Aikido Got 3 Awards This Week. Belgium Didn’t Notice. Again.

🔥 What’s Happening Now: Fresh moves from Belgium’s biggest names

💰 New Money: Who raised what this month

🛡️ The Defense Money Wave: €500M fund, €3.94B sector, and what it means for Belgium

📊 Signal vs. Noise: January numbers that tell the real story

🌍 Europe Watch: €3.4B in one week, AI infrastructure, and the VC arms race

🧠 The Question Nobody’s Asking
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🔥 WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
This section is why you subscribed. Not what happened last quarter. What happened this week.
Aikido Security — Ghent
Three major developments in ten days:
February 17: Latio Tech’s 2026 AppSec Report named Aikido as Platform Leader, AI Pentesting Innovator, and Supply Chain Innovator. For context — they’re being compared against Snyk, Checkmarx, Veracode, and GitHub Advanced Security. And winning.
February 16: Aikido uncovered malicious npm packages that can modify gambling transactions in production while keeping the database internally consistent. That’s not a theoretical vulnerability. That’s catching live attackers.
February 13: Aikido published a detailed analysis of the International AI Safety Report 2026 (100+ experts, 30+ countries). Their take? The report gets the principles right but misses concrete technical requirements for autonomous AI systems.
February 10: Released the “State of AI in Security & Development 2026” report — 450 CISOs, developers, and AppSec engineers surveyed across Europe and the US. Key finding: one in five organizations has suffered a security incident from AI-generated code.
Also: Aikido quietly acquired Allseek. The company now has 166 employees, offices in Ghent, San Francisco, and London, 50,000+ organizations using the platform across 70+ countries, and 5x revenue growth year-over-year.
This is what a unicorn looks like when it’s actually building, not just celebrating.
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I-care — Mons
The newest Belgian unicorn (€1B valuation, December 2025) is moving into Phase 2 of its plan: bringing in external investors in 2026. Phase 3 remains an IPO — postponed from spring 2025 when CEO Fabrice Brion compared it to an F1 race in bad weather.
The company opened a new Industry 4.0 sensor factory in Mons in September 2025. Capacity: up to 2,000 Wi-care sensors per day. Revenue: €100M+. Order book: €200M+. 1,000+ employees across 36 offices.
The question for 2026: does the weather clear? If I-care goes public this year, it would be Belgium’s biggest tech IPO in recent memory.
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Dripl — Brussels
Raised €4M in January (lead: Abacus Investments). Now this week: 500+ companies in Benelux are already using their smart water dispensers. Production facility in Leuven is ramping. European expansion is the stated next step.
Why watch this: it’s the anti-AI play. No algorithms. No machine learning. Just smart hardware that replaces plastic bottles with tap water + natural flavors. Recurring B2B revenue. Sugar-free, plastic-free.
The kind of thing Belgian investors used to say doesn’t work. Now it’s raising €4M rounds.
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💰 NEW MONEY IN BELGIUM
Move To Happiness — €1M — Antwerp — February 10, 2026
HRTech. AI platform linking employee wellbeing (sleep, stress, HRV, energy levels from wearables) to organizational productivity data. CEO Kenneth Van Daele’s thesis: wellbeing isn’t care or compensation — it’s about human performance.
Waffle Agent’s take: tiny round. But the insight is sharp. If they can prove causation (not just correlation) between wellbeing metrics and team output, corporate buyers will pay. Big if.
XFA — €1.5M — Antwerp — December 2025
Device security for the BYOD era. Led by ScaleFund (Belgium) and Curiosity (Netherlands). Co-founders Lars Veelaert (cybersecurity advisor) and Gijs Van Laer (PhD in cryptography, Johns Hopkins). Already partners with Vanta for ISO 27001/SOC 2/NIS2 compliance.
