Thinking about launching a company?

7

Reasons to start-up

in Brussels (and

Belgium)

Belgium is a lot better place to start-up than you would think…

More info: contact Bryan Cassady bryan.cassady@founderinstitute.net

The 30 second message…

Belgium is a lot better place to start-up than you would think… But the emphasis is on start-up… From day one you need to think about how to scale and if you are successful you will probably need to go outside Belgium to get “real” funding

It is easier to be unique in

Brussels …

Interest in becoming an entrepreneur …

4%

50%

http://geert-hofstede.com/belgium.html

Risk takers are rare…

Belgium is an easy place to

start - up

Start-up support

• Administrative : 3-4 days

• A wealth of gov’t subsidies

– Wallonia

– Flanders

– Brussels

– Europe

• Business angels (as good as any country)

• VC (sort of)

• More orgs to help start-up than start-ups

7

8

The first money is

(relatively) easy

What you can expect

From government sources:

• Feasibility studies: up to 75%

• Innovation center support: 50%

• Internationalization: 40-60%

Angel investors:

About the same as the rest of the world (but somewhat easier due to early matching investments)

World class talent …

• 16 high-level universities. Among them, seven are listed

top 100 World Universities.

• The highest proportion of highly-educated entrepreneurs

of any EC country (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/survey/static2008/belgium_static_en.pdf )

• Overall high capacity to innovate (10th) according to the

Global Competitiveness Report 2013 - 2014.

• University-industry collaboration is ranked 6th worldwide

A great test market

• 3 markets / 3 places to test

• Risk adverse

“ if you can sell it in Belgium you can sell it

anywhere”

• Center of the action

16

17

80% of Europe’s purchasing power lies within a

radius of 500 miles (± 800 km) from Brussels

More international organisations are located in Brussels than

Washington D.C., along with about 120 international

government organisations, 181 embassies, over 5,000 diplomats and 1,000 lobby groups.

A launch pad for

internationalization

• Belgium is the most globalized country in the world.

• Exports amount to more than 80% of national GDP

• Belgium is the 10th largest exporting country in the

world.

• Belgium ranks 5th in the their European Attractiveness

Survey for new investment projects

Source: Ernst and Young

It is (relatively) cheap

at the beginning and

the end …

Capital Gains Tax USA Held less than 2 years: 28%

More than 2 years: 20%

Capital Gains Belgium 0% (with a little planning)

Watch outs …

• Finding people ready to take the risk

• Scaling: Belgium isn’t really a market

• Multi-lingual/ multi-administration complexity

• An eco-system (make sure you’re challenged)

• Round 2 funding

28

Moving forwards

Serious about doing a start-up. Learn from the best. The Founder Institute: the world's largest entrepreneur training and startup program is now running in Brussels. If you want to know more about the Founder Institute program, check out our website www.fi.co , take a look at this short video http://tiny.cc/FIvideo or download 7 Reasons to join FI BXL http://tiny.cc/7reasonsFIBXL

Who to contact

Pieter Dubois

The Founder Institute Brussels

Co-Director

+32-472.72.45.96

be.linkedin.com/in/duboisp

pieter.dubois@founderinstitute.net

Bryan Cassady

The Founder Institute Brussels

Co-Director

+32-475-860-757

be.linkedin.com/in/bryancassady/

bryan.cassady@founderinstitute.net