Our story
Verhaert Masters in Innovation is a pioneering group of product innovation companies. We have roots that go back to 1969 and have designed more than 1.000 products. With a highly educated multidisciplinary staff of about 200 we realize an annual turnover of over 30M€.
We believe innovation is one of the few instruments to create sustaining added value and with that a better world for all of us. Therefore we should master it to the best we can. That’s why it’s our mission to be Masters in Innovation.
We differentiate by ‘concrete ideation’: the ability to combine highly conceptual thinking with profound know-how and a practical attitude. This makes us a reliable, innovative, creative and entrepreneurial partner for our clients.
We realize this by our T-profile, combining multidisciplinary thinking with in-depth discipline know-how. In a world with increasing complexity, nowadays speed of technology and scarcity of resources, this is more and more a challenge, also for our customers.
We manage this with our group structure conceived around Verhaert as integrated product development company with specialist daughter companies in on-site, optical and digital product development.
We market our product development services through 7 brands:
- Verhaert, integrated product development services.
- Moebius Consulting, on-site product development services.
- Beacon, project & innovation management services.
- Load, Pegus Digital & Bagaar, digital products development services.
- Lambda-X, high-tech optical & manufacturing services.
We deliver our specialist services independently to the market or integrated through Verhaert.
As a group we support our companies with our umbrella brand Masters in Innovation, cross entity expert networks, a joined platform for customer relation management and business monitoring, an active community for professional innovators, and shared facilities.
By doing so we create value for our daughter companies, customers, employees, and others looking for growth and innovation.
50 years of leadership in innovation
Today, Verhaert can look back at a rich history in innovation. A history in which we developed a unique organization and culture step by step. Our uniqueness? We combine multidisciplinary system engineering with a user centered design process and business insights.
1969
Founded by Prof. Em. P. Verhaert, pioneering integrated product innovation in Belgium
1984
First activity in space industry, developing systems engineering capabilities
2001
Design, build, launched and commissioned the first small EU satellite for ESA in orbit: PROBA (now QinetiQ Space nv)
2005
Kick off Perfect Draft program for AB InBev, developing FMCG insights
2006
Spin-out Verhaert Space, later sold to QinetiQ Plc
2012
Set up innovation center in the Netherlands
2013
Start on-site consultancy activities
2014
Start technology transfer and incubation services
2015
Acquisition of Lambda-X
2016
Acquisition of Moebius Consulting
2017
Acquisition of Load Digital
2018
Acquisition of Pegus Digital
2019
50th anniversary and acquisition of BEACON
2022
Acquisition of Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship (AfCE)
2022
Acquisition of Bagaar
2022
Acquisition of The Engineering Network (TEN)
Pioneer in product development & innovation consultancy
“The beauty of innovation lies in the fact that it is within reach of everybody on the planet. It is an endogen capacity of mankind for growth and value creation. It basically is an intellectual exercise shadowing all other competitive advantages that in most cases are only temporary.”
– Paul Verhaert, Founder in 1969 –
Values, summarized by RICE
Verhaert Masters in Innovation is a community of RICE innovation professionals. RICE stands for Reliable, Innovative, Creative and Entrepreneurial. We believe those values are the basis of our success and the key to the interactions we have with our clients. Therefore we like make them explicit.
RELIABLE
Open, transparent, predictable and loyal
INNOVATIVE
State of the art, embracing the unknown
CREATIVE
Out of the box and solution oriented
ENTREPRENEURIAL
Hands on, engaged and pragmatic
Key figures
We work for ambitious companies in different sectors covering Aerospace, FMCG, Life Sciences, Industry, Internet of Things and Technology. Since 1969 we create successful breakthrough products with our customers.
Among them there are international market leaders such as AB InBev, Atlas Copco and Novartis as well as start-up companies. Thanks to our rich heritage, we are called ‘Masters in Innovation’.