The Luxembourgish Fintech scene is booming and LHoFT’s Digital Edition of CATAPULT: Kickstarter hopes to ensure that this does not change any time soon. The first edition of the four-week acceleration includes 10 Fintech startups and starts on 1st June.
Photo: Thomas Rappold, Co-Founder & CEO of Divizend, one of the 10 fintech startups selected / Credits © Divizend
Building on the previous success of CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa, LHoFT’s acceleration programme that supports African Fintech startups, this first edition of CATAPULT: Kickstarter hopes to become another important pillar of the Luxembourgish startup scene. Having received 107 applications from over 36 countries, LHoFT’s CEO Nasir Zubairi was delighted to see such a global interest.
“We are very excited by the CATAPULT: Kickstarter programme and the firms that are participating. The quality of the firms is clear. We believe the participants will gain a lot from the programme and from connecting with the Luxembourg finance community; vice versa, we believe these firms also have a lot to offer the financial centre in solving key challenges that institutions are experiencing,” says Nasir Zubairi.
The desire to turn Luxembourg into a leading European startup hub is not limited to LHoFT’s ambitions for the future. Indeed, the Ministry of Economy supports this desire and has collaborated closely with LHoFT to get this programme up and running.
The CATAPULT: Kickstarter edition is not only supported by the key public actors but also by the private sector. The financial industry’s interest in staying ahead of the curve has attracted enthusiastic partners such Luxembourg For Finance (LFF), Expon Capital, Middlegame Ventures (MGV), as well as a range of institutions providing insight to the selected startups and actively engaging with them on projects.
To achieve The Grand Duchy’s goals of expanding its Fintech sector, it has developed important infrastructure such as incubation facilities, improved access to public and private funds and created a network of institutions able to support and collaborate with the emerging startups. With this amazing foundation in place, the 10 Fintech participating startups are in the best of hands to give wings to their business ideas.
Why participate in CATAPULT: Kickstarter?
Startups often have their plates so full that it is easy for them to lose sight of what is important. That is why participating in acceleration programmes is always a great way for them to get new insights, learn about their blindspots and test out their hypotheses. The programme, which includes classroom tutorials, expert talks, customer discovery, challenges, one-to-one meetings, pitching sessions, mentorship sessions and networking events has something for everyone.
However, the support offered by CATAPULT: Kickstarter is not only found in mentors’ expert knowledge and LHoFT’s infrastructure. Indeed, to survive their early stages, startups need financial support.
To get a chance at securing this much needed financial support, the participants can pitch their ideas at the final pitching event on Friday 25th June. During this event they will be able to highlight all they have learnt during the past four weeks and, if lucky, secure up to 50,000 EUR in subsidies from the Luxembourg Ministry of Economy.
To read about the selected Startups, see the list below. We also invite you to register for the event here.
The 10 Selected Fintech Startups of the CATAPULT: Kickstarter 2021 programme are:
unum IOS (Luxembourg)
unum IOS develops Governance technology solutions for the Investment Fund Management market delivering efficiency and reducing risk by standardising data inputs, automating processes and creating meaningful governance reporting.
Go2insure (Slovenia)
Alifenet (brand is Go2insure) is a team of insurance professionals with more than 60 years of combined experience, ranging from product design and development, to business growth strategies and operational management. Providing a peace of mind for citizens is a noble mission, but the insurance industry also has many flaws, mainly linked to aggressive sales practices, non-transparent, complex insurance product offers and established business models lacking customer-centred approaches.
Find out more → go2insure.net
Greenomy (Belgium)
Greenomy is a regtech SaaS platform enabling companies and financial institutions to comply with new EU sustainable finance rules, including the Taxonomy and SFDR. The vision of the company is to make a substantial contribution to the global objective to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050.
Find out more → greenomy.io
Meliora (Luxembourg)
Meliora grants alternatives managers much broader market access, facilitated through pooling in a Digitally Administered Personalised Master Trust Structure. Where each individual investor or family receives a personalised trust segregated under the Master Trust. This grants significant additional investor protections through the Trustee, who assumes a fiduciary responsibility to the beneficiaries.
Find out more → melioratrust.com
PayPact (Romania)
PayPact is the AirHelp of motor insurance claims. The fintech simplifies the claim filing process and reduce the pay time from 40 days days to 48 hours in the case of motor claims. The company provides objective evaluations of the damage immediately after an accident, so clients can choose the best course of action, including quick payment directly from PayPact. If the client decides to proceed with this option, the claim is filed via the web app in as little as 10 minutes and they can choose to receive the money straight to their account.
Find out more → paypact.ro
EthicsGrade (UK)
The company is building an AI based ‘watermelon’ detection system. A ‘watermelon’ is a company that looks ‘green’ on the outside, but is anything but on closer analysis. The fintech provides health check, benchmarking, and audit services to clients so they can develop the appropriate Operating Model for Governance such as AI Ethics Boards/Councils and satisfy customer and policy-makers’ demands for good governance.
Find out more → ethicsgrade.io
Autopay Mobility (Poland)
Autopay is a startup, which provides fully touchless, seamless, and automatic payments for mobility – motorways, parking lots, fuelling, car charges, car washers, and drive-thrus. The philosophy of the company – the best interface is no interface – just sets and forgets about payments. Autopay is available as a standalone mobile application but also via banks’ mobile apps, navigation apps, and could be a native in-car app.
Find out more → autopay.pl
NodeVenture – TMIA GmbH (Austria)
NodeVenture is a unique custody solution for crypto assets. The company has developed a patented technology that allows it to store cryptocurrencies offline but make them available around the clock as if they were online. The technology offers online access to cryptocurrencies held offline. The fintech offers a B2B2C solution. The financial market industry participants can use the white label “All in One” Solution or integrate the service via API. This means, the clients can offer safe storage of cryptocurrencies to their clients which is a big market need.
Find out more → tmia.at
Cygnetise Limited (UK)
Cygnetise offers firms a web based application to digitally manage authorised signatories. This includes bank mandate management (treasury), delegated authorities, authorized signers and authorised trader lists (Mifid 2 reg). The product is a decentralised (utilising blockchain) Global Signatory Repository. Corporations benefit by easily managing their authorised signature lists including sharing with their counterparts and banks.
Find out more → cygnetise.com
Divizend (Germany)
Divizend is the leading international wealth-tax FinTech platform for the fastest way to reclaim foreign dividend withholding taxes. The B2C software helps private investors to reclaim their taxes by automating the withholding tax refund process. Divizend is the first FinTech worldwide to work on digitizing such a service in a novel, user-friendly and price-competitive way. With its holistic approach verbalized by the claim “Find, Act, Maximize”, Divizend‘s platform will be the central place for investors striving for high dividend earnings, as they will find only the most relevant insights, research, analytics and tax services there. The most notable modules, all built in-house for highest quality, are the B2C withholding tax reclaim platform targeting a $90B market, the first international securities aggregation API, securities database, dividend screener and a modular financial data ecosystem.
Find out more → divizend.com