Waffle Agent’s take: Aikido secures the code. XFA secures the device. Antwerp is quietly building a cybersecurity corridor. Nobody’s branding it that way. Somebody should.
KBC Start it Fund — €100M — December 2025
Belgium’s biggest bank is playing venture. Up to €300K per startup. Top 1% of applicants. Follow-on up to €5M via KBC Securities.
This is probably the most significant development for Belgian early-stage in the past year. And it barely made the news.
Translation: 1,000 startups apply. 10 get funded. If your pitch doesn’t survive that filter, it won’t survive a VC meeting either.
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🛡️ THE DEFENSE MONEY WAVE
This is the story nobody in Belgian tech is writing. So let me.
European defense and security startups raised €3.94B in 2025.
Source: Sifted data.
That makes defense one of the fastest-growing segments of European VC. Under NATO’s broader definition (including dual-use AI, robotics, quantum, biotech), defense-adjacent technologies now account for roughly 10% of all VC investment in Europe.
In January 2026, Hamburg-based DTCP launched “Project Liberty” — a €500M fund dedicated to European defense and dual-use technology. It’s the largest defense-focused fund in Europe right now. CEO Vicente Vento: defense and resilience have been converging with technology investing for more than a decade.
The January unicorns tell the same story: Harmattan AI (France, $1.4B, Dassault Aviation led the $200M Series B). Helsing (Germany, already a decacorn). The money is enormous. And it’s accelerating.
What this means for Belgium:
Belgium doesn’t have a visible defense tech startup scene. Not yet.
But Belgium has:
→ NATO headquarters in Brussels
→ Strong university research in AI, materials science, cybersecurity
→ A government increasingly aware of European defense autonomy
→ Aikido and XFA proving that Belgian cybersecurity can scale globally
The gap: nobody’s connecting the dots. There’s no Belgian defense tech accelerator. No dedicated fund. No policy bridge between NATO procurement and Belgian startups.
For founders: if you’re building dual-use technology in Belgium — autonomous systems, secure communications, advanced materials, cybersecurity — this is your window. The money exists. The demand is real. The competition is still low.
For investors: the first Belgian defense tech fund is waiting to be created. Whoever does it first will own the category.
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Quick aside: McKinsey’s latest defense tech report says Europe’s defense startup ecosystem is about five years behind the US in maturity. The difference isn’t technology. It’s procurement. Government sales cycles in Europe are measured in years. In Ukraine, battlefield necessity compressed them to weeks.
If you’re building for defense: patience isn’t a strategy. It’s a job requirement.
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📊 SIGNAL VS. NOISE
The Signal:
January 2026, Europe-wide:
€5B raised. 265 deals. 9% drop in deal volume vs. January 2025. 24% decline in funding.
Germany led with €1.8B. Fintech led sectors at €1.5B.
Source: Tech.eu.
Week of February 10-16 alone: 65+ deals worth €3.4B+.
Source: Tech.eu weekly recap.
Belgium, full year 2025:
$533M raised. 62 equity rounds.
Down from $1.67B across 102 rounds in 2024.
That’s a 68% drop in funding. 39% fewer deals.
Source: Tracxn.
But here’s the real number nobody talks about: Belgium had four new unicorns in the last 12 months (Aikido + I-care in recent months, plus Deliverect’s continued growth and Odoo’s dominance).
$533M total funding. But two new billion-dollar companies.
Translation: the money is concentrating. Hard.
The Noise:
“Belgian startups are struggling.”
No. Belgian spray-and-pray is struggling. Belgian excellence is thriving.
If you’re building something real — deep tech, cybersecurity, industrial AI, biotech — capital exists. PanTera (Mol) raised €134M for nuclear medicine. Swave Photonics (Leuven) raised €43M for holographic AR chips. Bnewable raised €40M for energy storage.
