Event High-level forum in Brussels on EU digital policy, AI competitiveness, and innovation-friendly regulation, bringing together MEPs, commissioners, and tech industry leaders. Features policy debates and networking with European regulators. Essential for startups navigating EU regulatory frameworks and seeking influence on digital policy outcomes.
Leuven, Belgium · Startup Materialise is a pioneer in additive manufacturing, operating one of the world's largest 3D printing facilities alongside a suite of industrial and medical software. Its Mimics software suite supports surgical planning, personalised implants and medical device design for hospitals and MedTech firms globally; its industrial arm serves aerospace, automotive and consumer goods. Founded in 1990 in Leuven by Fried Vancraen and Hilde Ingelaere as the Benelux's first rapid-prototyping bureau, the company listed on NASDAQ (MTLS) in 2014. As of Q1 2026 it reported $302 M trailing revenue and a $335 M market cap, and in May 2026 spun off its eyewear division to focus on core manufacturing and healthcare software.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Niklas Blomberg is Executive Director of the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), a major public-private partnership joint undertaking established by the European Union and EFPIA with approximately €2 billion in funding for health research and innovation. He oversees one of Europe's most significant health R&D programmes, bridging academia, industry, regulators, and patient organisations. He is a key figure in European health innovation policy and ecosystem building.
Antwerp, Belgium · Startup Nobi makes AI-powered smart ceiling lamps for senior living facilities that detect falls within seconds, alert caregivers instantly and monitor sleep, activity and circadian patterns to prevent incidents. Its model was trained on 250,000+ real-life fall scenarios; in clinical studies across five care homes, Nobi reduced average caregiver response time from over one hour to four minutes and cut falls by 51%. Founded in 2018 in Antwerp by Roeland Pelgrims, Bert De Haes and Stijn Verrept, it closed a €35 M Series B (co-led by Angelini Ventures and Nexus NeuroTech) in January 2025. Nobi is deployed in 22 countries with offices in Belgium, the US and the UK.
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium · Startup Odoo is a Belgian company that develops an open-source, all-in-one suite of business applications covering ERP, CRM, accounting, e-commerce, inventory and project management. Founded by Fabien Pinckaers, it traces its origins to software he began as TinyERP, later OpenERP, before being renamed Odoo. Headquartered in Louvain-la-Neuve, it has grown into a multinational with offices on several continents and a large global customer base. A November 2024 secondary transaction led by CapitalG and Sequoia Capital valued the company at €5 billion, and subsequent reporting in early 2026 put the valuation above €7 billion.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Organisator Advocacy organisation promoting open source, open standards, and open markets in Europe, particularly concerning public policy and digital infrastructure. Organises the EU Open Source Policy Summit.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person China expert, author and keynote speaker on innovation and technology trends, and a confirmed keynote speaker at the DroneHorizon summit during Port of the Future Week 2026 in Antwerp, addressing global innovation and strategic autonomy.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Co-founder and CEO of MAHI, working on autonomous and maritime technology solutions. He is a confirmed speaker at the DroneHorizon summit during Port of the Future Week 2026 in Antwerp, addressing autonomous systems for ports.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event Organisator One of Europe’s largest ports and a hub for maritime logistics, energy and industrial innovation. It organises events including Port of the Future Week and the Breakbulk Summit, convening port authorities, technology providers and the autonomous-systems community to shape the future of port operations and breakbulk logistics.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event A three-day showcase of autonomous and sustainable port technology at Quay 102 in Antwerp, with live demos, expert sessions and international cross-port collaboration. It opens with DroneHorizon, a B2B and B2G matchmaking summit on unmanned and autonomous systems for ports and critical infrastructure, positioning Antwerp as a European testbed for future port operations.
Brussels, Belgium · Startup Belgian AI marketplace that matches homeowners with verified renovation and construction companies across Belgium. Its AI engine analyses project requirements, cross-references contractor track records, and surfaces ranked shortlists within minutes. All partner companies undergo tax and solvency verification. Invited to VivaTech 2026.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Robovision provides Industrial Vision Intelligence Infrastructure — a no-code platform that governs AI vision systems at scale across food & beverage, packaging, semiconductor and horticulture manufacturing. Rather than building one-off vision models, customers deploy Robovision to monitor, adapt and standardise all vision inspection points across multi-site operations as production conditions change. Founded in 2013 in Ghent by Jonathan Berte and Tim Waegeman, the company raised $42 M in Series A funding in 2024 led by Target Global, Astanor Ventures and Red River West, bringing total funding to $65 M. Robovision employs 130+ people and is expanding in the US and Europe.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Builds real-time plant intelligence hardware for professional greenhouse growers. Its Sensie Omni device combines direct plant feedback with root-zone and micro-climate data to optimise irrigation, ventilation and climate strategy.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Showpad is a revenue effectiveness and sales enablement platform combining AI-powered content management, readiness training, buyer engagement tools and field analytics in a single system. Founded in 2011 in Ghent by Pieterjan Bouten, Louis Jonckheere and Peter Minne, it raised $180 M over seven rounds and grew to over 2,000 enterprise customers across 50 countries. In October 2025 Vector Capital completed its acquisition of Showpad and merged it with Bigtincan to create a unified AI-native revenue effectiveness platform, with the combined entity retaining the Showpad brand. The Ghent base and global team of 500+ remain active, with a 2026 Spring Release delivered in April 2026.
