A future skills chasm: 85 million vacancies left empty due to lack of skilled workers by 2030
Futureproof from within: Firms remain blind to competencies within their own organisation, particularly in non-office settings, which can be harnessed to secure the future of the firm
AI-driven skills intelligence: talentguide’s AI-powered skills intelligence maps entire workforce capabilities, drilling down into tasks, traits, and knowledge domains, and personalised development plans to turn ambition into ability.
European expansion: New capital will support talentguide’s expansion and.entry in the Belgian, Dutch and UK markets.
Ghent, Belgium, February 5, 2026 - Talentguide, the Ghent-based HR-tech company, has secured €1.3 million in fresh capital to conquer the European market with its AI-driven skills intelligence platform and support global firms efforts to up-and reskill their workforce as they battle tough labour markets and the advance of AI and automation within businesses.
With talentguide, organisations can organize competence management within HR smarter and data-driven - from development and performance management to planning. The company provides AI-powered skills intelligence via a ready-to-use SaaS platform that enables companies and their employees to convert ambitions into real, measurable competencies that are useful and future-proof.
“What we offer with talentguide is a win-win. We strengthen the long-term employability of employees and increase the resilience of organisations,” Filip Tack, CEO of talentguide.
The global economy is heading for a shortage of over $8 trillion by 2030, due to a mismatch in available talent. This means that more than 85 million vacancies may not be filled due to a lack of sufficiently qualified people. Companies often have too little insight into which competencies (“skills”) they possess and how they should develop them to remain relevant for the future. Blue-collar workers often form the biggest blind spot: their skills are rarely contained in CV databases. Furthermore, necessary competencies change faster due to automation than job profiles can keep up with. This slows down quality up- and reskilling, leads to inefficient personnel planning, and lower employee retention.
From the Ghent Wintercircus, the leading hub for deep tech and AI in Belgium, talentguide helps primarily medium-sized and large enterprises to better understand, purposefully develop, and sustainably plan the competencies of their staff with its AI-driven SaaS platform.
Based on existing, unstructured company data (career CVs, work instructions, job descriptions, evaluations, and integrations), talentguide first generates a skills-based job architecture and then analyzes the current competencies of the employees.
“This pragmatic approach ensures that companies can get started with useful insights from day one, without an expensive or time-intensive start-up phase,” says Filip Tack.
Talentguide also predicts future skill needs, for example, in the context of retraining or upskilling due to the automation of existing business processes. The platform guides the growth of employees through AI-generated personal development plans (PDPs).
Companies such as Travvant, MCC Verstraete, Banqup, Robovision, mtech+, and Syntra Bizz are already using talentguide’s AI-driven skills intelligence.
Talentguide has raised €1.3 million to conquer the European market with its AI-driven skills intelligence. In addition to the investment funds NXT II, Travvant (Partena Professional), Miles Ahead Capital, imec.istart, and the founders, entrepreneurs such as Ewout Meyns (PieSync), Koen Handekyn (Allcrux, Nabu), and Jan Delaere (Delaware) also participated in the funding round.
“Too many HR decisions today still start from feeling. Talentguide shows how you can use data and AI to get an objective picture of the skills on the work floor, and from there train and promote in a much more targeted way. That is precisely why we believe in this story.”, says Miel Kurris, NXT II fund.
The investment will be used to strengthen talentguide’s revenue, product, and engineering teams. Talentguide is therefore looking for driven software and AI engineers, and customer success talent.
“By the 2nd half of 2027, we are aiming for an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of more than €1 million with fifty to a hundred customers,” says Filip Tack. “Expansion into the Belgian, Dutch, and British markets is our short-term focus.”
