In the wake of ambitious tech start-ups, strong ecosystems are born from time to time. Galaxies of start-ups founded by their former employees, the students sometimes surpassing the masters. These are the “mafias” of tech. And there are several in Belgium…
What do Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, three global tech mega-stars have in common? They are all part of the “PayPal mafia” and have made a fortune thanks to their ambitious projects. In tech, the concept of “mafia” is well known and fascinating. These are all the former employees of very prominent start-ups who then embarked on entrepreneurial challenges by creating their own successful company. These PayPal “alumni” have launched many projects. Elon Musk dabbled in electric cars, solar panels, sending satellites, and more. Pieter Thiel believed in investing and took an early interest in Facebook, for example, while Reid Hoffman founded a social network called … LinkedIn, of which he remained CEO from 2003 to 2007.
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What do Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, three global tech mega-stars have in common? They are all part of the “PayPal mafia” and have made a fortune thanks to their ambitious projects. In tech, the concept of “mafia” is well known and fascinating. These are all the former employees of very prominent start-ups who then embarked on entrepreneurial challenges by creating their own successful company. These PayPal “alumni” have launched many projects. Elon Musk dabbled in electric cars, solar panels, sending satellites, and more. Pieter Thiel believed in investing and took an early interest in Facebook, for example, while Reid Hoffman founded a social network called… LinkedIn, of which he remained CEO from 2003 to 2007. This concept of “mafia” also finds, on its own scale, a Belgian variation. Some emblematic tech companies on our territory have also spun off and propelled a certain number of entrepreneurs. From the Mafia Netlog If we go back a little, we can mention the small Belgian lab of eBay Belgium led by Tanguy Peers, several of whose employees subsequently took on high-level functions at Airbnb worldwide, Immoweb, Veepee, etc Or the Skynet ecosystem from which emerged Bart Becks, Gilles Bindels (Radionomy, Social Lab…), Alexis Lebedoff (Facebook Belgium), Dominique Mangiatordi (Globule Bleu, Proximedia, Opp…), etc. But in the world of pure start-ups as we know them today, everything starts with the example of Netlog, this Ghent social network founded by Lorenz Bogaert and Toon Coppens which had met with great audience success. Founded in 1999, it would have, in about ten years, reached nearly 90 million users before declining and being bought out in 2011. The dynamic start-up from Ghent was clearly one of the ingredients in the popularization of a tech ecosystem in Ghent. It is indeed in its alumni that we count the founders of some of the most popular start-ups. Starting with Showpad: the Flemish star of tech start-ups is indeed a spin-off of the mobile application studio In The Pocket, launched by Pieterjan Bouten (who had been head of business development EMEA at Netlog for three years) and Louis Jonckheer (who spent just over a year at Netlog as a strategic partnership manager). But Showpad is far from Netlog’s only born star. Expense report digitization specialist Xpenditure (acquired by Sodexo in 2017), Engagor, Realo and Unix Solution are among the thirty projects resulting directly or indirectly from the Netlog ecosystem. Just that! Very recently, the successful Franco-Belgian start-up studio eFounders also did the exercise of analyzing its “footprint” among its alumni. And alongside the 34 start-ups launched by the studio (including Front, Spendesk and Aircall), no less than 46 companies were born from its mafia, founded by around forty entrepreneurs. Including nine Belgians. Among them, Simon Polet who co-founded Merchery, Vincent Ghyssens, having joined the founders of Cohabs which raised 88 million dollars to impose its trendy coliving. Or Valentin Haarscher and Naël El Berkani, founders of Easop, which raised 2.5 million dollars, or David Jeusette, co-founder of Colette.club, which completed a funding round of 3 million euros. The start-up studio has also made the exercise of totaling the total amount raised by the “mafia eFounders” to develop the various start-ups: 437 million dollars. Some sad people will point out that the studio has established the contours of its mafia in a very broad way by integrating certain entrepreneurs who have played the role of partners or consultants but without having really been part of the studio. Never mind: the dynamic is undeniable and real. If the star studio founded by Thibaud Elzière and Quentin Nickmans is proud to highlight the ecosystem that has been created around it while the studio itself has no less than three unicorns, it is to show the indirect effect of the eFounders dynamic. “Mafias are a sign of a mature ecosystem, says Quentin Nickmans, because they signal that start-up alumni have been financially rewarded by their first experience, and have then reinvested this money, but also their knowledge, in experiences. subsequent entrepreneurial ventures.” These mafias are generally not structured as such. They do not formally organize an “alumni club”, meals or any investments between “alumni”. On the contrary, “everything is very informal, confirms the co-founder of eFounders. We do