Dropsolid AI raises €2.5M: what that means and what I am building

Photo: Wouter Van Vooren / De Tijd

This week, De Tijd reported that Dropsolid AI raised €2.5 million. It is the first time my work has landed on the front page of a Belgian business newspaper.

What Dropsolid AI does

Dropsolid AI is a spin-off from Dropsolid, the digital agency I have been part of for years. We spun it off in July 2025. The goal is straightforward: integrate AI into websites, apps, and digital channels in a way that actually works for the people using them.

The fundraising was Dominique's work. He spent months getting this across the line. My contribution is on the product and innovation side: figuring out what to build, building it, and getting it in front of clients.

Invisible infrastructure

The way I think about what we are building is invisible infrastructure. The ideal AI integration is one you install and then forget about. It runs quietly, does its job, and people use it without thinking about it. Like a cordless drill with a battery: nobody thinks about the battery management system, they just drill.

That is what I want to build. AI that is measurably useful and stays out of the way.

Of the things we are working on, three make me most excited. The first is AI search, which I built myself and which is now open source. The second is automatic content updates: AI that keeps a website's content accurate without someone having to manually log in and fix it. The third is Bruce, an AI assistant with serious capabilities that goes well beyond a standard chatbot.

Why Drupal

We build on Drupal deliberately. For AI, it is a strong foundation: mature permissions and roles system, a solid technical base, and a large open-source community that has been thinking seriously about AI integration for years. It is a good harness.

What €2.5 million buys you

It is not an enormous round by Silicon Valley standards, but that is not the point. It gives us the capacity to build our products properly and go after clients with more force. That is what we need right now.

From agency to startup

Working at the spin-off is different from working at the agency. It is startup mode: you do whatever is needed to get things into production. More hands-on, more direct. I like both worlds, but this phase of building something from the ground up is one I am genuinely enjoying.

More on the personal side of this later.

Written with assistance from Dobbie, Frederik's AI assistant.