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Europe · Country profile

Belgium

Europe · Pop. 11.9M · #20 startup ecosystem by EV

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

$106B+48%
Combined startup EV
$900.8M
VC invested (last 12mo)
1,871
Tracked startups
#21/ 67
Unicorns per 1M people · world rank
🦄 Unicorns
12
12 live · +1 new in 2025 (incl. 0 new decacorns)
💎 Decacorns
1
$10B+ tier
🐎 Thoroughbreds
19
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Enterprise value · 2015–2025

Belgium grew 12.9× since 2015

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

0 $50B $100B $150B $200B Belgium · $106B 2015 2018 2021 2024 2025

Adjacent ecosystems by EV

Startup hubs

Inside Belgium: top 7 startup hubs

Sub-national ecosystems ranked by combined enterprise value, paired with their 5-year growth multiplier.

By enterprise value
1 Flanders $78.6B
2 Ghent $65.2B
3 Wallonia $14.2B
4 Brussels $13.4B
5 Antwerp $5.6B
6 Leuven $3.7B
7 Liège $1.7B
By 5-yr EV growth
1 Ghent 13×
2 Leuven 8.4×
3 Brussels 7.5×
4 Flanders 7.3×
5 Wallonia 6.3×
6 Liège 4.4×
7 Antwerp 1.4×

Startup funnel

Belgium'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
370
Seed
386
Series A
251
Series B
107
Series C
45
Unicorn
11
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 Belgium

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 11
LighthouseKeyrockAblynxOdooAikido SecurityCollibraDeliverectGalapagosTeam.blueI-careBureau van Dijk
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 17
argenxGalapagosOdooEnergyVisionI-careLineasCollibraNewpharmaLoop EarplugsOtaryAblynxLife SuppliesLighthouseLampirisContinental Foods Belgium SAAccent Jobs for PeoplePro-unityVoxbone

Academia

Belgium's academic flywheel

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

University-linked startup formation
669
University spinouts
1,910
Total alumni-founded companies
1,436
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
376
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
98
Scaleups ($100M+)

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How Belgium stacks up

Peers chosen from the same Europe cluster within ±70% of Belgium's combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size for the wider continent — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.

Combined enterprise value
$347B
$286B
$214B
$141B
Belgium
$106B
$106B
$98.4B
$78.9B
EV growth (5-yr ×) vs current EV
peer median 5.4× 2.1× 21.3× 40.5× $10.8B $113B $1.2T EV growth (5yr ×) Combined enterprise value (log) United Kingdom France Germany Netherlands Sweden Switzerland Denmark Belgium

Top overview

Europe ecosystems — combined view

Top ecosystems in Europe ranked by combined EV. Belgium's row is highlighted.

# Ecosystem Combined EV 5-yr EV growth Unicorns VC invested Tracked startups
1 United Kingdom $1.2T 4.6× 211 $24.1B 20K
2 France $414B 5.6× 65 $8.4B 9,082
3 Germany $410B 4.0× 86 $8.3B 8,710
4 Netherlands $347B 2.7× 39 $3.2B 3,887
5 Sweden $286B 5.5× 56 $3.5B 3,215
6 Switzerland $214B 3.5× 47 $4.3B 3,003
7 Denmark $141B 4.3× 23 $1.8B 1,659
8 Belgium $106B 7.2× 12 $900.8M 1,871
9 Ireland $106B 4.9× 24 $1.2B 1,959
10 Spain $98.4B 5.4× 17 $3.4B 4,529
11 Finland $78.9B 3.9× 10 $2.2B 1,726
12 Russia $69.3B 3.2× 11 $1.7B 1,718

Patent intelligence

Belgium startup IP portfolio: 6,012 patent families

Granted patent families assigned to startups headquartered in Belgium. Aggregated across the country's hub-level filings — Bay Area, Boston, etc. roll up under the United States row, the same way Tokyo and Osaka roll up under Japan.

Granted patent families
6,012
Filed by tracked startups headquartered in the country.
506 patents per million residents · #22 globally
Top patenting hubs
1 Brussels 2,246
2 Leuven 1,953
3 Antwerp 1,285
4 Ghent 528

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 Belgium dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where Belgium's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
Belgium'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
Belgium'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 Belgium'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 Belgium
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in Belgium
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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