Asets-Lux & Dropslab Selected For Luxembourg Gener8tor

Menachem Tabanpour, Managing Director Luxembourg for gener8tor, and Shelby Peranich, Program Manager, Investment Accelerators at gener8tor (Photo © Parcours)

Two Luxembourg tech startups are among the fortunate five selected for Gener8tor’s first European accelerator programme based out of the grand duchy. 

As part of the programme, cloud-based simulation and engineering design platform Asets-Lux and augmented reality assistance solution Dropslab Technologies, along with Elias Robot (Finland), Co-Rent (Italy) and Carbon Saver (France), will each receive €100,000 in exchange for a 7% stake in the firms.

The five startups, which were shortlisted out of a total 170 European applications submitted to Gener8tor, will undergo a comprehensive 12-week programme in which they will select and work with a mentor and meet with investors. 

“We really wanted a broad selection from the ecosystem. And we also wanted to start having connections throughout Europe via Luxembourg, so that’s why we recruited the way we did,” said Menachem Tabanpour, managing director of the Luxembourg Gener8tor programme, which was announced at the end of 2021. 

Gener8tor was first established in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2012. It was founded as a spin off of a law and entrepreneurship clinic at the University of Wisconsin to solve the geographical polarisation of tech startups in the US.  “Initially, it was just an investment accelerator. And then they found that there wasn’t a good pipeline for startups coming into the investment accelerator from the region,” recalls Tabanpour.

Today it supports early stage startups that can scale in geographic areas where founders are underrepresented through 163 programmes in 33 communities. And it now has its sights on Europe. 

“Part of this is not just working in Luxembourg, but it’s also expanding it throughout Europe,” said Tabanpour, adding that a sister programme for the Benelux region or close by had been mooted. “We want to be able to create this vibrant ecosystem that’s more regional […] and close enough that there could be a really good exchange between the various ecosystems and then, when we have events, or want to recruit mentors, investors and startups, they don’t have to travel far to participate and support this vibrant ecosystem.”

Shelby Peranich, programme manager for Gener8tor Luxembourg, said she hopes the accelerator’s presence will improve the early stage startup scene in Luxembourg, by bridging “the gap between the day you have your idea and the day that you reach a level of success, where you have raised a big round and you do have paying customers and things like that.”

And one of the key added values of the accelerator is to set up startups future rounds of funding so that “they’re ready to take on a new investor fairly quickly,” adds Peranich. Tabanpour said he hopes Gener8tor’s programme in Luxembourg will “lower resistance for people who wouldn’t traditionally support early stage companies”, be they investors or mentors. 

“Our co-founder Joe Kirgues says that with almost every startup that they’ve worked with, at some point you get this feeling they’re hanging by a thread and that they may not make it. Only later do you see what they develop into. If people are dismissive of those kinds of startups, then you can’t foster the ecosystem,” says Tabanpour.

Gener8tor expects to secure a location for its next European community by the end of 2022 while it will run a second programme in Luxembourg in 2023. Interested mentors, investors and partners are encouraged to get in touch.

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