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Metro area · Europe

Ghent

Metro area · Belgium · Pop. 400K

A public taster of the full Ghent ecosystem on Dealroom — request a demo for live deal flow, founder pedigrees, AI-talent maps, and the full cap table for every company below.

$65.2B+67%
Combined startup EV
$237.7M
VC invested (last 12mo)
318
Tracked startups
🦄 Unicorns
6
6 live · +0 new in 2025 (incl. 0 new decacorns)
💎 Decacorns
1
$10B+ tier
🐎 Thoroughbreds
4
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Enterprise value · 2015–2025

Ghent grew 46.6× since 2015

Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in Ghent that's still operating today — public and private companies combined, totalled by founding-year cohort.

0 $17.5B $35B $52.5B $70B Ghent · $65.2B 2015 2018 2021 2024 2025

Adjacent cities by EV

Startup funnel

Ghent's power-law funnel

From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.

Pre-Seed
55
Seed
80
Series A
54
Series B
15
Series C
17
Unicorn
5
Decacorn
1

* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.

Notable companies

Top private companies in Ghent

Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.

Decacorns $10B+ valuation 1
argenx
Unicorns $1B+ valuation 5
Aikido SecurityDeliverectLighthouseTeam.blueAblynx
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 3
argenxEnergyVisionAblynxLighthouse

Academia

Ghent's academic flywheel

Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Ghent.

University-linked startup formation
157
University spinouts
531
Total alumni-founded companies
410
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
93
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
28
Scaleups ($100M+)

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How Ghent stacks up

Peers chosen from the same country (Belgium), sized closest to Ghent by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.

Combined enterprise value
Ghent
$65.2B
$13.4B
$5.6B
$3.7B
$1.7B
EV growth (5-yr ×) vs current EV

Top overview

Belgium — top cities

Top cities in Belgium ranked by combined EV. Ghent's row is highlighted.

# Ecosystem Combined EV 5-yr EV growth Unicorns VC invested Tracked startups
1 Ghent $65.2B 13.0× 6 $237.7M 318
2 Brussels $13.4B 7.5× 3 $138.5M 384
3 Antwerp $5.6B 1.4× 1 $119.1M 357
4 Leuven $3.7B 8.4× 0 $111.6M 109
5 Liège $1.7B 4.4× 0 $32.9M 103

Premium analytics

What we don't show on this page (yet)

Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full Ghent dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where Ghent's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
Ghent's domestic vs foreign capital mix
% domestic VC by stage
Cross-border lead investors
Sovereign-fund participation
Foreign-LP exposure
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Recent momentum
Ghent's VC investment trajectory by stage
2024 vs 2025 by stage
Round-size trends
Stage-conversion deltas
Quarterly velocity
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Founder origins
Where Ghent's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
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AI talent
Top employers of AI talent in Ghent
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in Ghent
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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