Robin Wauters is the European Editor of tech blog The Next Web and lead editor of Virtualization.com. He was a senior staff writer at TechCrunch until his departure in February 2012.

Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion.

Wauters lives and works in Belgium, a tiny country in Europe. He can often be found working from his home or from the Brussels-based BetaGroup Coworking Space, of which he is a patron.

Starting out as Internet marketing manager for a hosting and domain name registration services company called Hostbasket (acquired by Belgian ISP Telenet), Wauters has worked in the online media industry for many years, including gigs as online media manager for Datanews / VNUnet (acquired by Roularta).

He was one of the co-founders of social media agency Talking Heads until its acquisition by Netlash in 2010. He’s also a shareholder in a tech startup called Oxynade, which essentially helps publishers deploy a hyper-local strategy.

In 2007, Wauters started Plugg, a now defunct one-day conference in Brussels aimed to raise awareness for Europe’s most promising Web / Mobile startups. He’s also the organizer of the OpenCoffee Club Brussels meetups.

He also mentors fledgling companies through the Founder Institute and Seedcamp. He’s on the advisory board of Checkthis and WonderGraphs.

Robin is not particularly fond of mussels, waffles or sprouts for that matter. He’s a big fan of Belgian beer(s), though.