Exits

Overview

A business exit strategy transitions the ownership of a company to another company through a merger or acquisition, to investors through an initial public offering, or through a management or employee buyout. The headline price is rarely one number paid in full at closing: part of it sits in escrow against warranty claims, part hangs on an earn-out tied to targets the seller no longer fully controls, and the founders are usually locked in with the buyer for a period afterwards. The order in which that money is paid out was fixed years earlier by the liquidation preferences agreed in each funding round, so a large announced figure can still leave common shareholders with a fraction of what the number suggests. Joris Van Der Gucht co-founded Silverfin, acquired by Visma, and now leads Ravical; Boris Bogaert co-founded Rydoo, acquired by Sodexo for EUR 60M in 2017, and then co-founded Pitchdrive; Gilles Mattelin and Jorn Vanysacker sold Henchman to LexisNexis in 2024 and turned the proceeds into 100in, a EUR 12M pre-seed fund.

Stated facts & numbers

• Entities tied to this concept on the wiki: 35, of which 15 are people and none are companies
• Videos in the corpus discussing exits: 112, across Belgian tech and business channels
• Exit routes: Merger or acquisition, initial public offering, management buyout, employee buyout, liquidation, family succession
• Belgian tax on a private individual's share sale: Not taxable within normal management of a private estate; taxed only on sales of substantial holdings in a Belgian company to a foreign non-EEA company
• Rydoo: Acquired by Sodexo for EUR 60M in 2017; co-founder Boris Bogaert went on to co-found Pitchdrive
• Henchman: Exited to LexisNexis in 2024; founders Gilles Mattelin and Jorn Vanysacker launched 100in, a EUR 12M pre-seed fund
• Silverfin: Acquired by Visma; co-founder Joris Van Der Gucht is now CEO of Ravical