Brussels, Belgium · Person Siegfried Jaeken is Managing Director for Data & AI at Accenture, one of the world's leading professional services and consulting firms with annual revenues exceeding $60 billion. In this senior leadership role he oversees Accenture's data strategy and artificial intelligence practice for European markets, guiding enterprise clients through AI-driven business transformations at scale.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Silverfin is a cloud accounting software company based in Ghent, Belgium, founded in 2013 by Joris Van Der Gucht and Tim Vandecasteele. Its connected accounting platform standardises and centralises financial data so accountants can automate compliance and reporting work and deliver advisory services more efficiently. The company operated across multiple countries with a customer base that included large accounting firms. In September 2023 the Norwegian software group Visma acquired Silverfin in a deal reported at around €300 million, one of the larger Belgian tech transactions.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event Organisator The team behind Smashing Magazine and the SmashingConf conference series for designers and front-end engineers. SmashingConf events cover design systems, AI prototyping, product design and complex user interfaces through hands-on workshops and conference sessions across European cities including Antwerp.
Antwerp, Belgium · Event A long-running design and front-end engineering conference at the Bourla theatre in Antwerp for designers and UI engineers. It covers design systems, AI prototyping, product design and complex user interfaces across hands-on workshops plus conference sessions, drawing around 500 to 600 attendees and roughly a dozen speakers.
Brussels, Belgium · Venture Capital Sofina is a Brussels-based investment holding company listed on Euronext Brussels that invests in growth-stage technology companies, consumer brands, and education platforms worldwide. With a heritage dating back to 1898, Sofina manages over $10 billion in assets and has backed major European and global companies including ByteDance, Delivery Hero, and Flixbus. The firm focuses on long-term holdings and typically invests from Series B through pre-IPO, bringing patient capital and a multi-generational investment perspective.
Wavre, Belgium · Startup Sortlist is a Belgian marketplace that connects companies with marketing, creative and digital agencies, helping businesses discover, evaluate and hire service providers. Founded in 2014 and registered in Wavre, it operates across multiple European markets. It raised an early round in 2019 with investors including Sambrinvest, and an €11 million round in 2021 backed by SRIW and The Club Deal. In 2024 the company reported reaching operational profitability, and in 2025 it named co-founder Nicolas Finet CEO alongside a new innovation lab.
Brussels, Belgium · Event Full-day national startup conference at The Egg Brussels with four stages (Founders, Investors, Service Providers, Corporates), culminating in the Belgium Startup Awards ceremony and a pitch competition with a €100,000 convertible loan prize.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Representative of Exail Robotics Belgium working on autonomous and unmanned maritime systems. He is a confirmed speaker at the DroneHorizon summit during Port of the Future Week 2026 in Antwerp, addressing autonomous robotics for ports and critical infrastructure.
Leuven, Belgium · Startup Swave Photonics has developed the world's first true holographic display chip — the HXR spatial light modulator with sub-300 nm pixels — enabling AR smart glasses, heads-up displays and 3D video walls without waveguides or varifocal lenses. Spun out of imec in Leuven in 2022 by Theo Marescaux and Dmitri Choutov, the company closed a €27 M Series A in January 2025 co-led by imec.xpand and SFPIM Relaunch, followed by a €6 M Samsung Ventures-backed follow-on in June 2025, bringing total funding to over €43 M. The chip leverages CMOS manufacturing for mass-market cost structures, targeting OEMs in AR wearables and automotive HUDs.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup Teamleader is a Ghent-based SaaS company that provides cloud software for small and medium-sized businesses, combining CRM, project management, quotation and invoicing tools in a single platform. Founded in 2012 by Jeroen De Wit, Mathias De Loore and Willem Delbare, it expanded into multiple products including Teamleader Focus for small teams and Teamleader Orbit for agencies. After raising rounds backed by Fortino Capital and Keen Venture Partners, the company was acquired by the Norwegian software group Visma in June 2022 and continues to operate under its own name.
Ghent, Belgium · Startup TechWolf is a Ghent-founded enterprise AI company building the skills inference layer that large organizations need to move from role-based to skills-based operating models. Instead of asking employees and managers to maintain a skills taxonomy by hand (which never works at scale), TechWolf ingests signals from the systems where work actually happens — HRIS, ATS, learning platforms, project-management tools, internal wikis — and uses NLP models to derive a live, probabilistic skills graph per employee. Large enterprises plug that graph into internal mobility, workforce planning, strategic sourcing, and generative-AI copilots to answer questions like 'who inside the company can staff this project?' or 'how exposed is this business unit to automation?'. The company has raised growth capital from Felix Capital and Stride.VC and counts several Fortune 500 HR and technology buyers among its clients, and has partnered with SAP SuccessFactors, ServiceNow, and Workday as an embeddable skills engine — a strategically useful position in a category now being chased by the biggest HCM vendors in the world.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Co-founder and creative lead of Smashing Magazine, the long-running publication and conference brand for web designers and front-end developers. He curates and hosts the SmashingConf series, including the Antwerp edition, focusing on UX, design systems and complex interface design.
Antwerp, Belgium · Person Award-winning designer and artist behind Happy Creative Land, known for globally recognised visual work, and a confirmed speaker at SmashingConf Antwerp 2026. She speaks on creativity, visual design and brand-led product design.