What is Design Republic specialised in?

Brand strategy & positioning, Marketing strategy, Brand identity & design, Campaign concepts & big ideas, Campaign execution, Website strategy & UX.

How big is Design Republic?

Around 2 full-time equivalents (financial year 2025).

Review: Design Republic

Q: Who are the clients of Design Republic?

Among others ELVEA, JUZU, Maredsous, Toumaka Coffee, Ecofrost, Delhaize, Alken-Maes, Paturain, Grimbergen, Stassen, Go Tan, Planète Chocolat, Desobry, Zùsto, Caluwaerts Uytterhoeven.

Design Republic, opgericht in 2011, is een brandingbureau uit Sint-Gillis. Ze werken rond strategie, branding & identiteit, creatie & reclame en ux/ui design. De klanten komen vooral uit fmcg / consumentengoederen en corporate identity.

1

How this agency makes money

Revenue, margin and what an hour of work brings in. Everything on the earning side sits together here.

Revenue trendgross margin per financial year

20212022202320242025

Latest year: € 520.805 gross margin, growth +64,2% against a sector median of +6,6%.

At or above sector pace

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

20212022202320242025

Design RepublicSector median

EBITDA margin 82,2%, sector median 32,2%. Value-added coverage 5,70 (median 1,29).

Healthy margin

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 347.204

Median (2025) € 82.809

Against a payroll cost of € 60.775 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

Above the median

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 195

Median (2025) € 48

2.665 hours worked, 1.777 per FTE. Against that sits € 34 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 161 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

Above the median

No hourly rate follows from this. Gross margin is already net of services and sundry goods, which mixes rebilled production with the agency's own overhead, and the accounts do not say how many hours were billable. Deriving a rate from this systematically understates it.

2

Can the agency take a hit

Buffer, cash position and payment behaviour side by side, so you can see where they disagree.

Bufferequity in months of payroll

Buffer: 59,5 months (median 6,3 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 452.354.

Adequate buffer

Cash positionAvailable cash, and whether it covers short-term debt

Cash € 578.998. Liquidity ratio 3,58: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 71,4%.

Amply covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 6 days of supplier credit, sector median 68. The accounts were filed 237 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Filed late

3

Signals and strengths

Events from the CBE and the Official Gazette over the past 24 months, plus positive markers derived from the figures.

Continuity

No serious signals

Signals in the last 24 months

Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Oct 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Late filing · 25 Aug 2026 · NBB
The annual accounts were filed after the statutory deadline. Over a third of the sector does this, usually because of the accountant's calendar. Rarely a story in itself.
Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Aug 2026 · Google Autocomplete

Click a signal for a plain-language explanation. Each signal is a fact from a public source, without the agency's own context. Best to ask them directly.

What this agency does well

Outgrew the sector median 2 years running
EBITDA margin above the sector median (82,2%)
Strong buffer: 59,5 months of payroll in equity
Team grew (+7,1% FTE in the latest year)
Value-added per euro of payroll above the sector median (5,70)
Margin per hour worked rose 3 years in a row
Healthy working capital (current ratio 3,58)
Equity was earned, not injected (reserves 72,0× the capital contributed)
Comfortable cash position: 2318 days of payroll

Each point is a fact from the filed annual accounts, measured against the same thresholds and sector medians as the signals above.

4

All the figures

Reference material, not a starting point. Expand it if you want to read the series yourself.

5 financial years, 2021 to 2025Result, staff and balance sheet

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Result
Gross margin	€ 318.337	€ 205.797-35,4%	€ 168.595-18,1%	€ 317.083+88,1%	€ 520.805+64,2%
EBITDA	€ 72.097	€ -56.614	€ -20.285	€ 219.434	€ 428.346
EBITDA margin	22,6%	-27,5%	-12%	69,2%	82,2%
Staff
FTE	4,0	4,00%	3,2-20%	1,4-56,3%	1,5+7,1%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 79.584	€ 51.449	€ 52.686	€ 226.488	€ 347.204
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 61.356	€ 65.356	€ 58.812	€ 69.134	€ 60.775
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 272.343	€ 184.028	€ 137.742	€ 240.803	€ 452.354
Cash	€ 174.393	€ 191.613	€ 167.453	€ 242.969	€ 578.998
Liquidity ratio	3,03	1,90	2,05	3,94	3,58

Payroll cost per FTE comes from the social report where available, otherwise from the Remuneration line. Both are gross costs including employer contributions.

What this factsheet does not know

How good the work is. Figures do not measure creativity, strategy or chemistry.
How the client portfolio is spread. Concentration is not in the accounts.
Freelancers and subcontractors are not in the FTE figures. An agency with 40 staff may in practice run with 70 people.
The figures cover financial year 2025, filed on 25/08/2026. At a fast-moving agency reality today may differ.

Based on publicly filed annual accounts (NBB) and official records (CBE, Belgian Official Gazette). An indication, not financial advice. Sector medians calculated on 2 Nov 2026. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

What the agency actually does 6 services

Strategy & Insights

Brand strategy & positioning Marketing strategy

Branding & Design

Brand identity & design

Advertising & Campaigns

Campaign concepts & big ideas Campaign execution

Digital Experience & Tech

Website strategy & UX

Sector focus

FMCGFood & beverageRetail & e-commerce

Publicly known clients

ELVEA, JUZU, Maredsous, Toumaka Coffee, Ecofrost, Delhaize, Alken-Maes, Paturain, Grimbergen, Stassen, Go Tan, Planète Chocolat, Desobry, Zùsto, Caluwaerts Uytterhoeven

Based on IKAg research and public sources. Incomplete or outdated? Let us know.

1

People 5 people mapped

The heart of this team is creative: 3 of 5 profiles are makers. Within that core, Design and Art Direction stand out. The titles skew top-heavy: lots of seniority, few juniors — you're mostly buying experience. A specialist, not a generalist: the expertise is narrow but deep.

EC

Evelien Callens

ART DIRECTOR – DESIGNER

FV

Francis van Acker

MANAGING PARTNER / CO-FOUNDER

MT

Murtaza Teke

CREATIVE DIRECTOR / CO-FOUNDER

MV

Maxime Verkest

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

NG

Niyosha Gandhi

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Based on public profiles. Something wrong? Let us know.

2

Seniors or juniors?

Payroll cost per FTE is the best public proxy for a team's experience level. Higher is not automatically better, but it says something about who sits at the table.

Payroll cost per FTE

€ 60.775

0% versus the median

Team composition

1,5 FTE

50% women
50% men

€ 60.775

Median Brandingbureau (2025) € 60.980All agencies (2025) € 62.294

Read with care. Directors and partners invoicing through a management company are not in the payroll cost. At small agencies this skews the picture downwards considerably.

3

Will your team stay?

Inflow and outflow from the social report. This series only counts people on the payroll: freelancers who invoice do not appear in it. A low figure therefore means two very different things, a stable permanent team or a small core with heavy outsourcing. A high figure usually points to short contracts. Compare only within the same type of agency.

Exits 2025

/

Median for this type of agency (2025): 38,9%

Inflow 2025

66,7%

20212022202320242025

Source: annual accounts and social reports (NBB), collected by IKAg. Financial year 2025. Calculations by IKAg; an indication, not financial advice. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.