We chose to help build Drupal's future. Today, that choice became visible.

In April 2025, there was no Top Tier badge in the plan. There was a conviction that Drupal needed coordinated investment in AI. Today, Dropsolid's recognition makes that choice visible.

What Top Tier really means

Dropsolid is now listed as a Top Tier Drupal Certified Partner. I am genuinely proud of that. Not simply because we have reached the highest level in the Drupal Certified Partner Program, but because of what this recognition measures.

Top Tier is not a marketing label that a company gives itself. The Drupal Association evaluates partners annually based on their contribution to Drupal and its community. The highest tier currently requires at least 12,000 weighted annual contribution credits, together with the other programme requirements.

Dropsolid'ss current profile shows more than 13,000 credits. At the time of writing, only seven organisations are listed at Top Tier, and Dropsolid is one of only two headquartered in the European Union. What is being recognised is not how loudly you talk about open source. It is how much you put back into it. For me, that is the most meaningful kind of recognition Dropsolid could receive.

We have always made our living with Drupal. Our responsibility, therefore, cannot stop at using it for our own products and customers. If Drupal is an important part of our future, we also need to help build Drupal's future. Open-source leadership is not something you claim. It is something you contribute your way into.

The spark in Leuven

This story really started taking shape in April 2025 at Drupal Developer Days in Leuven. The Drupal AI Initiative had not officially launched yet. That followed in June. But Leuven was where separate conversations became a shared commitment. It was where people stopped asking whether Drupal needed a coordinated AI strategy and started organising to create one.

The original vision brought forward by Jamie Abrahams had already created energy. In Leuven, Frederik Wouters, our Head of Innovation, helped bring the right people together at the right moment. He created momentum around the initiative and later played an important role in communications and outreach. I took responsibility for fundraising and business alignment.

My role was to help turn ambition into something that could be funded, staffed and sustained. When I started asking companies to commit time and funding, there was no guarantee that this work would produce contribution credits or commercial return. There was simply a widening gap between the speed of AI and the speed at which our ecosystem was organised to respond. An open-source initiative of this scale could not survive on enthusiasm alone. People needed time, companies needed to commit resources, and everyone needed confidence that the work could continue beyond the first burst of energy.

In June 2025, Acquia, Dropsolid, 1xINTERNET, FreelyGive and Salsa Digital came together as the five founding partner companies of the official Drupal AI Initiative. Over the following year, Niels Aers took on product direction from Dropsolid, working closely with Dr. Christoph Breidert from 1xINTERNET to translate vision into a tangible roadmap. Developers, product people, marketers, strategists and project leads from across the community then did the work that ultimately matters: they delivered.

In October 2025, only five months after setting the goal, the initiative reached $1 million in combined financial and full-time staff commitments. Dries called it the largest fundraising effort in Drupal's history. I led that fundraising, but its success belonged to every Maker that chose to commit money, people or both. It gave the initiative the sustained capacity that volunteer energy alone could never guarantee.

Dropsolid put people on that work. Not for a few weeks, but consistently, month after month. The Top Tier recognition now reflects that sustained commitment.

One strategy becoming visible

At roughly the same time, we made another important choice.

In July 2025, we created Dropsolid AI as a new platform company alongside Dropsolid Solutions, our original enterprise-services business. We did not do that because the two missions no longer belonged together. We did it because each mission needed more focus, more dedicated leadership and more room to grow. Dropsolid AI could concentrate on building an open, intelligent and sovereign platform for digital experiences.

Dropsolid Solutions could sharpen its focus as an enterprise team capable of designing, building and evolving complex Drupal platforms. Earlier this year, I led the fundraising effort through which Dropsolid AI secured €2.5 million in financing, using a mix of private investment, crowdfunding and credit lines.

In August, VLAIO awarded the company €603,540 in innovation support for a two-year, €1.7 million R&D programme around sovereign AI agents for enterprise content and digital experience management. The financing, the VLAIO support and today's Top Tier recognition are different milestones, awarded for different reasons. But strategically, they belong to the same story. They show a company choosing to invest in open technology, European digital sovereignty and Drupal's role in the AI era.

These were not separate announcements. They were one strategy becoming visible.

What I mean by a home for Drupal

I keep coming back to the word home. I do not mean a closed suite or a place that locks customers in. I mean a dependable foundation where Drupal can be built, protected, governed, evolved and made intelligent. That is why our upcoming campaign is called A Home for Drupal in Europe.

Dropsolid AI provides the European platform layer: managed hosting, developer tooling, web-estate governance, edge protection and open AI capabilities. Dropsolid Solutions brings the enterprise expertise for complex platforms, migrations, integrations and long-term evolution.

Our teams use AI-assisted workflows in selected parts of Drupal delivery, while architecture, production review, quality and accountability remain human-led. Together, the two companies create a coordinated home for the full Drupal lifecycle without taking away the freedom that makes open source valuable in the first place.

A home should provide continuity, protection and room to grow. It should not lock the door behind you.

Recognition also creates responsibility

This achievement belongs to many people. It belongs to Frederik, Niels and every Dropsolid employee who contributed code, product work, communication, customer insight or delivery time. It belongs to the other founding partners, to Dries Buytaert, Jamie Abrahams, the Drupal Association and everyone across the Drupal AI Initiative who chose collaboration over individual ownership. It also belongs to our customers. Their trust allows us to keep investing in capabilities that eventually flow back into the wider ecosystem.

Today, we can celebrate. Dropsolid is part of a very small group of Top Tier Drupal Certified Partners, and a Belgian company now stands among Drupal's most highly recognised contributors worldwide. Tomorrow, the work continues. We earned a place at the top table by contributing. Now we have to keep earning it.

If you believe Europe needs a strong, open home for Drupal in the AI era, whether you are an enterprise leader, agency or contributor, I would like to hear what you think that home should provide.

Book a conversation with me.