Belgian start-ups: what their accounts really say

Belgian start-ups lost €773m in their latest financial year. They had €462m in the bank to do it, and €3.6bn of capital behind them. Those three figures sum up what the annual accounts of the 325 young, venture-backed tech and biotech companies that Rovalta identified in filings with the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) have to say. The rest (announced funding rounds, valuations, unicorn league tables) is not in them. What is there is more useful: who is growing, who is burning cash, who still has headroom and who has run out.

We read the accounts of companies under ten years old working in software, data, biotech, electronics and engineering, and kept those that bear the hallmarks of venture capital: at least €1m of capital and a loss. Then we went through the well-known names one by one.

Key points

• The Belgian scene is small and concentrated: 325 companies, 3,650 jobs, two-thirds of them in Flanders. Ghent alone is home to Deliverect, Aikido, TechWolf, Lighthouse, Qargo, MRM Health and Henchman.
• The capital is being put to work: the scale-ups that raise money (Aikido, Augustine, PanTera, MRM Health) widen their losses and double their headcount in the same year. That is the model, not an accident.
• Two exits show up in black and white in the 2025 accounts: Henchman (a €93.9m profit on €9m of invested capital) and EsoBiotec (a swing into profit under AstraZeneca ownership).
• The red zone is real: John Cockerill Hydrogen (a €100m loss), Cowboy (negative equity of €43m), Spectricity, ReWind, Paleo. In every case, the balance sheet said so before the press did.
• And a few young companies already make money as they grow: Cryptobiotix, Eniris, Hive CPQ.

325 start-ups, €3.6bn

Of the 20,133 companies under ten years old active in innovation sectors that filed 2024 or 2025 accounts, only 325 combine at least €1m of capital with a loss. That is the ‘start-up’ scene as investors understand it: 1.6% of the population. The rest are IT services firms, engineering consultancies and freelancers trading through a company, profitable and without outside capital.

The 325 funded companies account for €3.58bn of subscribed capital and 3,650 full-time equivalents, eleven per company on average. Their combined loss in the latest financial year came to €773m, against €462m of cash on the balance sheet: at that rate, the Belgian scene has seven months of cash in hand, and so lives on a permanent cycle of fundraising. In 2025 these companies added €585m to their capital.

Flanders is home to 62% of the companies and 62% of the capital. Wallonia has fewer companies but burns proportionally more: €221m of losses on €525m of capital, against €413m on €2,228m in Flanders. Software leads on numbers; biotech and research lead on capital intensity.

The 2022 cohort raised the most in 2025 (€234m added): it is the year Aikido, PanTera and Swave were founded. The 2023 and 2024 cohorts are thin, with 31 and 17 funded companies: the venture capital slowdown of 2023-24 shows in the number of start-ups founded with money behind them.

Who raised money in 2025

A funding round leaves a precise trace: the increase in subscribed capital between two financial years. The table below ranks the capital increases found in the latest filings. They add up to €259.4m for these fourteen companies, and only partly match the amounts announced: a round raised in dollars, paid in several tranches or booked in a foreign parent company does not show up in the same place.

Scale-ups: growth is expensive

Eleven software and platform companies, from unicorn to contender. The pattern is the same everywhere: gross margin and headcount go up, and so does the loss. Qargo and Salonkee report a profit, but both are the Belgian entities of groups funded from abroad, so the local result says nothing about the group’s profitability. The real exception is Phished, closing in on break-even with gross margin up 3.6-fold and a shrinking loss.

• Deliverect (Ghent). The Ghent unicorn reports €41m of turnover for its Belgian entity and a loss narrowed from €19.5m to €17.8m. Belgian headcount fell from 94 to 76: growth now happens outside Belgium. Cash is comfortable, at €25m.
• Aikido Security (Ghent). The most ‘American’ set of accounts in the group: €59m of fresh capital in a single financial year, a loss that tripled to €13.9m and a Belgian headcount that tripled from 8 to 27. The company is spending to take a market, and its shareholders are paying for it.
• TechWolf (Ghent). €8.7m of turnover, a €9.8m loss, 65 staff. TechWolf burns slightly more than it bills, which is the definition of a scale-up in its investment phase. It has €3.7m left in the bank of the €40.7m raised: the next round will be played out in 2026.
• Lighthouse (Ghent). The group’s Belgian entity bills €77m and employs 179 people, but swung from a small profit to a €13.4m loss in 2024, the year of its record funding round. Its equity is negative: the financing sits at group level, not in Ghent.
• Vertuoza (Nivelles). Gross margin up 2.4 times, headcount up from 71 to 96, and a €4.8m loss. With €1.4m of equity and €0.3m of cash at the year-end, the Walloon scale-up is betting on growth without a safety net.
• Qargo (Ghent). Gross margin up 81%, headcount doubled from 28 to 52 and a profit in Belgium. But Qargo is venture-backed like its Ghent neighbours: $54m raised, including a Series B led by Sofina at the end of 2025. That money sits in the group structure, not in the Belgian entity, whose profit therefore says little about the profitability of the whole.
• Salonkee (Braine-l'Alleud). Headcount doubled to 50 on €3.8m of turnover, at break-even. Slightly negative equity and €20,000 of capital: growth is funded by the Luxembourg parent company.
• Accountable (Brussels). €8.9m raised in the year, loss widened from €5.0m to €8.1m, headcount up from 13 to 23. The Brussels fintech doubled down in 2025; it has €3.8m of cash left.
• Gorilla (Antwerp). €15.7m of fresh capital in 2024, headcount up from 33 to 42, a €4.2m loss. The 2025 accounts have not yet been filed.
• Phished (Leuven). Gross margin up 3.6 times, loss steady at €3.2m, 45 staff: the classic trajectory of a SaaS company nearing break-even.
• Keyrock (Ixelles). €31m of turnover and an €11.4m loss in the financial year to June 2024, €15m of capital added, €26m of cash. The Brussels crypto market maker lives at the pace of the market.

