finance&invest.brussels

The Executive Committee, chaired by CEO Pierre Hermant and Deputy CEO Béatrice de Mahieu, oversees all financing and investment decisions. The committee directs the agency's equity co-investments, loan allocations, and guarantee facilities. Operational execution is handled through specialized teams including Brusoc for social-economy micro-finance and screen.brussels for the audiovisual sector, allowing decision-making to stay close to the specific needs of each Brussels enterprise segment.

It sources through a dense local network that includes the Belgian Venturing Association, EuroQuity’s investor-company matching platform, and direct partnerships with Brussels-based startup accelerators such as Start it @KBC. The agency also runs its own outreach events — including Let’s Connect CEO gatherings and sector-specific breakfasts — and accepts direct applications via its website, where entrepreneurs submit financing requests for screening by internal teams.

It is a government agency structured as a public investment company wholly owned by the Brussels-Capital Region. Its mandate blends a regional development bank — offering loans, guarantees, and micro-credit — with an active equity co-investor that participates in venture and growth rounds alongside private funds. It is not a fund; it deploys public capital directly from its balance sheet and from European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund guarantee envelopes.

It does both. The agency commits capital to local venture funds, including a €2 million anchor to Volta Ventures II and a position in the €20 million White Fund. In parallel, it makes direct equity investments — up to €5 million per company — in startups and scale-ups such as Yago, Recovr, and Resortecs, always in co-investment structures with private financial partners.

Brusoc is a wholly owned subsidiary of finance&invest.brussels focused exclusively on very small enterprises, cooperatives, and social-economy projects. It provides micro-loans, guarantees, and a citizen-funded loan product called prêt proxi. By separating Brusoc operationally, the parent agency keeps its SME and startup investing distinct from the higher-touch, smaller-scale financing that social and cooperative enterprises require.

It spans the entire lifecycle: pre-seed and seed rounds through Brusoc’s micro-finance instruments, early-stage venture equity for tech startups via direct co-investments, and growth and maturity-stage financing for established SMEs through loans and guarantees up to €5 million. Its Recover micro-credit program also targets distressed or transitional-phase businesses needing bridge capital.

The agency does not publish a formal exclusion list, but its actual portfolio skews heavily toward enterprise SaaS, FinTech, creative industries, and circular-economy manufacturing. There is no evidence of involvement in extractive industries, defense technology, or heavy industrial manufacturing. Its public-interest mandate and close alignment with Brussels’ regional economic priorities inherently filters out sectors incompatible with local job creation and sustainability goals.