KBC Group said it is investing €100 million through Start it @KBC to strengthen Belgium’s startup ecosystem, pairing the accelerator’s equity-free program with a new funding track that includes early-stage checks and the potential for later-stage follow-on financing via KBC Securities.
The announcement, published December 9, 2025, centers on the launch of the Start it Fund, a new vehicle managed by Start it itself designed to invest in top-performing companies emerging from the Start it program. KBC said the fund was created in response to long-standing founder demand for early-stage capital from partners who have already worked closely with startups during the accelerator journey.
Start it @KBC, launched in 2014, supports more than 150 scalable young companies each year and has coached more than 1,900 startups in total, according to KBC. The accelerator’s model is built around coaching, community, and access to networks, and KBC said the added investment capability is intended to extend its support beyond guidance and introductions and into capital.
Under the structure described by KBC, Start it @KBC will maintain its “no equity” approach throughout the program, while the Start it Fund will invest at the end of the one-year program, only in a small subset of the most competitive applicants. KBC said the fund targets the best 1% of applications and that startups are free to accept or decline the financing. The fund is expected to invest an average of €300,000 in early-stage companies, with higher amounts possible depending on a company’s needs and maturity.
For companies that outperform after receiving early-stage backing, KBC Securities will offer a potential follow-on path of up to €5 million. The bank described this as a way to address what it sees as a limited pool of Belgium-based funding options for startups seeking to scale after the earliest phase, while also adding corporate finance support that can include growth financing, mergers and acquisitions advice, and guidance toward a public listing.
KBC also detailed how the accelerator plans to select investment candidates, pointing to a combination of close personal follow-up with founders during the program and data analysis derived from more than 1,900 startups that have participated. The organization said it is using that proximity to make investment decisions based on observed execution, learning velocity, and resilience, rather than relying primarily on pitch materials or surface-level signals.
To illustrate the broader impact of the Start it ecosystem to date, KBC said that among the 1,923 startups it has supported since 2014, 227 have raised more than €1 million and 122 have raised more than €2 million. In aggregate, KBC said participants have raised more than €1.1 billion and created more than 12,000 jobs. The bank also cited recent exits involving DESelect and Segments.ai, and pointed to an international benchmark that it said shows a higher five-year survival rate for Start it startups compared with venture-backed peers.
KEY QUOTES:
“Start it @KBC was created 11 years ago within KBC — from the same entrepreneurial DNA our organisation is made of. What started as a small initiative has grown into Belgium’s largest start-up ecosystem. Entrepreneurship is in our genes: KBC was co-founded by entrepreneurs and encourages innovation both outside and inside the organisation. Today, we are one of the most innovative and digitally driven banks in the world, and our close collaboration with Start it @KBC fuels that ambition every day. With the new fund, we can now truly guide founders from idea to IPO: we support them not only with knowledge and networking, but also with capital tailored to their growth ambitions. As such, together we are building an ecosystem where innovation, entrepreneurship and international ambition are central. Our mission? To give entrepreneurs every opportunity to develop into the global players of tomorrow.”
Johan Thijs, CEO, KBC Group
“Annually, around 1,000 start-ups apply for our programme, a number that continues to grow year after year. This allows us to be increasingly selective and keeps raising the level. For eleven years, we have been building an ecosystem with founders, for founders. We already had coaching, community and a European ecosystem; only one thing was still missing: investing in the early stages ourselves. No, we are filling that gap, at the request of the founders themselves, and in our own founder-centric way”, says Lode Uytterschaut, founder and CEO of Start it @KBC.
“On top of the capital, we offer an extra year of support within Start it @KBC. This gives us an extra year’s time to match founders with our large national network of alumni who have followed the same path or successfully completed an exit,” Lode Uytterschaut continues.
Lode Uytterschaut, Founder and CEO, Start it @KBC
“After the early-stage investment phase, the number of funds in Belgium for those who want to grow is limited. With this new capital, we want to create a platform to help those top-tier start-ups grow into stable scale-ups,” says Tim Derycke, Head of Investment Services & KBC Focus Fund at KBC Securities.
“At KBC Securities, we not only offer follow-on financing, but also access to the venture capital experience and technological expertise of our investment team. In addition, KBC Securities also provides added value in the further growth of companies: from M&A advice and financing solutions up to guidance in going public. With this integrated approach, we offer founders a unique ecosystem of guidance and financing – an offering that is unrivalled in Belgium.”
Tim Derycke, Head of Investment Services & KBC Focus Fund, KBC Securities
“The best investment decisions don’t come from pitch decks or superficial signals, but from proximity. Traditional investors miss out on opportunities because they are too strongly influenced by superficial parameters and have relatively little contact with the founders. We follow them closely for a year and see that it is often teams with an atypical profile that build strong and successful companies.”
“We see who is really making progress, learning quickly and persevering in the face of adversity. These are the best predictors of future success, and thanks to this close collaboration, we can invest based on what really matters, not on labels. This also gives founders who are underestimated elsewhere a fair chance to show what they are worth.”
Andy Gijbels, CTO, Start it @KBC
