The LHoFT Foundation announces the 10 Fintech startups selected to take part in the Fall 2021 digital edition of CATAPULT: Kickstarter
A Fintech acceleration program for early-stage startups with €50.000 in subsidies for each of the 5 winning Fintechs
Building on the success of the Summer 2021 Edition of Catapult: Kickstarter, the LHoFT Foundation is opening on Monday 15th of November, the second edition of this unique program of Fintech startup development. After receiving 187 applications, an increase of 74% compared to the first edition which demonstrates the high interest for this program, the LHoFT Team and partners selected 10 ace Fintech ventures to enter the program. The program will close on the 26th of November with a final digital pitching event, in front of a top-notch jury, investors, and audience members.
Developed by the LHoFT Foundation and supported by Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy, Catapult: Kickstarter Fall Edition targets 10 new five-star Fintech startups with the aim to develop their business models with a focus on business scaling and risk management.
As stated by a Catapult Kickstarter Alumni: “Catapult: Kickstarter is not only a buzzword, but describes this program perfectly: It kickstarted our expansion to Luxembourg with outstanding mentoring and by establishing highly promising connections to the local ecosystem.”
Over recent years, Luxembourg has built up a supportive and robust Fintech startup ecosystem through collaboration between key public and private decision-makers. Aligned with Luxembourg’s ambition to create a leading startup and entrepreneurial nation, Catapult: Kickstarter program is dedicated to further catalysing Fintech innovation in Luxembourg and beyond.
In order to effectively leverage the strengths of Luxembourg’s community and capabilities, the selected firms focus on delivering services to financial institutions (B2B), with particular emphasis on Insurtech, Regtech, Fundtech, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, B2C payments, and Cybersecurity.
The two-week digital program is tailored to the particular stage of the participating Fintechs and is structured around classroom tutorials, customer discovery, challenges, one-to-one meetings, pitching sessions, entrepreneurs feedback sessions, and mentorship sessions.
The 10 participating Fintech companies will meet multiple partners across those two weeks, including Luxembourg For Finance (LFF), Expon Capital, and Middlegame Ventures (MGV), guiding them through business models, funding strategies, and industry product testing.
The program will begin on Monday 15th of November and it will close with a final pitching event on Friday, November 26th open to the public. Five of the ten participating firms will be able to access up to 50,000 EUR in subsidies from the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy, based on the fulfilment of eligibility criteria.
Mr. Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT, commented: “After the resounding success of the first edition, we are really happy to launch the second edition of Catapult: Kickstarter. The 10 selected Fintech firms are all exciting businesses with high relevance to the Luxembourg financial centre, addressing some key challenges and opportunities for local actors. It is great to have such an application boom following on from the first edition of the program. I am looking forward to discovering more about those 10 Fintech firms selected and building synergies with the Luxembourg finance community.”
Mr. Franz Fayot, Luxembourg Minister of the Economy, added: “In line with the aims of the Ministry of the Economy, Catapult: Kickstarter enhances the Luxembourg start-up and digital ecosystem by enabling young innovative companies active within data, AI, Fintech and cybersecurity, to partner with the financial services industry. After a successful first edition, we are looking forward to seeing what this new cohort will bring, enriching Luxembourg’s diverse and impactful Startup Ecosystem.”
Join us on Friday 26th of November for the final digital pitching event, opened to the public, to discover the best Fintech solutions developed during the program.
You can register for the event HERE
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The 10 Selected Fintech Startups of the Catapult: Kickstarter 2021 Fall Edition are:
- Cent Finance – United Kingdom
Cent acts as the gateway to the growing world of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), it allows users to understand, explore and invest in digital assets, responsibly. It also provides an alternative to financial services offered by traditional banks like lending, borrowing, saving and sending/receiving. Although DeFi applications are growing at an accelerating rate, user acquisition has been from existing cryptocurrency investors, a small portion of the total addressable market (only 1 in 4 crypto users invest in DeFi).
- digitalUs – Luxembourg
The digitalUs technology developed at the SnT Research Center of the University of Luxembourg provides a solution to automate, and significantly speed-up the background screening process of individuals. It relies on a novel methodology to match the same entity across multiple publicly available data sources.
- Finanzmining – Germany
Finanzmining creates real-time business insights into consumers and enterprises derived from their bank accounts. Finanzmining real-time insights include a rich set of financial fitness and stability analytics of businesses and consumers, behavior analysis of businesses and consumers, financial forecast (e.g. of cash flow, P&L, “BWA”, etc.), business process analysis, signals based on interest and demand of businesses and consumers, consumer targeting, consumer reward processing, financial performance against peer groups, and much more. Finanzmining services are available via real-time API, offering analytics-as-a-service and white-labeled applications for a quick start without any IT effort.
- FLEXVELOP – BNPL+ Fintech – Germany
Flexvelop combines financial technology with a circular economy. Therefore, Flexvelop offers more than financial transactions, but a new way of funding equipment and flexible business growth. As the next generation payment solution for business equipment vendors, b2b customers are now able to flex new business critical equipment right at the point of sale (local + online).
- FUNDSaiQ – United Kingdom
FUNDSaiQ provides a SaaS based, AI / Machine Learning powered, B2B platform for financial advisors, empowering them to identify, select and monitor the best performing mutual fund managers in the market.
- goscore+ – Norway
goscore+ brings a human credit scoring to private customers using modern ML technology and data enriched with PSD2 customer transactions. goscore+ delivers solutions and services to banks, insurance, retail companies to help them make the right credit decisions, personalize existing and develop new products, get more customers without marketing budget changes, as well as reduce loan default rate.
- Schwarzthal Tech – United Kingdom
Schwarzthal Tech is building solutions to tackle financial crime using AI and advanced algorithms. The platform, Wunderschild, revolutionises compliance and investigation techniques. It provides intelligence solutions based on network assessment, data linkage, flow aggregation, and machine learning.
- Thread labs – France
Thread Labs developed an AI-powered collaborative investment research platform, specialized in integrating ESG in traditional equity research.
- Trensition – Belgium
Trensition is a trend analytics and forecasting company that builds upon a revolutionary and 100% data-driven methodology. The Trensition platform automates trend research and provides detailed trend & market insights tailored to the specific business context of companies.
- Velotix – Israël
The Velotix Data Governance & Orchestration Platform is unlocking Data and making it usable while adhering to compliance policies and enhancing business performance and operational efficiency.
