In Scale Talks, Startup Luxembourg and Silicon Luxembourg hear from experienced founders from the Luxembourg ecosystem about the moment where they had to make important decisions to move their startups to the international expansion phase. Jonas Mercier, Coordinator of Startup Luxembourg, outlines the genesis of this video series.
What is the purpose of the Scale Talks video series?
This video series aims to highlight the experience of founders and CEOs who are currently running international scale ups in order to benefit entrepreneurs who are launching their startups or are in the early stages. It is very important in the development of an ecosystem to have this kind of knowledge transfer. It allows younger companies to move forward more quickly and avoid certain mistakes. There are physical events where these seasoned entrepreneurs speak, notably those organised by Silicon Luxembourg. But we wanted to offer these long video interviews, presented a bit like podcasts so that everyone can listen to them whenever and wherever they want.
What stands out most from these interviews?
We talk about the right time to look for funding, investor relations or human resource challenges in the scaling phase. It is interesting to see that there is no one way or one opinion. The five entrepreneurs interviewed each have their own views on how to manage the growth of a scale up or determine the right time to raise funds. This was why we wanted to choose scale ups with different development models, being active in different sectors and using different technologies.
“[…] our ecosystem has reached a level of maturity that allows us to enter a virtuous circle.”
Jonas Mercier, Coordinator of Startup Luxembourg
How can Luxembourg bring out more tech champions?
I think our ecosystem has reached a level of maturity that allows us to enter a virtuous circle. We are seeing more and more Luxembourg startups developing internationally. They indirectly shed light on our ecosystem, which is making more and more investors curious about what is happening in Luxembourg, thus creating faster expansion opportunities for the best projects.
At the same time, Luxembourg investors, whether business angels or VCs, are increasingly attentive to the local ecosystem. Finally, institutional support, which is one of Luxembourg’s great strengths, is increasingly the basis of success stories. More and more of our champions have benefited from Fit 4 Start, then from the RDI financial scheme and finally from growth financing offered by the Young Innovative Enterprise and the various VC funds co-financed by the government, such as the Digital Tech fund.
Startup Luxembourg has also launched a Directory. What are the first highlights you can share with us a few months after its launch?
At the end of the year, Startup Luxembourg launched a beta version of a directory for all our startups. We will soon propose an improved version which will allow startups to gain more visibility with investors or other potential clients both in Luxembourg and internationally. This is part of the virtuous circle I was talking about. We have more and more projects that succeed internationally, thus attracting more interest from foreign players. So the arrival of a directory makes sense and will create even more visibility and thus increase interest in local startups. We can say that like many startups, our ecosystem is scaling up!
Watch the full Scale Talks video series:
- Scale Talks #1 | Benjamin Tillier, co-founder and CEO of Fiveoffices | Watch now
- Scale Talks #2 | Jessica Berner Egen, Managing Director of SportMed | Watch now
- Scale Talks #3 | Christophe Bianco, co-founder and CEO of Excellium | Watch now
- Scale Talks #4 | Genna Elvin, co-founder and Chief Tada Officer at Tadaweb | Watch now
- Scale Talks #5 | Joost van Oorschot, co-founder and CEO of Maana Electric | Watch now
Editor’s note: Since the filming of this video series, a new CEO has been appointed at Fiveoffices. Read more about Carolyn Prestat’s nomination.
