Leap Forward

What Leap Forward does

Leap Forward is a Belgian full-service digital agency founded in 2017 and headquartered in Ghent, delivering strategy, design, and development services to government, cultural, and enterprise clients. Following its 2025 merger with Anvil, the firm operates with over 90 creative, strategic, and technical talents across offices in Ghent, Antwerp, and Kontich. Its service portfolio spans three areas — Strategy & Innovation, Design & Build, and Marketing & Communication — with specialized offerings including the AI Maturity Benchmark (a four-domain organizational AI readiness assessment), AI Vision Workshop, Accessibility Audit, and Branding Workshop. Notable deliverables include Woningpas (a Flemish government digital housing platform, Henry Van de Velde Award 2019), the KMSKA mobile application (Henry Van de Velde Award 2024), the Amal.be website (FeWeb 2023 Website of the Year and Accessibility of the Year), and KMSKA Fabriek, an AI-powered museum learning platform built with partner Arinti.

The firm's revenue model is professional services on a project-by-project or retainer basis, with no publicly disclosed pricing tiers. Distribution is direct enterprise and government sales, supplemented by content marketing, an AI Maturity Scan lead-generation tool, and event-driven engagement (e.g., the HackSmart hackathon with Exellys). Leap Forward has invested in building AI and accessibility capability internally and through strategic partnerships — most notably Arinti, which provides data science and AI engineering depth — and has extended thought leadership into emerging standards such as the W3C WebMCP proposal for AI-agent-compatible websites. Notable customers include KMSKA, Vlaamse Overheid, Thomas More, North Sea Port, City of Ghent, Amal (Agency for Integration), and BMI Leisure, with a primary vertical focus on government and public institutions. The firm participated as a non-lead investor in Ezra's $8M seed round (March 2026), signaling modest external capital deployment beyond core operations.

Name

Leap Forward

Legal name

Leap Forward

Website

https://leapforward.be

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Leap Forward is a Belgian full-service digital agency delivering strategy, design, and development services to government and enterprise clients, with over 90 talents across Ghent, Antwerp, and Kontich following its 2025 Anvil merger. It specializes in accessibility, AI strategy, and human-centered digital product development.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Digital Agency Services

NAICS

Advertising Agencies (54181), Graphic Design Services (541430)

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Activation/Experiential Creative Agencies (MPAAAAAO)

akta.pro secondary industry

Low-Code/No-Code Application Development & Modernization (BPAEAFAF)

Keywords

• Digital product design
• Service design
• Digital transformation
• Accessibility consulting
• AI strategy services

Headquarters

HQ city

Ghent

HQ country

Belgium

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Digital Agency Services: Project-based professional services for digital strategy, design, development, and marketing. Services include research, UX design, branding, accessibility audits, AI strategy workshops, and full product development.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Leap Forward is a full-service digital agency that helps organisations grow by building digital products, services, and brands shaped by human insight and strengthened by data and AI. Its service portfolio spans Strategy & Innovation, Design & Build, and Marketing & Communication, delivered through a co-creative engagement model with government agencies, public institutions, and enterprises in Belgium and internationally. The firm combines UX design, branding, accessibility audits, AI strategy workshops, and end-to-end product development, with deep expertise in accessibility-first design and AI integration.