not have regular contact with all the alumni as part of their project, but the network and the interpersonal links have been woven within the ecosystem and continue to exist. At least everyone has access with the network of eFounders and eFounders alumni”. And the links within the mafia are not just abstract. At the start of new projects, the “old hands” often turn to their closest network in the ecosystem to validate ideas, seek advice, or even find funding. The founders of eFounders, who also act as business angels, have thus invested in the projects of their alumni. “It is natural for entrepreneurs to turn to their inner circle, observes Quentin Nickmans. And we are all open and at their disposal to answer questions, give advice. Some projects are born in our offices and we reviewed mock-ups of one or the other. It’s very informal but very real.” The emergence of a mafia is not necessarily conditional on the phenomenal success of the company. The example of the Brussels start-up specializing in telecom data analysis Real Impact Analytics (RIA, now Riaktr) is revealing in this respect. If the young shoot founded by Sébastien Deletaille and Loïc Jacobs van Merlen has attracted media attention and investors and has experienced significant growth (more than 130 employees in top form), its resale in 2021 was not to be expected. the height of initial expectations: namely 10.4 million five years after being raised to 12 million. But never mind: the biggest success of Real Impact Analytics could well reside in “its mafia”. It is indeed from its ecosystem that some very promising tech start-ups have been born. Accountable, the accounting app for freelancers, was founded by Nicolas Quarré and Alexis Eggermont, two former Riaktr employees. The start-up, present in Belgium and Germany, employs 30 people and has already raised a total of 10 million euros. The start-ups Geopostcodes, Clair, Jetpack or even Javry were also launched by former RIA employees. Not to mention the creation of the Rosa health app by Sébastien Deletaille. We can also mention Max Parmentier, briefly spent by Riaktr (four months) who co-founded the Birdie health platform in London and raised 30 million dollars in series B from investors such as Sofina or Index Venture. If it is not the success of the company that defines the emergence of a mafia, it is probably “the spirit that reigns in the start-up, analyzes Nicolas Quarré, former Riaktr and now co-founder and CEO of Accountable. The mafia was born from the ambition of the initial project which paved the way. Loïc and Sébastien showed me, when I was 23, that you can aim big, have an international vision and set your goal of becoming a European, or even world, leader. Seven years spent in a fast-growing start-up with this ambition strongly influenced me. And gave us, for the launch of Accountable, a length ahead of the problems that we might encounter. This enabled us to anticipate a number of stages in the creation and growth of this company”. And the boss insists on the fact that the value of a mafia is real even if the alumni embark on different projects and markets, different customers or investors. “I notice a form of positive emulation in terms of ambition, continues Nicolas Quarré. And a lot of informal sharing because in addition to a similar ambition acquired in our previous experience, we share common challenges in terms of acquisition model, growth or fundraising, for example. In the network, we share the successes and the doubts that we encounter. These are friendly relations.” And sometimes financial since at the launch of Accountable, the co-founder of Real Impact Analytics, Loïc Jacobs van Merlen, invested in the project of his former employees. The value of the mafia can also come from the “marketing” that it allows to achieve. In some cases, claiming to have a prominent entrepreneurial adventure can attract attention, open doors or even give credibility to a start-up. If eFounders communicates today on the creation of its mafia, it is probably not trivial while the investment sector is struggling. “Raising funds today is proving very complicated, testifies a (successful) entrepreneur in the middle of the round table. The funds challenge us much more than before, are proving to be hyper picky, even cautious. systematically revised downwards. And not just a little.” That eFounders displays and formalizes its mafia can have a positive effect on the studio itself as well as on the entrepreneurs who come out of it. For the studio, which has a solid internal track record with its three unicorns and its 34 companies created, showing the more general impact through its mafia further reinforces the relevance of its model and in particular on the spin-offs it created: Logic Founders, specialized in fintech and 3Founders, specialized in web 3.0. Which can come in handy if the studio intends to raise funds or carry out financial transactions in the coming months. As for the start-ups of its mafia, having the “eFounders” stamp can only allow them to gain credibility and attract attention. The phenomenal and repeated success of the Franco-Belgian start-up studio is widely known and appreciated by the tech ecosystem. And not just in Europe. The founders and their teams managed to convince the biggest names in American and global investment. Needless to say, claiming to be part of the eFounders mafia is obviously a positive differentiator.
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