Brussels: A Buzzing Hub Of Entrepreneurship

Check out the infographic on How To Start A Startup In Brussels

Belgium is home to a vibrant, active and fast-growing startup scene. The capital city Brussels houses not only the EU Parliament, EU Commission, and the NATO but it is also a buzzing hub of entrepreneurship. Startup Weekends, Health Tech, Fin Tech and Internet of Things Hackathons, Cafés Numériques, Summits, UN conventions, Meetups, Open Coffees, and coding and business workshops are very common in every part of the country, and 33% of all the activities take part in Brussels.

Starting Up In Brussels

Advantages Of Starting A Business In Brussels:

• Brussels is the place to be to run a business with a European focus, all at a reasonable cost.
• Centre of Europe: you can have access to corporates, startup resources, and policymakers all in the same ecosystem.
• Small city: you can travel almost everywhere on a bicycle so you may want to avoid the travel costs
• Presence of the second-largest lobby services in the world, after Washington DC
• The second hub in the world for conferences with many hotels
• In less than 2 hours (driving or train) you can reach countries like France, the UK, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany
• LGBT friendly
• Highly educated people with 1 to 3 post-master degrees
• Languages: Many people speak 3 languages, and speaking 4 or even 5 is not uncommon.
• Belgium is complicated with at least 3 languages in the small country market. Belgium has been at the front of testing a product on a market. If it works in Belgium, it might work anywhere else.

What Startup Founders Have To Be Aware Of:

• Despite its high tax rate on salaries, Belgium actually offers several very attractive tax incentives, including deductions for the cost of capital, on patent income and other research-related costs, and on capital gains.
• High rental costs compared to surrounding countries – however, it is always a good idea to share houses with entrepreneurs.
• Around $1648 living costs, slightly depressing weather but great international support. We are talking about the capital of Europe here.
• There are various incentives for R&D.
• All commercial companies in Belgium are subject to corporation tax. The nominal corporate tax rate is 33.99%. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a taxable profit not exceeding €322.500, the tax rate drops to 24.98%.

Brussels’ Startup Community Is Ready For You

If the above-mentioned minor obstacles scared you off, maybe you should redirect your navigation back to the highway Corporate. If you are still in a direction Startups then let’s continue our trip and see how you can become a part of the Brussels startup community and meet those great people who can become your startup friends, co-founders, mentors or investors. Something is always up in Brussels. Your first introduction to the community will be great if you go to one of the free meetups arranged by Betagroup or by the coworking spaces like Co-Station or Betacowork. There are many more for certain but these are quite central and after-hours which means you can attend the sessions even after your work hour is over.

Find Info About Upcoming Events, Meetups & Other Occasions:

• A good first step would be to check out the upcoming events in Brussels Startup Digest and Startups.be sites. Startups.be lists all-comprehensive details about all the latest articles, news, events, etc. happening not only in Brussels but all around the country. It also promotes local tech startups to foreign markets by participating in various programs.
• #BeTech group: a facebook group of the Belgian Tech Startup community. (Very active)
• Startup Weekends Brussels community is a 54-hours event that helps teams to build a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend.

Regular Events & Meet-ups:

• Betagroup meetups are organized mostly after work hours and showcase new startup pitches.
• Fuckup Nights Brussels – this event is organized frequently and showcases business failures from entrepreneurs who share their stories. Networking afterward.
• WeStartup Member’s Nights from the westartup.eu community
• #BeTech first Tuesdays from the #beTech community
• Growth Hacking Belgium (1,220 members) – innovative ways for startups to grow
• Big Data Meetup all around Big Data, NoSQL and other data science technology
• Cafés Numériques Café Numérique is an international organization of tech gatherings between the bar and the conference. Stimulate your learning experience and enjoy meeting like-minded people.
• Brussels Positive Impact Meetup sustainable entrepreneurship in all its forms
• Virtual Reality – meet and learn about Virtual Reality software and technology

Yearly Or Major Events, Festivals, Conferences:

• Unconvention is a cross EU innovator and investor meetup event.
• Startup Weekend Brussels is a 54-hours event that helps teams to build a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend
• TEDxBrussels: Innovative products, performances on one day. TEDx concept. Networking after the event.
• Hack for Health: Health hackathon organized by Leo Exter.
• Lean Startup Machine Brussels: Lean Startup concept meetup.
• Tech Startup Day: #1 startup conference in Belgium.