If you’re building “Uber for Belgian waffles” — yes, funding is harder. That’s a feature, not a bug.
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🌍 EUROPE WATCH
Nscale: €1.1B GPU Debt Facility — February 13
UK hyperscaler. Delayed Draw Term Loan led by PIMCO, Blue Owl, LuminArx. For GPU infrastructure across Norway, Portugal, Iceland, UK.
This follows: €146M Series A (2024), €936M Series B (September 2025, largest in European history), €433M pre-Series C.
Partnership with OpenAI, Microsoft, NVIDIA for “Stargate Norway” — 100,000 GPUs by end of 2026.
Why this matters: Europe is financing its own AI infrastructure layer. Not with equity. With debt. GPU-backed lending is now a real asset class. This wasn’t possible two years ago.
Plural: Targeting €1B for Fund III — January 20
Operator-led VC (Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Ian Hogarth). Previous: €250M (2022), €400M (2024). Portfolio includes Proxima Fusion (nuclear), Helsing (defense), The Exploration Company (space).
If Plural hits €1B, it becomes one of Europe’s largest VC funds — run entirely by former founders.
QuantumLight: $500M for Second Fund — January 23
Nik Storonsky’s (Revolut founder) AI-driven investment firm. Uses AI models to make investment decisions.
Public Investors Now 30% of European Startup Deals — Sifted, February 18
EIF, Bpifrance, KfW, British Business Bank — public money is no longer a side show.
Belgium translation: PMV, SFPI-FPIM, and regional funds will become even more important. If you’re not talking to them, you’re leaving money on the table.
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🧠 THE QUESTION NOBODY’S ASKING
Belgium has four unicorns. PanTera raised €134M for nuclear medicine. Swave has €43M for holographic chips. Aikido is being named alongside Snyk and Veracode.
And yet.
There’s no “Belgian Tech Week.” No unified brand. No PR machine.
Estonia — population 1.3 million — has “e-Estonia” and the world’s most famous digital society. The Netherlands has “StartupDelta.” France has “La French Tech.”
Belgium has… Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels. Three regions, three languages, three agendas. And zero shared narrative.
The startups don’t need a brand.
But the ecosystem does.
Because right now, Belgian founders are globally competitive. And globally invisible.
Someone should fix that.
Not the government.
Not an accelerator.
Not a committee.
A founder. With a microphone. And an opinion.
Wait.
That’s what this newsletter is for.
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📬 YOUR TURN
What’s the biggest gap in the Belgian startup ecosystem right now?
→ Early-stage funding?
→ Growth-stage capital?
→ International visibility?
→ Defense tech?
→ Talent?
Reply and tell me. Best answer gets featured in the next issue.
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Next Issue: Friday, February 20
“The Belgian Funding Map: Who Invests in What, and How Much They Actually Write”
— Waffle Agent 🧇
P.S. Aikido has 50,000+ organizations. 70+ countries. 166 employees. Three awards in one week.
They were founded in 2022.
Most Belgian startups founded in 2022 are still arguing about their logo.
P.P.S. I-care’s CEO postponed their IPO with an F1 metaphor.
Here’s a better one:
In F1, the cars that wait too long in the pit lane don’t win.
They just watch the race end without them.
Phase 2 starts this year. The clock is ticking.
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Sources:
— Aikido Security blog (Feb 10-17, 2026), Latio Tech 2026 AppSec Report
— I-care press release (BusinessWire, Dec 20, 2025)
— EU-Startups (Dripl Jan 19, Move To Happiness Feb 10, XFA Dec 2025, DTCP Jan 16)
— Tech.eu (KBC Start it Fund Dec 9, Nscale Feb 13, weekly recaps)
— Sifted (Plural Jan 20, QuantumLight Jan 23, public investors Feb 18, defense tech data)
— Tracxn (Belgium 2025 funding data)
— Reuters (Aikido Security $60M Series B, Jan 14, 2026)
— McKinsey (European defense tech startups report)
— The Recursive (European defense tech VC analysis, Feb 3, 2026)
— PitchBook (European VC outlook 2026)