Angelwise

Spent a roughly 30-year corporate career in telecom and IT spanning commercial, operational and general management roles, and has been active as an investor, adviser and board member for ICT and tech startups since 2012. Also serves on the board and investment committee.

Active in technology startups for over 20 years, with entrepreneurial experience and a track record co-investing alongside business angels and early-stage VCs while mentoring numerous growing tech companies across sectors. Also serves on the board and investment committee.

Brendon Grunewald is a Managing Director at Praefidi and serves as an independent board advisor, non-executive director, and investment committee advisor. He has experience building and operating a venture capital fund, advising US and EU-based venture and private equity funds including a $1.2bn fund of funds, and serving on public and private company boards. Grunewald advises on strategy, capital allocation, risk assessment, and valuation in technology, AI, space, and data sovereignty sectors, typically engaging in short-term or ongoing mandates with chairs, partners, and CEOs navigating complex decisions.

Johny Kegels is a business angel with SGVO (Slim Geld Voor Ondernemers), an organization supporting entrepreneurs. He founded PR Force in 1990, grew it to market-leading status, and sold it to Incepta in 2002. Kegels brings over 20 years of experience in business operations and corporate communications strategy to his advisory work with startups and their stakeholders.

Kurt Verellen serves as an Advisory Board Member at Angelwise. His career spans management roles across established, growing, and startup companies with international operations, with particular focus on organizational change, people management, ICT, and process improvement.

Nicolas Christiaen is the CEO and founder of Donna, a sales assistant platform that integrates with existing tools including Salesforce, Outlook, and Teams. He previously founded and led Cashforce through to exit. Christiaen is a tech entrepreneur and investor with interests in B2B SaaS, Proptech, and Healthtech.

Nikos Deligiannis is a Professor of Machine Learning and Signal Processing at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Principal Investigator at imec, where he leads research teams in explainable and trustworthy AI, computer vision, and federated learning. He holds an ERC Consolidator Grant and has managed over 30 European and national R&D projects with multi-million euro budgets. His research contributions include over 200 publications in venues including ICCV, CVPR, NeurIPS, and ICLR, along with 5 patent applications, and he was named the 2024–25 Francqui Research Professor in Trustworthy AI.

Olivia Vandesande serves as an Advisory Board Member at Angelwise and brings over 30 years of experience as a senior HR executive in international corporations across IT, telecom, and interim services sectors. She holds a Master's degree in Law from the University of Brussels and has developed specialized expertise in outsourcing, mergers and acquisitions, change management, and union negotiation through roles at organizations including CSC Computer Sciences, Bull, British Telecom, and USG.

Omar Mohout is Scaleup Director of M&A & Finance at Deloitte, where he advises technology companies on mergers, acquisitions, and growth strategy. He has built and scaled startups, raised funding, and expanded businesses internationally. Mohout serves on boards and advisory committees for numerous technology and innovation organizations across Europe, and regularly mentors founders and participates as a jury member in startup accelerators and competitions.

Pieter Wellens is co-founder and CTO at APICbase.com, where he leads the software development team and oversees technical architecture for a cloud SaaS platform and connected hardware. He previously conducted artificial intelligence research at the VUB AI Lab, where he earned his PhD, and has served as lead software architect on large-scale international projects.

Reginald Vossen serves as CEO of Business Angels Network Flanders and President of Business Angels Europe. He holds a position on the Strategic Advisory Board of DAEN – The Defence Angels European Network. His background includes experience in fundraising and business development, with expertise in venture capital, negotiation, and entrepreneurship.

Holds an engineering MSc from VUB and a management MSc from Solvay, with experience as a management consultant and operational stints at startups and research institutes, plus analyst work on early-stage deals for business angels and a family office.