Catapult: BankTech Inaugural Edition Wraps Up – Depowise Crowned Winner
Accelerating Depositary Banking Innovation in Luxembourg
Luxembourg, 24.10.2025 – The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) today announced the conclusion of the highly successful inaugural edition of Catapult: BankTech – Depositary Banking Edition. After five intensive days focused on high-impact acceleration, the program culminated with Depowise being selected as the overall winner, marking a significant step forward in digitalizing one of Europe’s most vital financial sectors.
Program Objectives: Catalyzing Innovation for a Global Hub
Co-sponsored by the ABBL (Luxembourg Bankers’ Association), Catapult: BankTech was designed as a dynamic, one-week bootcamp for ten exceptional fintech companies ranging from Seed to Series A stages. The overarching mission was to actively connect cutting-edge technology with the established expertise of Luxembourg’s financial institutions to fast-track digital transformation within the specialized field of depositary banking.
The program was strategically structured around three core pillars essential for future operational excellence:
- Regulatory Compliance & Governance (RegTech): Solutions focused on automating processes, ensuring robust data governance, and implementing tailored risk controls.
- Data Acquisition & Process Automation Platforms: Leveraging AI and automation to streamline data handling, integration, and document processing across complex financial workflows.
- Secure Communication & Asset Servicing Ecosystem Integration: Enabling seamless, standardized, and secure data exchange between financial institutions and stakeholders in asset servicing and fund management.
This targeted approach addressed the need for innovation in Luxembourg, which manages €585 billion in private banking assets and maintains one of Europe’s most sophisticated depositary banking ecosystems. The LHoFT and ABBL’s partnership ensures that the solutions developed are grounded in the real industry needs of the local market.
Key Partnerships: The Engine of Success
The success of the Catapult program is built on the strong collaboration between the LHoFT, which provides a crucial bridge between innovative startups and the financial sector, and the ABBL, representing the core of the banking industry.
“In partnership with the ABBL, this program connects startups to key players in depository banking—helping them shape solutions around real industry needs, not assumptions,” noted Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT.
This collaboration provided the participating fintechs with unparalleled access to industry decision-makers, mentors, and potential clients, giving them a rapid pathway to commercial scaling within this specialized EU financial centre.
The Participants & The Delivery: Intense Acceleration
Ten innovative firms from around the globe were selected to participate, each bringing a unique solution to the challenges faced by depositary banks.
The cohort included:
🔹 Alphaguard – Platform redefining financial crime compliance using AI Agents that replicate and enhance human analyst capabilities.
🔹Altilia – Leading intelligent automation software on a mission to democratize the use of AI to help enterprises automate document-intensive business processes.
🔹Depowise – AI-powered oversight & safekeeping automation solution
🔹Fund Recs– Cloud-based reconciliation software that liberates financial professionals from complex data processing for enhanced data analytics.
🔹Fundvis – A central, compliant fund oversight platform that digitalizes and automates administrative workflows and data processing for all investment fund stakeholders.
🔹Mopso – Regtech startup dedicated to fighting money laundering supporting banks and financial institutions in assessing and identifying potential critical connections among their customers.
🔹Rejustify – AI-enhanced data orchestration engine that automates data preparation from scattered sources, creating a data mesh to streamline data-driven decision-making with a low-code/no-code semantic layer.
🔹 STP SuisseTechPartners – Flagship product, PMplus, provides comprehensive Portfolio and Fund Management solutions for asset managers, wealth, family offices and financial servicers.
🔹U-Reg – Unifies and simplifies onboarding, compliance, and regulatory reporting to transform operational complexity into seamless efficiency.
🔹 Wecan – Decentralized data security & compliance platform.
Over the course of the week, the innovators engaged in classroom tutorials, expert talks, personalized one-to-one meetings, and intensive mentorship engagements.
The week culminated in a high-stakes final pitch session delivered to a distinguished panel of industry leaders: Nasir Zubairi, Ananda Kautz, Brenda Bol, Vincent Willem, and Raoul Mulheims. These leaders assessed the solutions based on innovation, market viability, and impact potential within the Luxembourg ecosystem.
Following the evaluations, Depowise was recognized for its exceptional performance throughout the entire program and crowned the ultimate winner. Additionally, a special “coup de coeur” (favourite) award was presented to Altilia for their standout pitch and solution.
The program successfully demonstrated that the future of banking isn’t coming; it’s already being built—right here, in Luxembourg.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
