New Kid on the Block: Meet Squire, the new Pieterjan Bouten-backed Ghent startup that’s giving doctors back their time using AI

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Imagine being a doctor and spending nearly a third of your workday not with patients, but documenting consultations.

Currently, Belgian GPs are required to write detailed SOEP (Subjective, Objective, Evaluation, Plan) reports for every consultation, incorporating medical coding standards like ICPC-2 and SNOMED CT.

These reports must be submitted to ensure proper records are kept, and diagnoses are classified accurately.

With an average GP conducting 20–30 consultations daily, documenting this takes an immense amount of time, reveals research.

The growing administrative burden is a significant challenge for general practitioners (GPs) everywhere, particularly in Belgium, where over half of GP practices have implemented patient stops due to the demand for care exceeding their capacity.

Squire: Automating administration for GPs

Enter Squire, a Ghent-based startup founded to tackle this exact problem.

Leveraging the power of AI, the company developed software that creates a draft of such a report after each consultation based on the conversation between the GP and the patient.

To know more about the company’s birth, mission, challenges, ethical concerns, and much more, we at Silicon Canals interviewed Stan Callewaert, CEO and co-founder of Squire.

Here’s what he has to say! 

The Story Behind Squire

Squire’s birth traces back to a shared passion for solving real-world problems.

Co-founders Stan Callewaert and Ignace Maes met while studying computer science at Ghent University.

Both have deep expertise in AI—Stan worked at ML6, Belgium’s largest AI-focused company, while Ignace was part of Lighthouse, Belgium’s fifth unicorn.

According to Stan, the idea for Squire emerged from real pain points identified through conversations with friends in the medical profession and numerous interviews with stakeholders in the healthcare space.

“Talked to so many people, did so many “mom test” interviews to conclude that one of the first ideas was the best,” says Stan in a LinkedIn post

Before finalising Squire, Stan tested 21 potential startup ideas and eventually built the first proof-of-concept at Hangar K.

With Ignace Maes joining as CTO, they developed a proof of concept, secured a spot in the Start it Accelerate program, and began onboarding general practitioners onto their software.

Their collaboration with Pieterjan Bouten and Maarten Mortier from the Entourage office formalised a strategic and financial partnership, enabling the team to complete their minimum viable product (MVP).

Pieterjan Bouten backs Squire through an investment fund

Entourage, the startup studio and investment fund of Pieterjan Bouten, co-founded the company and will support the startup in its growth trajectory to further develop the platform and boost international growth.

“Pieterjan Bouten (owner of Entourage) has a lot of experience in both scaling SaaS companies internationally (ex-CEO of Showpad) and with GP software (on the board of Corilus). He will (and already is) play a crucial role in helping Squire grow,” says Stan.

In addition, the startup is also backed by Start it @KBC and is in talks with several parties to integrate the solution into GPs’ existing software.

What Does Squire Do?

Squire offers AI-powered software that simplifies the process of creating consultation reports.

After each consultation, the software automatically generates a draft report based on the conversation between the GP and the patient.

“But we’re not stopping there—our mission is to streamline administrative tasks across the board, supporting healthcare providers to reduce their admin time. Founded in Ghent, we’re on a mission to reduce patient stops, starting in Belgium and scaling across Europe,” says Stan.

It even applies medical coding instantly, ensuring the report’s structure is accurate and consistent. All the GP needs to do is review, make any adjustments, and finalise it.

Currently, the company’s platform is used in several GP practices, district health centres, and GP out-of-hours surgeries in Flanders, and is currently available in a trial version for free to all Flemish doctors.

How does Squire help GPs?

According to Stan, patients often lack access to first-line care, which can result in undiagnosed conditions that may lead to disastrous consequences, such as death or long-term illness.

“Additionally, general practitioners don’t like administration, and with the increased pressure of the number of patients they need to see we could potentially see a lot of general practitioners quitting their jobs or no inflow of new general practitioners. This would only cause even more patient stops,” explains Stan.

Here’s where solutions like Squire have the potential to reshape the role of GPs.

With these tools, general practitioners will be able to focus more on their job — caring for patients.

“We see this of a second wave of digitalisation for doctors. They already passed the first wave where they went from paper to software. Now it’s time to spend less time behind that keyboard,” adds Stan.

Challenges and ethical concerns

According to Stan, Squire faces several challenges during earlier stages, particularly in enhancing its software to accommodate heavy dialects and individuals with limited language proficiency.

As far as the expansion plan beyond Belgium, the company recognises the need to adapt its products to align with varying healthcare regulations in different markets.

For instance, while Belgian general practitioners typically use ICPC-2 medical encodings, their counterparts in the Netherlands prefer ICPC-1.

“Luckily we noticed that it’s usually small changes we have to make to our product per country. More important will be that we can improve our software for each language. In each country we’ll start, we will need to improve on that specific language to make sure we support the general practitioners as well as we can,” he says. “The Netherlands will probably be one of the first countries we will expand to, as the language is only a small barrier.”

Squire also addresses potential ethical concerns related to the use of AI in sensitive fields like healthcare.

“We worked very hard on our GDPR compliance together with our Data Protection Officer. We see this as crucial to make this software that can be trusted by general practitioners and patients. Next to that, we take a lot of measurements regarding cybersecurity,” assures Stan.

Hiring

Currently, the company plans to expand its team.  

“We are looking for the best of the best when it comes to hiring. Our employees will be able to work on the latest technology in the field of NLP and can do that making a positive impact on society. We are searching for people who are in this for the long run together with us. We’ll provide the best of the best with an ESOP plan so that they can also profit from Squire doing well,” concludes Stan. 

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Vigneshwar Ravichandran

Vigneshwar has been a News Reporter at Silicon Canals since 2018. A seasoned technology journalist with almost a decade of experience, he covers the European startup ecosystem, from AI and Web3 to clean energy and health tech. Previously, he was a content producer and consumer product reviewer for leading Indian digital media, including NDTV, GizBot, and FoneArena. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Instrumentation in Chennai and a Diploma in Broadcasting Journalism in New Delhi.

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