Get Started In Your New Office In Brussels

Co-working Spaces In Brussels:

• #betacowork with Ramon Suarez. It’s located at ICAB Business & Technology Incubator, a technology incubator that offers great premises in a modern-looking building made to impress.
• The Loft: Business Center with People in Brussels for entrepreneurs, independents, freelancers & small companies.
• Factory Forty: Factory Forty is located in Brussels, at the heart of Europe, just a stone’s throw from the Gare du Midi and the ring road. 1200 m² of event rooms, private office spaces and open-plan coworking areas arranged around a large garden are made available to businesses and self-employed people.
• Transforma BXL: Situated near a green location, this coworking space is the newest addition to the growing number of such spaces in Brussels.

Reach Out For Financial Support In Brussels

Incubators:

• ICAB: an incubator within which also Betacowork is located. ICAB provides a one-stop space for startups.
• EEBIC: This incubator is devoted to biotechnology.
• Brussels Life Science incubator: This incubator is devoted to life science startups.

Accelerators:

• Imec.istart is the leading tech business accelerator in Belgium, ranked no.1 university-linked accelerator in Europe by UBI Global. The imec.istart program offers an initial financial injection (50,000 EUR pre-seed funding), professional coaching and mentoring, access to technology and working facilities, and access to a broad network of partners and investors.
• StartIt@KBC: free office space and expert support for early-stage startups in a wide range of areas (FinTech, Mobility, HR, Sales, Marketing, Design, Arts, Sharing Economy, Social Entrepreneurship, Entertainment & beyond)
• Start Athlon, the acceleration program of technology center Sirris, was quietly on its fifth generation. The focus is on SaaS startups who want to scale up.
• Microsoft Innovation Centre Brussels Bootcamp for Startups.
• UBIZ is a Business Development driven accelerator with a European and an African span. Its goal is to accompany startups pivoting from a product-focused organization to a sales machine. UBIZ specializes in sustainable development and tech-driven startups. It accompanies startups in their fundraising process (from 500k€ onwards) up to closing.

Grants & Subventions:

• Ecosubsibru: a website with a full list of public support (in French or Dutch only)
• Fonds Bruxellois (in French or Dutch)
• Impulse Brussels (previously abe-bao) is a Brussels agency dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs through several clusters. Many services are free as it is a public institution.
• software.brussels:  This cluster gathers more than 170 high-growth potential software companies, private & government support organizations, experts, universities and research institutions all dedicated to the Brussels software industry.

Crowd Investing Platforms:

• MyMicroInvest (they are based in Wavre (Wallonia)) The Brussels Guarantee Fund facilitates the granting of business loans in the Brussels-Capital Region by providing credit agencies a share of guarantees
• Bolero Crowdfunding: first in financial crowdfunding for startups combining funding and community marketing
• angel.me is a crowdfunding platform to finance creativity and entrepreneurs.

Angel Investors:

• Incorporated Angels use the company-builder model. Anyone can submit ideas and if they are viable then you get to be the opportunity entrepreneur/shareholder.

Venture Capital Investors:

• CVC Capital Partners: Founded in 1981, CVC Capital Partners (‘CVC’) is a leading global private equity and investment advisory firm, headquartered in Luxembourg with a network of 20 offices across Europe, Asia, and the USA
• GIMV: Gimv is a European investment company with over three decades of experience in private equity and venture capital. See more here.
• Hummingbird Ventures: Global Ventures
• INVEST: Investing in the Brussels region
• Merapar: Merapar enables innovative technology, media, and telecom companies to create value with disruptive technologies and business models.
• Merifin Capital is an experienced European private investment group with offices and executives operating in Brussels, Geneva, New York, and London.
• QAT Group: investment focusing on the family business
• Vendis Capital: Retail and Consumer brands
• Verlinvest S.A.: Since its inception, Verlinvest has focused on the consumer sector, developing solid industry expertise, track record, and networks, especially within the following areas: Food and Beverage, Retail & Hospitality and Digital & Media.
• Voltaventures.eu: The fund aims to combat the myth that the only place where high tech innovation occurs is in Silicon Valley.
• venturewise.eu is an early-stage investment fund. They invest in various stages of a company’s lifecycle.

Do Not Hesitate To Ask For Help In Brussels

• InQube is a great space to meet with women entrepreneurs and women in the frontline of startups in the EU area.
• Microsoft Innovation Centre in Brussels The Microsoft Innovation Center is a non-profit organization located in Brussels and a private-public partnership between the Brussels Region and private partners like Microsoft. Its goal is to sustain the development of the IT sector in the Brussels region with a specific focus on SaaS and Clouds technologies.

 

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The guide is crowdsourced from the #BeTech community inputs, special thanks for that! The writer is not responsible for genuinely unfounded mistakes.

Last updated: September 17, 2019

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