Investor Frederick Verhelst is increasing his stake in Flemish dance-radio group TOPradio for the third time since 2023.
Frederick Verhelst first invested in TOPradio in 2023 and topped up his stake a year later. This year (2026), he increased his stake again, working with managing partner Peter Huyghe to tune the company in for its next growth phase.
Since its founding in 1996, TOPradio has positioned itself as a leading hit radio station “with a beat” in Flanders and Brussels. It brings DAB+, online channels and social media together under one brand.
In 2017, TOPradio lost its bid for a Flemish network radio licence to Hit FM by just over a point (93.5 against 94.81), costing ten jobs and pushing the station off FM. Listeners kept it alive, however. A crowdfunding campaign via Hello Bank's Hello Crowd platform, topped up by gifts from companies and fans, raised €100,650 – well above the €75,000 needed to broadcast on DAB+ only from January 2018.
In 2023, the Flemish government added FM frequencies in Aalst, Ghent and Hasselt to TOPradio's network licence. To build out its own FM transmitter park, the station turned to the crowd again – this time as lenders. Through WinWinner, it offered up to €250,000 in five-year subordinated loans at a fixed 8 percent, earmarking €200,000 for transmitters at five locations and €50,000 for its online stations. In October, TOP reported a record 106,883 daily listeners, double the year before.
Frederick joined the radio a month later, through POTZ – the Flemish dance station he set up in 2021 with Geert Pots (a former TOPradio DJ) – after it left DAB+ and moved online “under the wings of TOPradio”. Since then, he has seen a nice evolution at TOPradio digitally. “Both our app and our online stations continue to grow strongly, so that more and more listeners find TOP through the channels that suit them best.”
His next increase came the same year he joined the board of TOPradio’s holding company, hellohelloradio.com (2024).
This year, Frederick reported approximately 5 percent market share among both the target group 18-34 and 18-44 years, as well as 200,000 listeners per week. “As an investor and advisor, I am particularly proud to be able to experience this story up close. But let one thing be clear: these results are first and foremost the merit of the team behind TOP,” he explains. “These figures are a nice confirmation of the trajectory that TOP is taking. But above all, it is an incentive to continue building on the future with the same energy and ambition.”
Vandelanotte Legal M&A team acted as Frederick’s adviser for this 2026 increase.
