Andy Gijbels, PhD

Syndicate One is an international network-driven fund making early-stage investments into high-potential Belgium-based and Belgian-founded tech startups. Syndicate One pools valuable expertise, a vast international network, and smart seed capital from an impressive group of experienced founders, operators and professional investors to help young Belgian startups reach the next level. Additionally, Syndicate One frequently launches targeted initiatives to strengthen Belgium’s tech ecosystem, such as the first standardised convertible note agreement fit for the Belgian market, the ‘State of Belgian Tech Report’, and industry events. In its first four years, Syndicate One has invested in two unicorns, Aikido Security and Fundamental, as well as high-growth companies like Techwolf, Conveo, Sirona Technologies, Donna, Tekst, Cosmic Aerospace, Powernaut, SAPI, Mindoo and other promising startups.

Syndicate One is an international network-driven fund making early-stage investments into high-potential Belgium-based and Belgian-founded tech startups. Syndicate One pools valuable expertise, a vast international network, and smart seed capital from an impressive group of experienced founders, operators and professional investors to help young Belgian startups reach the next level. Additionally, Syndicate One frequently launches targeted initiatives to strengthen Belgium’s tech ecosystem, such as the first standardised convertible note agreement fit for the Belgian market, the ‘State of Belgian Tech Report’, and industry events. In its first four years, Syndicate One has invested in two unicorns, Aikido Security and Fundamental, as well as high-growth companies like Techwolf, Conveo, Sirona Technologies, Donna, Tekst, Cosmic Aerospace, Powernaut, SAPI, Mindoo and other promising startups.

Start it @KBC supports and promotes innovative and scalable entrepreneurship and, with over 1000 startups, is Belgiums largest startup community. To achieve this, the community concludes partnerships with organizations and companies that adopt the same pay-it-forward mentality. This way, Start it @KBC is building an ecosystem and a dynamic network of startups, scale-ups, incubators, accelerators, mentors, VCs, supporting partners and strategic partners. Start it @KBC is constantly reshaping, expanding and improving its offering in co-creation with the startups. The community has hubs in Antwerp, Ghent, Hasselt, Leuven, Kortrijk, Brussels & Liège and is firmly committed to internationalization in Europe and the United States. Thanks to the Strategic Partners (Accenture, KBC and Start it X) and a steadily growing group of Supporting Partners, the startups can rely on vast amounts of expertise, an enormous network, business premises, mentorship and the most comprehensive custom-made Startup Academy in Belgium. Startups with an innovative business can submit all year round through the website. Two times a year, selected startup founders can pitch their business to a professional jury. For more information: www.startit.be For Start it @KBC logos and images: startitkbc.prezly.com/media

Entrepreneurs First invests in exceptional individuals to build startups from scratch. We bring together talented outliers to develop their most ambitious ideas and raise money from the world’s best investors. Since pioneering Talent Investing in 2015, we’ve learned to recognize individuals with extraordinary futures before anyone else, embedding them in a community of ambitious peers and giving them the tools they need to succeed, fast. We back them before they have a company, a team, even before they have an idea, based purely on talent. EF’s portfolio is now collectively valued at over $16B, and includes companies such as Aztec, Cleo, Magdrive, Neptune, Omnea, Opply, PolyAI, Tractable, and many more. EF is backed by some of the worlds leading founders and investors, including Founders Fund, Greylock, John Collison (founder – Stripe), Patrick Collison (founder – Stripe), Reid Hoffman (founder – LinkedIn), Eric Schmidt (former CEO - Google), Demis Hassabis (founder – Google DeepMind ), Taavet Hinrikus (founder – Wise), Matt Mullenweg (founder – WordPress), Charlie Songhurst (Board member – Meta), Christa Davies (Board member – Stripe), Lachy Groom (founder – Physical Intelligence), Aidan Gomez (founder – Cohere), Mati Staniszewski (founder – ElevenLabs), Danny Rimer (Partner - Index Ventures), Matt Cohler (former General Partner - Benchmark). We exist to make great companies happen that otherwise wouldn’t. For more information about Entrepreneurs First, visit www.joinef.com Were hiring! Join our global team and experience firsthand the workings of a globally unique talent investor working with cutting edge entrepreneurs on world changing technologies: https://www.joinef.com/about/careers

Invenira is revolutionizing vision across industries with FocusX. FocusX is a groundbreaking vision system that can capture highly detailed and entirely in-focus images at high speed. This allows companies to save costs and time in numerous applications. The technology is based on Inveniras patent-pending optical system and proprietary image processing algorithms. Is your company interested in a partnership regarding the worldwide exploitation of FocusX? Or are you interested in FocusX as a potential solution for your application? Dont hesitate to contact us!