Start it @KBC

Start it @KBC is an intensive, challenging and founder-centric one-year acceleration program, built by startups for startups. We ask that you take part in the full program from beginning to end, along the timeline shown above.

In a word: NOTHING! That's right: no money, no shares, no special rights for mentors or partners. We are the one and only no-strings-attached startup accelerator in Belgium.

We’re there for startups in all industries, at all stages of growth. From ideation to scale-up, we will support your company.

No. We prefer English as this is the common language within our accelerator program. Meetings with your business coach or mentor can be in the language of your choice but overall program communication as well as academy sessions will be in English.

Innovative for us means that there is something that will give you a cutting edge. This something can be a design, business model, technology, or another business asset that is not used in Belgium for that specific market, audience, problem, or solution.

Examples:
- It can be an innovation in the context of product, technology, business model
- A development of products, services, (production) processes, new to your market;
- A new technology or methodology first applied in your market.
- A new business model as the first to be applied in your market.
It has to be new enough to have the potential to kill competition if played right, or at least conquer a chunk of the market. The startup may have to apply an iterative process of validation, building, testing.

The deadline for applications is February 25th 2025 at midnight. Starting from the 26th of February, a review team will start reading all the files and scoring them on 'our' criteria (completeness of file, innovation, scalability, "program fit", team,...). The review team will select a maximum of 150 people to be invited for Pitchday. Around the 11th of March, you can expect an invitation or a feedback mail from us.

Pitchdays will take place on March 19th and 20th and will be organised live in our office in Antwerp. You get 3 minutes for your presentation, followed by a 12-minute question round from the jury. After these 15 minutes, you leave the room and the jury gets another 5 minutes for discussion and feedback.

You do not have to block an entire day, we will assign you a time slot on one of the 2 days (but it is wise to block both days already in your calendar now because we can’t be sure we will be able to switch you to another slot if necessary)

No, you can't. We want to get to know your company, but we also want to get to know the person behind the company, to feel your energy, enthusiasm, and drive,... We can't get that from slides. Plus, looking at aprox. 150 pitch decks gets a bit boring after a while, to be honest...

The Start it @KBC team, our partners, our mentors and everybody present in a jury or board room, has signed an NDA. Your secrets are safe with us!

It is possible, but know that it is going to be difficult. We want you to be committed to your startup 200% and at the first official update (3 months into the program, at the Boardroom session), we will expect you to have reached a certain level. And then you will have to jump… + mandatory academy sessions/OKRs, community events, ...

Being the only no-strings-attached startup accelerator on the Belgian market also means that we don't invest in 'our' startups ourselves. We will however show you how to get funding and how to get the right fin mix for your specific needs.

We have a lot of partners that we can refer you to for all your questions (accounting, legal, financial,...). Check out the partner page on our website for more info. Important: it is not obligatory to become a client/customer of one of our partners.