Eight Luxembourgish companies head to the “global stage for startups”: AIVA, FundSquare, Postmii, CoinPlus, CarPay-Diem, Virtelio, VR Timetravel and Motion-S. Laurence Hulin advises startups at Luxinnovation. She’s coordinating the trip to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2018, set up in partnership with the European American Enterprise Council (EAEC).
You will manage Luxembourg’s pavilion at the CES. Why did you take on this initiative?
EAEC will manage Luxembourg’s pavilion at the CES. Their status as a transatlantic accelerator helps facilitate this US event. We will collaborate and support this initiative as it is completely in line with our goal to develop the image of Luxembourg’s startups worldwide.
We are cooperating to achieve a common objective: enable promising Luxembourgish startups to attend this important event. The particular role of Luxinnovation in the local startup ecosystem allows us to have a global view of the market and innovative startups, which makes us a natural partner for EAEC for this type of initiative.
What do you expect from this event?
Access to this event and particularly the Eureka Park Marketplace will be a great opportunity for Luxembourg’s startups to be visible. For our startups, it is possible to access a large-scale event, build networks, pitch in front of future business or financial partners and compare themselves with many other companies. It’s a real opportunity for scaling up.
Through these missions, we want to promote investments in Luxembourg and attract international startups to Luxembourg. One important key to attracting investors is providing them information on the major assets Luxembourg uses to boost startup development at the international level. This will be also our role during the event.
Why is it important for Luxembourg to take part in this event?
The CES event is the “global stage for startups,” as seen by simply looking at the figures provided on the internet site: 4000 companies, 600 startups, almost 200,000 visitors and extensive media coverage.
Our neighbors already have their own promotional initiatives. Take France as an example. They invested a lot over these past few years to increase their visibility to investors and startups, and develop their startup ecosystem French Tech.
We have to promote Luxembourg’s dynamism and – with the arrival of new accelerators and incubators – make our assets and fast-developing ecosystem visible. This type of event is a real opportunity to communicate that.
What are the strengths of Luxembourg’s innovation ecosystem?
As an emerging ecosystem, Luxembourg has great growth and learning potential, which is really facilitated by its ability to put all public and private actors at one table. Our economy has the capacity to act quickly when a strategy is defined and to stick to its long-term goals, even in niche and risky market (space mining being a perfect example).
