Overview
November Five is a digital product studio in Antwerp that handles strategy, design and engineering for companies whose product is core to their business. Four friends started it on 5 November 2008 as a digital design agency called Cowboys & Indians. Tom Vroemans set the business course and ran sales and daily operations, Vincent Pauwels took charge of design, and Nick Verbaendert and Thomas Van Sundert covered technology. In 2009 they hired their first employee and started a second company, a mobile agency called Appstrakt. The advertising business at Cowboys & Indians was ended at the close of 2012 and its creative team folded into Appstrakt; a holding structure followed in 2013, and the group rebranded to November Five in 2016. The company is privately owned and partner-led, with no private equity, and works from Antwerp, Dubai and Mostar. Around 60 people work across design, technology, engineering, product, marketing and sales, on more than 650 projects to date. The BASE partnership started in 2014 and the Mediahuis mobile platform on top of CUE, which carries more than 25 branded news apps, in 2021. Alongside client work the company has built its own ventures, among them Tablebooker, Suitcase, Appmiral, Spencer and Gorilla, three of which have been sold.
Funding history
- 2013 Tablebooker (venture investment): November Five's holding structure made its first startup investment, in Belgian restaurant reservation tool Tablebooker; the stake was sold in 2015
- 2015 Suitcase (venture investment): Bought a significant stake in online personal styling startup Suitcase; sold to listed Belgian fashion group FNG Group in 2017
- 2017 Spencer (venture investment): Belgian telco Telenet invested in November Five's employee experience venture Spencer
- 2018 Spencer round (venture): 2.5M EUR raised by Spencer from its existing shareholders and financial partners, including co-investor Telenet
- 2019 Gorilla (venture): Gorilla, the pricing engine for the utility industry founded in 2018, was seed-funded and signed customers including British Gas
- 2021 Appmiral exit: Event engagement platform Appmiral was sold to Dutch CX platform CM.com, November Five's third venture exit
Stated facts & numbers
- Founded: 5 November 2008
- Headquarters: Antwerp
- Offices: Antwerp, Dubai, Mostar
- Employees: 60
- Co-founders: Tom Vroemans, Vincent Pauwels, Nick Verbaendert, Thomas Van Sundert
- Chief Experience Officer: Vincent Pauwels, co-founder
- Executive Chairman: Tom Vroemans, co-founder
- Managing Director: Darius LaBelle
- Legal entity: November Five BV, enterprise number 0820.822.413
- Former names: Cowboys & Indians (2008), Appstrakt (2009 to 2016)
- Ownership: Privately owned and partner-led, no private equity
- Projects: 650+
- Customers: Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Spotify, Mediahuis, BASE, Le Pain Quotidien, Brussels Airport, Digicel, DPG Media, MDLBEAST, Vanbreda Risk & Benefits, BBC
- Ventures: Tablebooker, Suitcase, Appmiral, Spencer, Gorilla
- Awards: Fast Company 100 Best Workplaces for Innovators, 2020 and 2021
Leadership & org chart
In the news
- Saturday 05/09/26 11:05 AM In this edition: Kjelle invites you into the N5 studio during Us By Night. Tim on what happens when your brand lives in someone’s head. Tom pops the hood on how we build with AI. Vincent explains why frictionless experiences are forgettable. And Geoffrey shares how we stopped AI-generated slides from all looking the same ... Enjoy the 11th issue of HIGH FIVE ✋
- Brands must move beyond frictionless customer experiences and design memorable moments that build trust, recognition and long-term preference. Vincent Pauwels from November Five talks through why memorability is the new measure. "Much of the conversation around CX still revolves around reducing effort or introducing moments of delight. A more useful question is simpler: what will my customer remember about this experience six months from now? Answering that question requires understanding why someone chose a brand in the
- Most teams I talk to are applying AI to the top of their customer experience: chatbots, faster content, fewer agents. The frustrations that actually drive churn sit deeper. Data isn't connected. Journey signals don't reach the right systems in time. Fix the data layer first, and AI has something real to work with. That's the fuller argument in Inc. Arabia. Message me if you're wondering whether your team is solving the right problem." — Darius LaBelle, Managing Director Middle East
- Gorilla - Energy Margin Intelligence, one of our ventures, just published the Energy Margin Intelligence Index: the first sector-wide benchmark for how well energy retailers understand and act on their margin. The headline number is 94% of executives confident in their margin visibility. The uncomfortable one is how few can reconcile it without gaps or delays. Gorilla calls it the Margin Confidence Paradox. Between 6 and 10% of revenue sits in that gap. Worth a read even if energy's not your world. Ping me if this pattern
- Proud to announce I've been invited to join the IADAS jury for this year’s The Lovie Awards. Throughout my career at November Five, I’ve focused on one thing: building digital experiences that are genuinely worth people’s time. So I’m excited to bring that perspective to the judging process. Last year, we entered the Le Pain Quotidien website and we took home a Lovie. It feels good to be on the other side this time.
- We set out to build something Mediahuis nv could own and run without us. 25+ branded news apps, on one codebase, ten million readers a day. Since Q2 2025, their own team ships. "Twenty five brands, one codebase, and our team now ships without them." — CTO Peter Soetens That's the bar we aim for on every partnership. If you're building something that needs to scale and you want your own team running it in the end, let's talk. — Pieterjan Janssens, Client Director
- Tik tok... 🕚 11:05 - Wed August 5 In this edition: Pieterjan on how Mediahuis nv & N5 brought 25+ brands onto one codebase. In an article for Inc. Arabia Darius explains why AI in customer experience is solving the wrong problem. Tom shares Gorilla - Energy Margin Intelligence Index and its uncomfortable Margin Confidence Paradox. Stijn on why learning AI should start where nothing can break. And Vincent joins The Lovie Awards jury ... Enjoy the 10th issue of HIGH FIVE ✋
- Sunday fifth of July. 11:05 AM In this edition: Thomas on how a payramp beat a paywall and pushed Mediahuis nv RouteYou's conversion from 1% to 4%. Lisa explains why we killed performance reviews and what we built instead. Kevin talks about what got expensive the moment code got cheap. Kjelle on why your CompanyOS is probably not what you think it is. And Tom shares a Gorilla - Energy Margin Intelligence milestone ... Enjoy the 9th issue of HIGH FIVE ✋
Alumni 2 went on to found or lead
Ruben Van Den BosscheChief Operating Officer→Co-founder & CEO at Gorilla - Energy Margin Intelligence
Thomas PinnaJobstudent: Process automatisation of dependency management→Chief Technology Officer at Heliovision
Tom VerschuerenProduct Manager→AI Product Owner at OMP
The full November Five mafia →
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