Venture capital: Belgium is defending itself well

Financial obstacles

There are obviously many reasons for this. One explanation is the relative weakness, compared to the United States, of venture capital, particularly in the financing of start-ups.

A study recently conducted by the European Patent Office (EPO) provides interesting insight into this issue. “Start-ups play a crucial role in commercialising disruptive ideas with high potential. However, as Mario Draghi’s report highlights, many innovative companies face financial obstacles to developing in Europe,” explains Antonio Campinos, President of the EPO, quoted in the press release. “This funding gap hinders the transformation of innovation into growth-oriented start-ups, forcing entrepreneurs to seek opportunities abroad. Closing this gap is essential to revitalising sustainable growth in Europe.”

To see things more clearly, the EPO has developed a new indicator called the Technology Investor Score (TIS): the latter measures “the percentage of companies in an investor’s portfolio that have filed a patent application”. Which obviously gives an idea of ​​the willingness of these investors to grow start-ups that file patents.

What does it show? The study reveals that 88% of European investors have portfolios that include patented companies. Better still: 8% of them have portfolios in which more than half of the invested companies hold patents.

And Belgium? “Just behind Switzerland, Belgium has the second highest average TIS, which reflects a financing landscape where investors have a greater stake in technology companies. From 2000 to 2023, Belgium alone recorded 559 investors with a portfolio of at least 10 companies operating in the three countries, responsible for 3,127 transactions, for total financing of approximately 6.4 billion euros. Belgium therefore ranks 10th in Europe in terms of the number of transactions and investors,” the EPO further emphasizes. This rather flattering picture for our country may seem quite surprising in light of the more severe findings drawn up elsewhere by other players in Belgium’s tech ecosystem. The EPO does not specify the technological sectors studied, but we know that in the health sector (biopharma, biotech, medtech, healthtech, etc.), patent filings are, for example, legion.

Start it@KBC in the lead

The top 5 of the most important technology investors in Belgium by number of transactions over the period 2000-2023 include the incubator Start it@KBC, the start-up accelerator Imec.istart (specialising in nanotechnology and digital technology), Participatiemaat-schappij Vlaanderen (PMV), followed by public entities specialising in technology financing such as the European Innovation Council and the Eurostars programme for SMEs.

In absolute figures, the United Kingdom, France and Germany are in the lead in terms of total financing and number of transactions, with a strong presence of investors in the technology sector.

V. S.

Outgoing Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Imec CEO Luc Van den Hove during a visit to the Imec research centre in Leuven.