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 Int'l was the chosen VC from 1996 to exit in 1998 when EUnet International was acquired for $154 million by Qwest Communications (NYSE:Q). The stock price tripled and EUnet Int'l was subsequently injected into a joint venture with KPN Int'l creatively named KPNQwest, who went IPO in November 1999. However Luc left Qwest on March 31st, 1999 just one day before the KPNQwest BV was founded in Amsterdam. And went back into early-stage in general as a new business angel, venture capitalist, director, advisor and M&A dealmaker.

As such, he is one of the very early actors 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 angel, director and private investor in the famous used car remarketing company CarsOnTheWeb, again acquired in 2018 by US based KAR Auction Services (NYSE:KAR) for €156 million.

Luc invested in a diverse portfolio of 50+ other (mainly) ICT companies. He also executed pure advisory, M&A or non-executive director positions for selected companies such as venture capital fund Arkafund, global leasing and fleet mgt company Sofico and local UTM security provider AXS⎢GUARD.

Luc is now a non-executive director in UK headquartered and Euronext quoted Hybrid Software Group plc ("EBR:HYSG").

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. Though the early-stage space in general has a known success ratio of 1:1000 Luc's investment choices have proven to be 1:10.

Cumulative numbers (as of 2023) on the venturing chart:

185 years as director

157 years as investor

79 years as chairman

63 years as (co)founder

33 years in management

and a weighted total of

252 years of venturing

in 69 companies.