12 out of 21: Start it @KBC dominates the Belgian Startup Awards 2026
The Belgian Startup Awards celebrated its second edition on June 2 at The Egg in Brussels. Over 600 people gathered to celebrate homegrown innovation. Now, if there's one number that stood out at the end of the night, it's this one: 12 out of 21 category winners are part of the Start it @KBC community.
That's more than half the podium, across all six categories: AI, B2B, Consumer, Impact, Platforms, and SaaS. It's a result that didn't come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the Belgian startup ecosystem closely, but it's still a number worth pausing on.
Our community on stage
We're proud to share that the following Start it @KBC community members were able to proudly away with a win:
- Business Startup of the Year Award: Maurice & Nora
- Live Pitch Award: noah.
- AI Startup Award: Wonka AI
- SaaS Startup Award: Driven
Congratulations to all four teams. You've earned it.
Celebrating growth
As our founder and CEO Lode Uytterschaut put it: "With Start it @KBC, we have coached more than 2,000 startups since 2014. The experience and expertise we have built up over the years means that today we are better than anyone else at assessing whether a startup will be successful, and therefore increasingly able to select the right ones. The fact that 12 of the 21 prizes today were won by 'our' startups is the best proof of that."
The founders who showed up at The Egg last Monday arrived as more than mere participants: they arrived as entrepreneurs who've been sharpening their pitch, their product and their resilience for months or years, often alongside each other.
Belgium punches above its weight in innovation. Nights like this prove it.
A night worth competing for
The Belgium Startup Awards is the country's only national awards competition dedicated entirely to startups. Now in its second year, the programme brings together founders, investors, corporates and ecosystem builders for a full day of talks, panels and pitches. The highlight of the evening is, of course, an impressive awards ceremony. This year, 51 finalists competed across the six categories after a selection process that included regional pitch sessions in Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, Charleroi and Liège.
The top prizes don't disappoint: the Consumer and Business Startup of the Year each win $100,000 in Start it @KBC accelerator services, while noah. took home a €100,000 investment from WeLoFounders, 100in and BSA organiser Nicolas Debray.
