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Sofico Investments
Sofico was founded in 1988 in Gent, Belgium, by Gémar Hompes and Piet Maes, who remain on the board today. The firm’s primary business is the Miles...
Sofico Investments
Sofico was founded in 1988 in Gent, Belgium, by Gémar Hompes and Piet Maes, who remain on the board today. The firm’s primary business is the Miles Microservices Platform, a mission-critical contract-management system used by OEM captives, independent lessors and fleet operators across more than 40 countries. That operating company — with its 600-plus professionals and 13 offices — generates the capital and conviction for a venture-investment program concentrated on the technology rails of automotive finance. The investment strategy maps directly to Sofico’s proprietary vantage point inside mobility back-offices. It targets early-stage companies building software for contract origination, credit decisioning, fleet telematics integration and mobility payments — essentially the middleware that sits around its own platform. The firm participates in direct early-stage rounds and signals a preference for ventures where Sofico’s distribution reach or integration capability can accelerate market access. Confirmed regional footprints span Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Australia. In 2024, the Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (BVA) recognized Sofico with its Private Equity Award, signaling a public step into a more formalized investment posture. The firm operates without a disclosed AUM or a separate fund structure; capital appears to flow from the corporate parent’s balance sheet and the founders’ reinvestment capacity. Leadership transitioned in 2025, when Wim De Bruyne assumed the CEO role and Clive Brett became CTO, a move designed to scale global expansion while the founders retain board oversight. An additional board perspective comes from Yves Bonnefont, former Chief Software Officer at Stellantis, deepening the firm’s ties to automotive OEM thinking. The BVA award in 2024 marked the first public validation of its investment program as a distinct activity. The structural differentiator is the capital source itself: an operating company’s recurring revenue and the founders’ locked-up wealth deployed into the innovation layer that extends the core platform’s lifespan. There is no external LP pressure, no formal fundraising cycle, and no separation between the technology builder and the technology investor — a model closer to a permanent-hold ecosystem bet than a standard corporate venture arm.
General information
Firm type
Corporate Investor
Year founded
1988
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Europe
Country
Belgium
City
Gent
Corporate office
Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 84, 9052 Gent, Belgium
Additional offices
Australia · France · Germany · Japan · Mexico · Portugal · Spain · The Netherlands
Principals
Gémar Hompes
Co-Founder, Board Member
Piet Maes
Co-Founder, Board Member
Altss tracks 3 additional named team members for this firm — including direct investment leads, IR, and operating principals not listed on the public website.
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Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Sofico Investments?
Investments are steered by the firm's co-founders, Gémar Hompes and Piet Maes, who remain on the board and are the primary decision-makers for deploying corporate and personal capital. With the 2025 appointment of Wim De Bruyne as CEO, day-to-day corporate governance shifted, though the investment strategy remains tightly linked to the founders’ long-term product vision.
How does Sofico Investments source proprietary deal flow?
Sofico gains visibility into early-stage companies by observing the integration needs of its 270-plus ecosystem of automotive finance and leasing operators. Deals often surface through the firm’s delivery teams, who encounter startups building the adjacent payments, credit-decisioning, and telematics layers that bolt onto its Miles platform.
Is Sofico Investments a single-family office or a corporate venture arm?
It operates as a corporate investor funded by the balance sheet of Sofico N.V., the operating software company. While Hompes and Maes are the economic beneficiaries, the structure takes its cues from the operating business rather than from family-wealth administration — it has no external LP commitments and no fund cycle.
Does Sofico participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?
All known investment activity points to direct early-stage and venture positions. The firm does not publicly report commitments to external venture funds, and its BVA recognition in 2024 was tied to direct private equity-style participation rather than fund-of-funds activity.
What investment stages does Sofico Investments typically target?
Sofico concentrates on early-stage, venture-general rounds — typically pre-seed through Series A — in companies whose product roadmap overlaps with the mobility-contract lifecycle. The investment pace mirrors the parent company’s operational cash flow, not a fixed deployment schedule.
Which sectors does Sofico Investments explicitly avoid?
The firm does not invest outside technology layers adjacent to mobility finance. It avoids pure passenger mobility apps, hardware-intensive autonomous-vehicle plays, and generalist enterprise SaaS, staying within the narrow strip where its platform distribution and domain expertise provide a genuine edge.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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