Otto Debals
Location
Region
flanders
Role
Co-founder & CEO
Company
Expertise
ai, computer-vision, data-labeling
TLDR
Otto Debals is co-founder and CEO of Segments.ai, the first Belgian startup accepted into Y Combinator (W21), acquired by Uber in 2025.
Overview
Otto Debals co-founded Segments.ai with Bert De Brabandere in Leuven. Both founders hold PhDs from KU Leuven. Segments.ai built a data labeling and annotation platform focused on computer vision, targeting ML teams that need high-quality training data infrastructure.
The company was accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2021 batch, making it the first Belgian startup to participate in Y Combinator. This milestone brought international attention to the Belgian deep-tech and AI ecosystem. In 2025, Segments.ai was acquired by Uber.
Career History
- Co-founder & CEO at Segments.ai
Education
- PhD, KU Leuven