Product overview

Leap Forward is a Full Service Digital Agency that helps organizations grow by building digital products, services and brands shaped by human insight, strengthened by data and AI. Their service portfolio spans three core areas: (1) Strategy & Innovation, (2) Design & Build, and (3) Marketing & Communication. Within these, they offer specialized services including AI Maturity Benchmark (AI readiness assessment), AI Vision Workshop (AI strategy planning), Accessibility Audit (digital accessibility evaluation), and Branding Workshop (brand identity development). They partner with Arinti for data science and AI engineering, and have delivered notable projects including KMSKA Fabriek (AI-powered museum learning platform), Woningpas (government digital platform), and KMSKA mobile application (award-winning museum app). The company has over 90 talents across Kontich, Antwerp, and Ghent following their 2025 acquisition of Anvil.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• AI Maturity Benchmark Structured assessment that evaluates organizational AI readiness across four dimensions (Vision & Strategy, Customer Experience, Data & Technology, and Organisation & Team), delivering a maturity scorecard with sector comparison and prioritised recommendations for organizations exploring AI adoption.
• AI Vision Workshop One-day facilitated workshop that guides teams through exploring AI goals, identifying where AI can make a real difference, and turning loose ideas into a tangible AI roadmap aligned across stakeholders.
• Accessibility Audit Expert review combining accessibility scanning, user testing, and actionable reporting to identify barriers within digital products and provide WCAG-compliant recommendations for inclusive design.
• Branding Workshop Flexible workshop that guides teams through selecting distinctive brand values, refining them through mood boarding exercises, and ensuring the new brand identity resonates with real users, including brand perception research, brand values definition, design briefing, and brand design phases.
• Strategy & Innovation Services Service line that combines business goals with digital strategy and innovation, translating client ambitions into digital solutions and services that work in practice, including research, digital strategy, and innovation consulting for enterprise and government clients.
• Design & Build Services Service line that designs and builds clear, human-centred, and future-ready digital products and services, including UX design, branding, accessibility-first implementation, AI integration, and full-stack development for government and enterprise clients.
• Marketing & Communication Services Service line that connects brand, audience, and behavior through communication strategies driving adoption and engagement, including social media, email marketing, SEA, SEO, and post-launch measurement and optimization.

Quantifiable outcome

• KMSKA app enriched experience of over 44,000 unique visitors
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• ArinticoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Formalized partnership with Arinti, a data science and AI engineering team with nearly eight years of experience in applied AI. Together they offer strategy, design, and data engineering from day one for AI initiatives. They share offices and work on projects side by side, combining customer experience expertise with data science capabilities.
• AnvilcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Merger with Anvil in 2025 brought over 90 creative, strategic, and technical talents under one roof, spanning across Kontich, Antwerp, and Ghent, united by the mission to create human-centred and transformative digital solutions.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• AKQA: Global creative and digital agency within WPP offering strategy, design, technology and media at scale; comparable in full-service scope but operates as an incumbent across all of EMEA, not specifically a Belgian boutique.
• Dentsu Creative: Dentsu's global creative network combining advertising, experience design and technology services; comparable in brand, experience and integrated campaign work, but operates as a broad incumbent rather than a regional specialist.
• Accenture Song (formerly Interactive): Global experience and design arm of Accenture delivering large-scale digital transformation, design and engineering; competes for the same enterprise and public-sector transformation mandates Leap Forward targets but at much larger scale.

Direct peers

• Ustwo Studios: London-headquartered digital product studio combining strategy, design and engineering with a stated focus on purpose-driven, human-centred outcomes; highly comparable in service mix and craft-led positioning.
• DEPT®: Amsterdam-headquartered global digital agency (~4,000+ people) offering end-to-end strategy, creative, engineering and marketing services, comparable in full-service scope and multinational delivery to a scaling Leap Forward.
• Emakina: Belgian-listed digital agency with ~1,000 staff across multiple European offices delivering strategy, design and technology to enterprise and public-sector clients, the closest direct competitor on geography, service mix and client base.
• Huge: Global digital experience agency combining strategy, design and technology for large brands — comparable to Leap Forward in the human-centred, end-to-end customer-experience proposition and product-launch capability.
• Intracto: Belgian digital agency offering strategy, design, marketing and development to mid-market and enterprise clients, directly comparable in service portfolio and regional competitive set.

Emerging players

• Netgen: Belgian digital agency offering web, mobile and e-commerce development with a technology-first orientation; comparable in Belgian geography and mid-market project delivery, though less strategy-led.
• Adjust (BE): Belgian design and development studio serving SMEs with branding, web and product work; comparable in regional market and capability mix, though smaller-scale and more SMB-focused.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/leapforward_grp

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Leap Forward