| Date post: | 15-Jul-2015 |
| Category: |
Small Business & Entrepreneurship |
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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 [email protected]
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
Bryan Cassady
The Founder Institute Brussels
Co-Director
+32-475-860-757
be.linkedin.com/in/bryancassady/
