Web Summit: Startup Luxembourg side event draws full house

A side event organised by Startup Luxembourg at renowned technology conference Web Summit 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal, attracted numerous participants interested in the Luxembourg start-up ecosystem. Several international start-ups shared their reasons for choosing Luxembourg as their home.

Over 100,000 participants joined this year’s edition of Web Summit on 2-4 December 2020. The large number of participants was obviously made possible by the event going digital this year. Startup Luxembourg organised a digital side event on 3 December with almost 100 participants in attendance.

The Luxembourg webinar focused in particular on the fintech sector. After an introductory presentation of the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (Lhoft), three fintech entrepreneurs joined to share their experience of being located in Luxembourg and interacting with its start-up ecosystem.

International business environment

“We decided to set up our company in Luxembourg because of the business environment where, from day one, you are international,” said Marzio Flavio Schena, founder and CEO of Anote Music, a platform that aims to fill the gap between the music industry and investors by allowing direct investments in songs using blockchain technology. “If I had launched my start-up in Italy, it would have been a purely Italian company for at least two or three years. Then it would have taken me another 4 years to translate my website into English and French and to grow internationally.”

We decided to set up our company in Luxembourg because of the business environment where, from day one, you are international.

Denis Kiselev came from Silicon Valley in 2015 to establish SnapSwap in Luxembourg, where he secured a strategic partnership with Mastercard and launched Everest, a revolutionary digital credit card and payment platform. He initially hesitated between London and Luxembourg but finally decided to establish his business in Luxembourg due to the country’s “central location in Europe, friendly regulatory environment and great digital infrastructure”.

Unmatched individual support

For Christian Kratz, who came from Germany to found Investify, an investment advisor robot that allows users to register and invest from their computer, the human size of the ecosystem was the main argument. “Here, you are a project and not only a number. I participated in a state visit with the Grand Duke in Finland in 2016. I doubt it would have been possible in Germany for a small start-up like ours.”

Watch the Startup Luxembourg replay

The side event ended with a pitching session that highlighted Luxembourg and Portuguese start-ups exhibiting at the Web Summit.

The replay of the webinar is now available.

Are you looking for a gateway to the European market, a testbed for a new service/product or a strong industrial/academic partner? Luxembourg is the perfect place to start or scale your entrepreneurial adventure.