I-care has emerged as one of Europe’s most important industrial AI companies, operating at the intersection of artificial intelligence, industrial reliability, and Industry 4.0. In December 2025, the Belgium based company officially reached unicorn status following a €20 million fundraising and refinancing round reserved for existing shareholders and employees. This milestone places I-care among a small group of European industrial technology companies that have successfully scaled deep tech solutions into profitable, global businesses.
At a time when European venture capital increasingly favours AI, defence technology, and industrial resilience, I-care represents a rare success story. It combines strong revenue growth, proprietary hardware manufacturing, AI driven software platforms, and a long term vision for predictive maintenance as critical infrastructure for global industry.
This article provides an in depth analysis of I-care, covering its origins, technology, funding journey, leadership team, acquisitions, manufacturing strategy, and future plans including external investment and a potential IPO.
Company Background and Origins
I-care was founded in 2004 in Mons, Belgium, by Fabrice Brion and his co founders with a clear mission. The goal was to improve industrial reliability by predicting machine failures before they happen. At the time, predictive maintenance was largely manual, fragmented, and dependent on specialist expertise rather than scalable digital systems.
Over the past two decades, I-care steadily built a reputation in vibration analysis, lubrication monitoring, and asset reliability engineering. Rather than positioning itself as a pure software company, I-care focused on building end to end solutions that integrate sensors, data collection, analytics, and operational decision making.
This long term approach allowed the company to accumulate one of the largest industrial machine health datasets in Europe, laying the foundation for its later AI driven platforms.
Unicorn Status and 2025 Funding Round
In December 2025, I-care announced the completion of a €20 million fundraising and refinancing operation. The round was reserved for existing shareholders and employees, signalling internal confidence rather than short term valuation optimisation.
With this transaction, I-care officially crossed a valuation exceeding €1 billion, making it Belgium’s newest unicorn.
Key details of the funding
- Round size: €20 million
- Round type: Internal fundraising and refinancing
- Participants: Existing shareholders and employees
- Valuation milestone: Unicorn status confirmed
According to the company, the funding will be used to accelerate growth, increase global market share, and prepare for the entry of external investors in 2026. The company also reaffirmed its long term ambition to pursue an initial public offering, which had been postponed earlier in 2025 due to market conditions.
Leadership and Executive Vision
Fabrice Brion, Founder and CEO
Fabrice Brion remains the driving force behind I-care’s strategy and culture. As founder and CEO, he has consistently emphasised long term investment over short term returns.
Commenting on the unicorn milestone, Brion stated:
“Becoming a unicorn is a symbolic milestone. To achieve this, we chose to invest before reaping the rewards. We bet on AI when few believed in it, we prioritised R&D, and we built our own production unit. These choices were sometimes difficult, but they were essential to staying ahead of the game.”
This philosophy explains why I-care invested heavily in proprietary sensors, manufacturing capacity, and research years before AI driven predictive maintenance became mainstream.
Broader leadership team
I-care’s executive team includes senior leaders across engineering, manufacturing, operations, and global sales. The leadership structure reflects the company’s hybrid nature as both a software and industrial hardware organisation.
Key leadership strengths include:
- Deep industrial domain expertise
- Long tenure within the company
- Strong focus on operational execution rather than hype driven growth
This stability has been critical in integrating acquisitions and scaling internationally.
Core Technology Platform: I-see™
At the heart of I-care’s offering is its AI driven platform, I-see™. The platform aggregates data from multiple predictive maintenance techniques and integrates both I-care solutions and third party systems.
What I-see™ does
- Collects data from vibration, ultrasound, lubrication, thermography, and electrical monitoring
- Applies machine learning models to detect anomalies and predict failures months in advance
- Converts technical signals into actionable maintenance insights
- Integrates with enterprise asset management and maintenance planning systems
Unlike many AI platforms that focus on dashboards, I-see™ is designed to directly influence operational decisions. The system provides early warnings, prioritises risks, and enables maintenance teams to intervene before failures disrupt production.
Wi-care™ Sensors and Industrial Manufacturing
A defining feature of I-care’s strategy is its commitment to building proprietary hardware at scale.
Wi-care™ sensors
Wi-care™ is I-care’s next generation wireless sensor technology designed for continuous monitoring of industrial equipment. The sensors are AI ready, scalable, and designed for harsh industrial environments.
Key characteristics include:
- Wireless deployment across large industrial sites
- High frequency data capture for early fault detection
- Long battery life and industrial grade durability
- Seamless integration with the I-see™ platform
Mons manufacturing facility
In September 2025, I-care inaugurated a new high tech factory in Mons dedicated to mass production of Wi-care™ sensors. This Industry 4.0 facility represents a major strategic investment.
Manufacturing highlights:
- Production capacity of up to 2,000 sensors per day
- Automated quality control systems
- Vertical integration of sensor design and assembly
- Rapid scaling capability to meet global demand
By owning its manufacturing process, I-care reduces dependency on external suppliers and protects its intellectual property.
Wi-care as a Service Business Model
I-care has shifted from project based services toward a subscription driven model known as Wi-care as a Service.
This all in one offering includes:
- Sensors
- Data connectivity
- AI analytics
- Maintenance insights
- Ongoing support
The subscription model improves predictability of revenue, lowers adoption barriers for customers, and supports global scalability.
Global Footprint and Market Reach
I-care operates on a truly global scale.
Geographic presence
- Headquarters: Mons, Belgium and Houston, United States
- Offices: 36 locations
- Countries: 16
- Regions covered: Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and North America
Customer base
The company serves customers in more than 55 countries across industries such as:
- Manufacturing
- Energy and utilities
- Chemicals and petrochemicals
- Mining
- Transportation and logistics
I-care’s solutions are used by multinational industrial groups that operate thousands of critical assets.
Financial Performance and Growth
I-care has reached a level of financial maturity that distinguishes it from many venture backed AI companies.
Reported figures include:
- Consolidated annual revenue exceeding €100 million
- Order book valued at more than €200 million
- Strong recurring revenue growth driven by subscriptions
This revenue scale supports the company’s unicorn valuation and positions it as a credible IPO candidate.
Mergers and Acquisitions Strategy
Over the past eight years, I-care has acquired and integrated eight companies. These acquisitions have focused on:
- Expanding geographic reach
- Adding specialised predictive maintenance expertise
- Strengthening customer relationships
The company follows a disciplined integration approach, retaining local expertise while standardising technology platforms.
Competitive Positioning
I-care competes with a mix of:
- Traditional industrial service providers
- Industrial OEMs offering monitoring solutions
- Software focused AI startups
Its differentiation lies in:
- End to end ownership of sensors, data, and analytics
- Decades of industrial domain expertise
- Proven ability to scale globally
- Strong balance between services and product revenue
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