Marc Foidart

Marc Foidart earned a Master in Business Engineering / Management (Ingénieur de gestion) from the University of Liège in 1998. He began his career as a project manager within the Arcelor (later ArcelorMittal) group, then founded and directed SEED — the University of Liège–linked support structure that later became Cide-Socran — before moving into institutional investment. He has been an Associate Professor at the University of Liège since 2011.

Foidart spent much of his career at Meusinvest (rebranded Noshaq in 2019), the Liège region's principal public-private investment group, where he rose to Deputy General Manager / Chief Operating Officer (COO, c. 2013–2021) and today sits on the Executive Committee in charge of the Life Sciences portfolio. In parallel he has been Investment Manager of Épimède SA since 2015 — a roughly €50 million Belgian private high-tech growth fund (PRICAF) — and CEO of B2H SA, the public vehicle consolidating the Liège life-sciences ecosystem. He is also a co-founder of the EKLO non-profit.

As an operator-investor, Foidart is Co-Founder and past CEO of Arlenda SA, a University of Liège spin-off providing advanced statistical solutions to the pharmaceutical, chemical and environmental sectors. Since 2012 he has been Founder and Executive Chairman of EyeD Pharma SA, a Liège start-up developing controlled-release micro-implants for ophthalmology, which has raised sizeable rounds (reported at €32M and, cumulatively, up to €45M). He has held or holds board/director seats at multiple Belgian life-sciences companies, including Mithra Pharmaceuticals, Diagenode, Imcyse and Hyloris.

With more than 15 years of experience in strategic consulting and investment across all development stages of high-growth life-sciences companies, Foidart is regarded as one of the architects of Liège's biotech cluster, structuring investment proposals and orchestrating financing rounds and buyouts on behalf of the region's public funds.

• Concentrates on life-sciences and deep-tech ventures with defensible technology or industrial IP — biotech, medtech, pharma, plus adjacent engineering/IT and cleantech plays.
• Backs companies anchored in Wallonia / the Liège region, in line with Noshaq's regional development mandate and Épimède's stated priority for Walloon-based companies.
• Through Épimède, writes €1–7M checks and takes an active governance role (board seats, strategic involvement), capping any single project at ~33% of the fund.
• Comfortable financing pre-revenue, pre-break-even life-sciences companies — Épimède explicitly waives its turnover and profitability requirements for life-sciences deals.
• Values experienced, professional management teams and a genuine technological or industry competitive advantage as prerequisites to invest.
• Operates across the full development lifecycle — from seed and critical scale-up rounds to buyouts and exits — as both an institutional investor and a hands-on entrepreneur.