Bsit and Spott are startup and scale-up of the year!

Bsit has been awarded as ‘Startup of the Year’ during The Big Squeeze (Tech Startup Day) in Brussels. Best scale-up is the interactive shopping specialist Spott. MicroFlavours gets the award for Student Startup of the Year, while e-peas is the most Disruptive Startup of the year. 

For the fourth year in a row Startups.be (together with Scale-Ups.eu) awarded Belgian top startups during The Big Squeeze (former Tech Startup Day) in Brussels. A specialist jury made up of Omar Mohout (Sirris), Simon Alexandre (The Faktory), Benny Debruyne (Trends), Renaat Berckmoes (Fortino), Isabel Michiels (Agoria) and Thibaut Claes (SRIW) compiled a shortlist of companies in four categories, and the Belgian startup community selected the winners.

“A total of 3.298 people voted, that’s a record”, explains Director of International Relations Frederik Tibau of Startups.be and Scale-Ups.eu. “It’s clear that the TBS Awards have become an important item on the tech calendar, quite a few of the nominated startups set up a whole campaign online. In a way this makes sense, because the winners of the past years have told us that a TBS Award increases the credibility of their startup with customers and investors alike.”

“A total of 3.298 people voted, that’s a record”

Bsit, the company behind the popular babysit app, has been awarded as Startup of the Year in the Egg. The Brussels startup got 33% of the votes. The AI powered analytics platform DataStories from Turnhout came second with 22% of the votes.

Ghent based into.care/Pridictiv, that built an innovative digital health app, ranks third with 15 percent of the votes, together with photo-app Neveo (15 percent) and fintech app InvestSuite (15 percent).

Spott was honored with the award for Scale-up of the Year. The interactive shopping specialist is growing fast, acquired an American competitor, and set up a joint venture with an advertising company in Brazil. A while ago, Spott also won the prize for the ‘Belgian brand of the year’.

Spott got 28 percent of the votes, while Datacamp’s data science video tutorials seduced 25 percent of the voters. Sweepbright (16 percent), Qualifio (16 percent) and Sortlist (15 percent) complete the top five.

 

Disruptive innovation

In a world that is constantly changing, it’s logical to give a lot of attention to the award for ‘Disruptive Innovation of the Year’. In this category, it’s e-peas that won the first prize, a scale-up from Mont-Saint-Guibert that makes the batteries of your IoT-devices live forever.

e-peas – that received Digital Wallonia’s Startup of the year Award in 2018 – collected 26 percent of the votes, closely followed by PixelVision (25 percent), Oncomfort (20%), miDiagnostics (17%) and Qpinch (12%).

MicroFlavours received the award for Student startup of the Year. Student entrepreneur Dario Vunckx introduced urban farming in Brussels and sells healthy microgreens to hotels and restaurants in and around the capital.

MicroFlavours convinced a staggering 35% of the voters, while the machine learning HR tech startup TechWolf followed at 29%. Spentys (15% of the votes), Broptimze (13 percent) and VOCsens (8 percent) complete the top five in this category.

Succes stories 

“We are very pleased with the winners that were chosen by the Belgian startup community,” Frederik Tibau of Startups.be explains. “That those winners are based in Flanders, Wallonia and in Brussels is the best reflexion of the fact that the startup ecosystems in all the Belgian regions are becoming more mature and have success stories to be proud of.”

“All the Belgian regions have success stories to be proud of”

“Startup of the Year Bsit proves that a Belgian B2C-concept can be successful abroad as well, and our scale-up of the year, Spott, is internationally recognized as one of the most innovative players in the e-commerce space. Disruptive Innovator of the year e-peas develops semiconductors that reduce the consumption of connected objects, and has the potential to transform whole industries, while MicroFlavours caters to the eco trend of feeding big cities with locally grown vegetables.”

Among the prizes for the winners is a free seat on one of Startups.be / Scale-Ups.eu GoGlobal missions, Huawei Mate 20 Pro devices, a fix desk for 6 months at Becentral in Brussels, a two-year expert hosting package courtesy of Combell, a 6-month seat at the Belcham offices in New York, and many more.

The Big Squeeze is proudly powered by Huawei, DXC Technology, Innoviris, EY, Cresco, Exellys, PwC, Workero, DLA Piper and Beyond Law Firm. The event is also supported by imec.iStart, WSL, Orange Fab, WATT Factory, The Birdhouse, Start it @KBC, VOKA Bryo, VOKA Accelero, BeCentral, Netwerk Ondernemen, hub.Brussels, Guberna and Reseau Entreprendre Bruxelles.