Deep tech and biotech

Eight companies where the money arrives before the product. The sums are on another scale: AgomAb has €300m of capital for 52 people, and Swave loses €600,000 per employee. Here turnover is almost always zero, and the only question that matters is the runway: cash divided by the annual loss.

• AgomAb Therapeutics (Antwerp). The country’s best-funded biotech: €300m of capital, €244m of equity, €73m in the bank. The annual loss, €9.6m, is modest given those resources; headcount rose from 41 to 52.
• Augustine Therapeutics (Leuven). €37m of capital added in 2025, loss up from €8.6m to €14.8m, headcount doubled to 11. With €0.7m of cash at 31 December, the Belgian entity depends on capital calls from its Series A.
• PanTera (Mol). Spun out of the Belgian nuclear research centre SCK CEN and IBA, PanTera raised a further €32m in 2025 (€122m in total), already reports €13m of turnover and halved its loss. It has €34m of cash to build its plant.
• Swave Photonics (Leuven). A €12m loss for 20 people, or €600,000 per head: the cost of semiconductor R&D. €46m raised, €18.7m still available.
• Solithor (Sint-Truiden). A €6.1m loss, €3.6m of cash, €6.9m of equity: at this rate, the Limburg company has to raise in 2026.
• MRM Health (Ghent). €28m of capital added in 2025 against a €9.5m loss and headcount cut from 30 to 23: the round went into rebuilding equity that had fallen very low.
• Classified Cycling (Antwerp). Loss cut by a third to €4.9m, headcount down from 24 to 19, €8.6m of capital added: the Antwerp manufacturer tightened costs in 2025.
• ATB Therapeutics (Marche-en-Famenne). Loss more than doubled to €8.0m, headcount up from 10 to 17, no fresh capital in 2025 and €1.9m in the bank. The biotech from Belgium’s Luxembourg province has stepped up the pace; its funding has to follow.

The exits

An acquisition shows up in the statutory accounts before any press release does: an exceptional profit, a headcount that disappears, or a gross margin that suddenly appears thanks to invoicing to the new group. There are two examples in 2025.

• Henchman (Ghent). Five years of losses, €9.3m in all, then in 2025 a profit of €93.9m and headcount down to zero. The accounts bear the mark of the acquisition by LexisNexis announced in 2024. For €9m of invested capital, it is one of the best Belgian exits of the decade.
• EsoBiotec (Mont-Saint-Guibert). Acquired by AstraZeneca in 2025, the Walloon biotech swung from a €6.9m loss to a €7.7m profit in its first financial year within the group. €15m of capital, for a deal reportedly valued at up to $1bn.

Red zone

Six companies whose balance sheets raise a question. Three signals connect them: negative equity, capital written down to absorb losses, or an annual loss larger than the cash pile with no fresh capital. None of these points to a bankruptcy; all of them point to a decision the shareholders will have to take.

• John Cockerill Hydrogen Belgium (Seraing). Close to €100m of losses for the second year running, on €14m of turnover. Capital was cut from €149m to €25m to absorb the losses, and headcount from 171 to 143. The Liège group’s hydrogen subsidiary is the single biggest source of losses on the Belgian tech scene.
• Cowboy (Brussels). €21.7m of sales, a €25.9m loss, negative equity of €43m and €0.6m in the bank at the end of 2024. The 2025 accounts have not been filed. The health score is at its floor.
• Spectricity (Mechelen). No fresh capital in 2025, an €8.7m loss, negative equity of €10.4m. The Mechelen company is living on debt or shareholder advances.
• ReWind Therapeutics (Leuven). Capital cut from €16.9m to €2.8m, headcount halved, negative equity. The signal of a biotech that has not found its next round.
• Paleo (Leuven). Capital cut from €14.0m to €7.6m to absorb losses, €2.5m of equity left and €1.2m of cash against an annual loss of €5.2m. The Leuven food-tech company has less than a year of runway.
• Bolt Energie (Brussels). €85m of turnover, a break-even result and yet negative equity of €2.7m: the Brussels supplier is growing fast (from 39 to 52 people) on a €2.5m capital base too narrow for its volume.

Quietly profitable

They appear in no league table and make money as they grow, without having added to their capital in the latest financial year. That is not to say they never had investors: Hive CPQ counts Holcim MAQER Ventures among its backers, and Eniris has already closed a funding round.

• Cryptobiotix (Ghent). €61,500 of capital, a €1.8m profit, headcount up from 9 to 16: a services biotech that turned a profit in its fourth year.
• Eniris (Ghent). Headcount doubled to 24, €4.3m of sales, a €0.8m profit, €1m in the bank.
• Hive CPQ (Ghent). Gross margin more than doubled, a €1.0m profit, 21 staff, €220,000 of capital.

How we counted

• Every company named was checked individually. Those whose main activity is not coded (Aikido, MRM Health, Keyrock) are left out of the landscape totals but appear in the named tables. A few subsidiaries of industrial groups are included in the totals (Atos, Hitachi Energy); they slightly inflate the aggregate losses.
• Turnover is optional in the abridged filing formats; where it is missing we show gross margin, which can be negative when purchases of services exceed sales. ‘Capital’ is the contributions item (capital and share premium). The accounts cover the Belgian entity, not the group.
• The amounts ‘raised’ are increases in subscribed capital between two financial years; rounds raised through convertible debt or booked abroad do not appear.

Read next: the 2026 economic report, which places these 325 companies within a population of 1.2 million legal entities.