Some 3,000 square metres of workspace in the centre of Brussels, 27 young companies numbering around 200 business starters, a sizeable community, plus tons of energy: the 200 invited guests attending the launch ceremony of Co.Station BXL on 23 April were able to get a taste of these powerful ingredients.
Co. Station BXL is geared to supporting fledgling digital enterprises at the growth stage – known as ‘scale-ups’ – which are in search of the right people with the right expertise to help them take the next step. Most of these scale-ups already have a first version of a product or service, which they are now in the process of trying to market.
The Co.Station ‘ecosystem’ does not only consist of entrepreneurs; it also involves the other three major areas of activity in our society, namely the worlds of business, politics and academe. Co.Station BXL aims to build bridges between the various stakeholders in order to help create a strong, diversified and sustainable entrepreneur base.
In this way, Co.Station BXL intends to give real meaning to the word ‘ecosystem’, which today is all too often used as a catchall term. What Co.Station BXL is offering is entirely based on what the entrepreneur community is looking for. The new Co.Station BXL team is firmly committed to listening to the needs of these business starters, and has so far interviewed some 200 stakeholders, both Belgian and foreign, from the entrepreneurial world.
This process has resulted in a service offer based on three main pillars:
• Co.Station village focuses on building a diverse community of entrepreneurs. All these people have shown the courage to risk failure, the ambition to succeed, and possess a sense of shared responsibility with the other business starters at Co.Station BXL.
• The Accelerator is there to help digital sector scale-ups to grow. Co.Station BXL CEO Baudouin de Troostembergh underlines:
“The companies that are part of Co.Station BXL differ in the kind of assistance they require. So we’re not going to put a support programme on the table without first finding out what are the real needs of each young company. For example, if a scale-up is in a position to create new jobs, the Accelerator will help them draw up an appropriate Human Resources strategy.”
• The third pillar of the Co.Station BXL concept is the Virtuology Academy @Co.Station, a school of entrepreneurship focusing on the practical aspects, which is entirely integrated into the 3,000 square metres of available space. The school of entrepreneurship is geared to providing specific know-how relevant to a wide range of personal profiles.
For more information on Co.Station BXL:
Ludwig Dumont, ludwig@co-station.com, +32 (0)478 72 52 53
For more information on the Co-Station partners, BNP Paribas Fortis & SocialCom:
Pamela Renders, pamela.renders@bnpparibasfortis.com, +32 (0)477 39 99 79
Baudouin de Troostembergh, baudouin@co-station.com, +32 (0)479 23 35 65