The Luxembourg Space Finance Event 2022 took place in New York City on 10 November. It was the occasion to pitch the grand duchy’s latest achievements within the space ecosystem and attract valuable investments and startups to Luxembourg.
Luxembourg has been active in space for about 40 years with the launch of the satellite company SES in 1985. In 2018, the government launched the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA). The Luxembourg Space Finance Event 2022 was jointly held by the LSA, The Ministry of Economy of Luxembourg (ECO), and the US Luxembourg Trade and Investment Offices (LTIO) in a conference room at Saks, one of New York most iconic department stores on Fifth Avenue.
The event started with an address by Crown Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg on the merits of the grand duchy’s efforts in the space ecosystem. Prince Guillaume ended his speech by challenging the attendees to develop a means of transport in the space ecosystem that would cut time off his eight-hour return flight to Europe.
The Crown Prince’s address was followed by a speech from Luxembourg economy minister Franz Fayot, who outlined the newest developments in the country’s space strategy, emphasising sustainability. In terms of economic sustainability, the sector will not only rely on public funding but also on private sources of financing, which the minister hopes to attract by tapping into the New York City venture capital market. In terms of sustainability on earth, the latest efforts will contribute towards reducing climate change and improving agriculture globally. Regarding sustainability in space, the next steps need to be targeted at improving space traffic and space debris management.
”Luxembourg can only succeed by cooperating with others”, declared the minister, while expressing a wish for stronger links between Luxembourg and the United States in the space ecosystem.
Mario Grotz, President of the Board of Directors at the Luxembourg Space Agency, presented the grand duchy’s national economic strategy and how it related to the space ecosystem. There are currently more than 80 actors (public, private, academic) in Luxembourg in the space sector.
The government launched several initiatives through the University of Luxembourg to support developments in the sector, such as the new Interdisciplinary Space Master and a partnership with the University of Tel Aviv and the University of North Carolina. Other programmes are tailored to attract startups, for example through the payment of grants based on the real cost associated with RDI activity
Having detailed all of Luxembourg’s efforts in the space ecosystem, Grotz noted the following: “Luxembourg takes more space… in space than on earth.” The event concluded with a round table discussion on Luxembourg’s commercial space industry and how to unlock investments.
by Nathan Moyse, Silicon Luxembourg’s special correspondent in New York.
Astroport and FourPoint, two graduates of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) Startup Support Programme (SSP), have jointly signed a memorandum of understanding for their lunar project.
Launched in 2020, in partnership with the European Space Agency, Luxembourg Space Agency, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology and technology incubator Technoport, ESRIC’s first cohort of startups already appears to be bearing fruit.
Indeed, the US-based Astroport Space Technologies and the Poland-based FourPoint were two of only five companies chosen for ESRIC’s first SSP. FourPoint was also selected to be the first incubated startup to continue to phase two of the programme, receiving additional technical and business support as well as a grant of up to €200 000.
“We are happy to join Astroport and its international partner network of organisations involved in the LLP project. The participation in the ESRIC SSP gave us the unique opportunity to connect with amazing companies and individuals building up a future lunar economy,” said Marek Wilgucki, CEO of FourPoint.
The collaboration will initially focus on developing the construction technologies necessary for establishing safe landings at lunar camps. Their Lunar Launch and Landing Pad (LLP) will aid NASA’s Artemis return to the Moon programme.
While Astroport will be developing their patent-pending technology for melting lunar soil to form “Moon bricks”, FourPoint will use its Autonomous Transport Platform (ATP) for hauling and transporting lunar material to feed Astroport’s LunatronTM brickmaker. FourPoint’s ATP offers a complete solution for autonomous machine operation, adapted to work in specific areas which improves the speed and efficiency of work in opencast mines, as well as other extreme environments such as on the lunar surface.
The collaboration between both companies not only speaks to ESRIC’s selection process but will also benefit the Luxembourg spacetech ecosystem as both FourPoint and Astroport intend to establish subsidiary operations in Luxembourg. FourPoint will also join Astroport’s international partner network of companies and academic research organisations developing the LLP construction concept of operations and associated technologies.
The evolution of digital technology has changed the way people consume, search for and purchase goods and services.
On the one hand, these changes are forcing companies in the housing sector to digitalize their marketing practices. On the other hand, they reveal significant business opportunities thanks to the exploitation of data that is now more accessible. Rémi Valentin, Innovative Solutions Director and Sébastien Goubrievsky, Marketing Director of Editus, a Google Partner certified marketing agency specialized in Data, shed light on the challenges facing companies in this sector.
