Bankloch

  Belgium loves underestimating itself. Ask almost any Belgian entrepreneur about the country’s business climate and the reaction is often immediate: taxes are too high, regulation too complex, labour too expensive, venture capital too limited, the market too small…​ We compare ourselves to Silicon Valley and conclude we are hopelessly behind before the conversation has even properly started. In the United States, founders supposedly build billion-dollar companies in garages before breakfast. In Belgium, we are still scheduling a steering committee to determine whether the garage complies with zoning regulations. And yet, beneath all that national pessimism, Belgium has quietly built one of Europe’s more impressive technology ecosystems . Not loudly or theatrically. Belgium rarely dominates startup headlines or founder culture online. But while the country kept doubting itself, something significant happened in the background: Belgium started producing globally relevant tech co...