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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.