Luxembourg’s national innovation agency, Luxinnovation, is developing a programme for scale-ups, it announced at the graduation ceremony of its thirteenth seed acceleration programme Fit 4 Start.
The yet-to-be-defined programme is expected to respond to a gap in the support ecosystem identified in the Startup Genome survey commissioned by the economy ministry.
“We’re very proud that Luxinnovation has been given the task to develop such a programme, but to develop it in partnership with our startup community, with private actors, and with other public sector bodies,” Luxinnovation CEO Sasha Baillie announced on 29 June, adding: “We need you to be able to devise a startup to scale up programme that really suits the needs of those in that situation.”
Baillie also announced that Luxinnovation, on behalf of the economy ministry, is among 15 nations to join the European Startup Nation Alliance (ESNA), a platform ensuring member states’ startups have the best conditions to grow at every stage of their life cycle.
“It’s about this aim to accelerate startup ecosystems on our European continent that really need to catch up on innovative startup ecosystems in the US, and elsewhere in the world, which are also thriving and setting the path to the future,” said Baillie, adding: “I’m very confident that this will make our own ecosystem and initiatives even better known in Europe and it will generate new ideas and it will raise the bar for us.”
Luxinnovation also announced the creation of its Fit 4 Start alumni programme on the dedicated Luxembourg Dealroom dashboard, where it is in the process of building a director of the Luxembourg startup ecosystem. The alumni page will be an opportunity for programme graduates to network and share best practices.
Applications for the fourteenth Fit 4 Start programme will open on 14 August with space for 20 projects active in digital, healthcare or space and adhere to the principles of sustainability, people, planet and prosperity. This next edition will also welcome new partners the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity.
Click here to read an interview with Luxinnovation about the scaleup programme.
