50 SHADES OF VENTURING

Luc De Vos pioneered "the Internet" in Europe in 1993 when UUCP was some weird protocol and WWW was still a CERN project. He was founding father of the EUnet International group as the first commercial ISP in Belgium and the first pan-European large(st) ISP. Advent International Ltd was our VC from 1996 to 1998. EUnet International Ltd was acquired in 1998 for $154 million by Qwest Communications (NYSE:Q) and subsequently injected into a new joint venture with KPN, creatively named KPNQwest.

As such, he is one of the very early business angels of this new "media and Internet" generation industry that was shaped in the nineties.

Luc has been a key actor in the creation, development and internationalisation of some of the household names that have sparkled on the ICT sky of Europe such as: KPNQwest, Stepstone, Starlab, and was an early business angel, director and private investor in the used car remarketing company CarsOnTheWeb, acquired in November 2018 by US based KAR Auction Services (NYSE:KAR) for up to €156 million.

Luc invested in a diverse portfolio of 50 other (mainly) ICT companies. He also executed pure advisory or non-executive director positions for selected companies such as venture capital fund Arkafund, leasing and fleet mgt company Sofico, UTM security provider AXS⎢GUARD and recently AI powered mobile mapping startup Geckomatics.

Vintage year 1958 but still feeling rather young Luc has now ventured in over 60 companies for some 30 years in one or another role as a (co-)founder, director, investor or advisor.

Cumulative numbers (as of 2020) on the venturing chart:

117 years as a (co-)founder

195 years as a shareholder

214 years as a director

111 years as a chairman

75 years in management

and a weighted total of

264 years of venturing.

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