For this fourth edition of the Catapult: Kickstarter program, the LHoFT team and jury partners selected ten impressive Fintech ventures from over 140 applications. The program ended on the 9th of December with a final pitching event at the LHoFT, in front of a highly credible jury, as well as investors and audience members. The five “Laureates” selected by the jury are: Invoport, Regtech Datahub, Pelt8, Byrssa, Omnio. They will be eligible for grants up to €50,000 from the Ministry of Economy.

Developed by the LHoFT Foundation and supported by the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy, "Catapult: Kickstarter 2022 - Fall Edition" has supported 10 amazing Fintech startups over the course of two weeks, with the aim of developing their business models, focusing on business scaling and risk management, and providing connectivity to the Luxembourg Financial Services ecosystem. As the name suggests, the program aims to kickstart businesses growth through expansion to Luxembourg by leveraging outstanding mentors, tutors and connecting them to the local ecosystem.

Over recent years, Luxembourg has built up a supportive and strong Fintech startup ecosystem through collaboration between key public and private decision-makers. In line with Luxembourg’s ambition to create a leading startup and entrepreneurial nation, the Catapult: Kickstarter program is designed to further catalyse 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 a particular emphasis on Insurtech, Regtech, Fundtech, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, B2C payments, Cybersecurity and Sustainability – as ESG-related Fintech is a key area of focus for the Luxembourg financial services ecosystem.

The two-weeks 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 ten participating Fintech companies met with numerous ecosystem partners over the course of the two weeks, including Luxembourg For Finance (LFF), Société Générale, and Middlegame Ventures (MGV), who advised them on their business models, funding strategies, and industry product testing.

The program started on Monday 28th of November and ended with a final pitching event on Friday, 9th of December. The five laureates selected from the ten participating companies will be eligible for grants up to 50,000 EUR from the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy.

Mr. Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT Foundation, commented: "It is very encouraging to see the continued commitment from firms all across Europe and even further afield to Catapult: Kickstarter. As such, it was difficult to select ten participants for the program. We feel all could provide significant value to the Luxembourg Financial Services centre. The program was demanding, but all the participating firms were enthusiastic and active in their participation. Only five firms could be selected as laureates, my congratulations to them. I thank our community for their support and active engagement in the program over the two weeks - it is what makes the program unique and worthwhile."

Mr. Franz Fayot, Minister of the Economy stated: “I am pleased to see once again such broad interest in the Catapult: Kickstarter program which has attracted start-ups from all over Europe and connected them to local financial services and start-up ecosystems. I congratulate them all on their successful participation. These young companies are welcome additions to our start-up ecosystem with solutions in areas such as sustainable finance, RegTech, data analytics and Blockchain.”

The 10 Selected Fintech Startups of the Catapult: Kickstarter 2022 - Summer Edition were:

1. Bilic - United Kingdom

http://www.bilic.io

Bilic is a London-based blockchain security forensics and data analytics startup offering products to help defence agencies, government agencies, intelligence agencies, and financial institutions investigate, detect and prevent insecurity on blockchain networks.

2. Byrssa - Czech Republic

http://byrssa.io

BYRSSA is a trusted European digital execution platform for SAFE based seed funding and Security Token Offering. Byrssa is the first European licensed equity crowdfunding platform based on standard SAFE contract for seed and on STO for priced funding. Byrssa’s mission is to simplify, accelerate and disintermediate the early stage start-up fundraising process.

3. Invoport - Luxembourg

https://invoport.lu/

Invoport helps the fund administrators digitally process the fund operations to increase productivity and quality in addition to providing the investors an online portal to monitor the fund performance. It is composed of (1) a cloud computing expert software where users can accomplish the funds operations via its online platform and (2) an interface for the investors where they receive the information shared by the fund such as capital call, distributions, and reports.

4. Lyyna Insurance and Financial Services - Switzerland

https://lyyna.com

Lyyna empowers financial institutions to leverage their data to offer the right insurance to the right customer at the right time. Lyyna is a SaaS provider which empowers retail banks and other financial institutions to leverage their transactional data (e.g. payments, financing requests, etc.) as well as other customer-related data (e.g. chats, emails, existing contracts) to 1)- recognise the right signals indicating that a customer is experiencing an insurance relevant life moment and 2)- decide if they want to offer insurance for that particular customer.

5. Omnio - Bulgaria

https://omniocompliance.com/

OMNIO is a multi-platform solution that detects suspicious activity, generates assessments and recommends a course of action for your cases. It significantly reduces the risk of failure, resulting in less time spent on compliance and no additional costs for additional staff, external advisors, or regulatory fines. Designed for businesses of all sizes, it is a cloud-based/ on-premise solution that lets employees manage compliance, monitor transactions, detect frauds, assess risks, and more.

6. Paperless IO - Germany

https://www.paperless.io/

Paperless lets the users create, sign, manage, and automate intelligent documents on a single platform and for more productivity and a better experience for everyone involved. In more detail the platform allows you to create Smart-Paperless-Documents that allow data input and real-time data validation, different signee workflows and are responsive for every mobile device. In addition, the Smart-Paperless-Document can be filled and signed in every language the document has been created in.

7. Pelt8 - Switzerland

https://pelt8.com/

Pelt8 is a B2B SaaS and suite of APIs powering the sustainability ecosystem by turning complex disclosures into clean data. We make it easy for small to large companies to deal with their growing disclosure requirements through our automated reporting while providing them with the processes and controls to do it in a clean and auditable way. Selected data points can then be shared with various stakeholders from system to system through machine readable formats.

8. RegTech Datahub - Denmark

http://www.regtechdatahub.com

To replace existing market data vendor for all MiFID II/MiFIR reporting needs, RegTech Datahub supply the customer with all instrument static data necessary to comply with the many different reporting requirements under MiFID II/MiFIR, i.e. - Pre & post trade transparency reporting - Transaction reporting - Best execution reporting - Cost reporting (running + annual) - Loss reporting - SI calculations/surveillance - ISIN Look-up/ ISIN creation.

9. SDG Assessment - United Kingdom

http://www.SDG-Assessment.com

©SDG Assessment is a sustainability, environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance reporting tool that assists SMEs and large businesses with benchmarking their performance in relation to UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) by encouraging organisations that complete the self-assessment process to commit to addressing pertinent UN SDGs. The ©SDG Assessment app aims to adopt a five-step approach outlined in the Sustainable Strategic Growth Model: Learn, Develop, Implement, Optimise and Sustain bolstered by blockchain technology that supports information security and enhances the company’s customers journey experience.

10. Symbiose Management – France

www.symbiosemanagement.com

Symbiose Management is empowering people to address climate change from the bottom-up, by providing the first negative CO2 investment product based on tree plantations for investors, with their innovative platform and strong ecological commitment.