After a few years of lower activity the entrepreneurial environment in Belgium is working on some very nice start-ups, with the potential to become big, very big ! Just a few examples of very promising companies : Netlog, Acquia (Drupal), Clear2Pay, Flurl, Nomadesk, L&C, ….
Our little hotbed for entrepreneurs has changed a lot in the last few years : More early stage VC’s entered the market, international investors entered the Belgian market, entrepreneurs have started ambitious projects all with the vision to be a leader in their category, government created new initiatives, we start to see new forums (Barcamp, Bootcamps, Pluggs, …) to stimulate entrepreneurships, strong research centers such as IBBT, IMEC stimulate spin-offs or start-ups, …
We probably could benefit from some additional high-profile exits but I’m convinced that in the list mentioned above, there will be some (Netlog first to come ?).
What other company should be added to this list and why ?
I personally vote for a 100% success rate for any company who’s in the mentioned list. Definitely because I have a vested interest – being one of Aventiv’s founders and creators of http://www.nomadesk.com.
But also to make sure that we get enough critical mass of tantalizing roll-models in startups and entrepreneurial management teams. We’re short of winner stories that will kick a proverbial “conscience” into the heads of our local workforce that is getting more paralyzed by an ambiguous need for security.
Check out the 2007 GEM report to see Belgium’s enterpreneurial activity in the global perspective: http://www.gemconsortium.org
Now is as good a time as ever, because – honestly – starting up a business is never easy and one could argue if it should be!? Anyway, equally checkout: http://www.iwt.be, http://www.banvlaanderen.be, http://www.vinof.be to get your seed funding (YES… it will be difficult!). Then be ambitious and ready to play ball with for instance http://www.gimv.be
It is probably worth looking at Brussels based Attentio, nominated with Netlog for Red Herring 100 last year… It looks like Contact Office are also hot.
I agree that more successful high profile exits will help the process of entrepreneurship, but supportive investors and regulation really help too.
It is clear from Filip’s comment that there is some serious work required to get Belgium up the league table. When the authorities make it easier to form companies, reduce founder liability and make stock options easy when company is new, that will also help. Sometimes small changes can make a huge difference.
As an ex-VC, now advisor of both private investors and entrepreneurs, I subscribe totally to what Filip wrote.
Crisis time are GOOD TIMES to start innovating companies. You are forced to think “lean and mean” from day one, you focus on the essential and your returns must be outside of your borders.
We should definitely use this period to push “entrepreneurship” not only to young guys leaving university but also to experienced executives loosing their job from large corporations. Bringing these two together might really become a “killer cocktail”.
And on the company listed above like Netlog, Nomadesk or BlueTalk, if they are able to survive during these hard time in such a tax unfriendly region as Belgium, they will thrive once the sun starts shining again, believe me !
Luc Francis Jacobs
http://www.entrepriseglobale.biz/sujets/financement/capital-risque/