SEO, content & e-reputation: new challenges for companies
Virtual tours, online quotes, loan simulations, concierge services, specialized real estate platforms, etc. The housing landscape in Luxembourg has evolved. Thanks to digital technology, before taking action, an Internet user can already access 75% of the information needed to carry out his project on Google. They will click on the website or the company profile of the professional who has put forward the product or service that meets their criteria and will certainly choose the professional who will offer them an online quote request or who has the best reviews on Google.
It should be noted that 87% of internet users stop their purchase process if a rating is below 3 on Google. This forces companies in the housing sector to adapt to Google’s referencing criteria in order to be more visible while maintaining their e-reputation!
“We support more than 1,200 companies in the real estate and construction sector in the management of their digital presence and their opinions,” explains Sébastien Goubrievsky, reminding us of the importance of placing data at the heart of marketing considerations.
Data at the heart of marketing considerations
“Customers in this sector appeared on average 32 million times in Google and Editus.lu results lists in 2021 and these appearances generated 50 million clicks. What we see is that in 52% of cases, Internet users consult the company’s website as a priority, while 23% prefer to have a telephone contact. These are precious indications to help professionals understand their targets’ purchasing path and communicate with them at the right time, on the right channel” develops Sébastien Goubrievsky.
However, mastering advertising investments and anticipating customer needs are not the only business advantages that digital marketing and data allow, according to Rémi Valentin.
Leveraging data to secure new projects
“There are a multitude of “data sets” that professionals in the housing sector can use to support their strategic decision-making and surround themselves with trusted partners. Editus has legal and financial data to check the financial health of companies or partners but also marketing and behavioral data through its Editus Insight solution to ensure the relevance of a project and to get promotional benefits.”
Indeed, Editus Insight is a solution developed by a group of Data Intelligence Experts at Editus, which allows them to perform reliable and relevant market research based on anonymized data from digital campaigns and mobility data crossed with POIs (Point of Interest) referenced in the Editus database. Thanks to this solution, developers can define the most attractive areas for their future real estate projects, whether they are intended for professionals or residents.
“They have a global vision of the profile of visitors to the area, how and why they move there and can easily promote the competitive advantages of their project to their partners and clients” explains Rémi Valentin.
From the evaluation of your project to the promotion of your goods and services, including the search for and the establishment of relationships with service providers, Editus accompanies all companies in the housing sector, taking into account the evolution of uses.
This article was first published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Get your copy.
A responsible social network. That’s the headline of Greenworlder. What is it all about? What are the steps and the path to get there? Who is this new platform for? With fifteen employees and a recent fundraising of one million euros, the startup certainly has the means to grow. Irene Mäkelä-Brunnekreef and Jannika Salminen, respectively in charge of communication and marketing, tell us more.
Can you tell us what Greenworlder is all about?
Greenworlder is a social media for sustainability. We want to offer inspiration for people to live a more sustainable life every day, one step at a time. We do this by bringing in the best things social media offers – community, connectivity, and free sharing of content – and by switching the focus to sustainability, both environmental and social.
Our platform also brings together people and organisations who are committed to sustainable values, serving as a conversation-opening platform where everyone is on the same level and conversation flows around important topics.
Besides sustainability content produced by organisations and individual users, Greenworlder offers a dedicated section for curated sustainability news and, in the future, also a marketplace for sustainable brands.
Can you tell us what the last few months have been about?
In the past months, we have been rebranding Greenworlder, both visually as well as in terms of our brand promises and messaging. Besides this, we have been working hard on the development, UX and UI, as well as working on our funding. We are happy to announce we have reached 840,000€ in funding and are now aiming for one million!
What exactly is sustainable media?
Sustainable media focuses on not exploiting the user. In traditional social media, the product is the user. The platforms build algorithms to keep the users hooked on the platform as much as possible at any cost. The data of the users is then sold to third parties and used for targeted advertising. A little mind is paid to mental health issues linked to the social pressure that traditional social media are creating; all that is important is that the users keep using the app.
Sustainable media is the opposite of that. When we think about the word sustainable, it means that something is designed to last. Sustainable media needs to be designed in the sense that it can last without manipulating or hurting the users, and that’s where we are aiming to. This is why we are rather designing meaningful algorithms, we don’t track our users outside the platform, and we let the user be in control of their own data and will not sell the data to third parties.
In addition, and very importantly, we focus on topics on both social and environmental sustainability; we want to make sustainability the next mainstream that can cover all aspects of life, and hope to inspire more people to find more sustainable ways of living.
How do you plan to acquire your users and aggregate enough content?
The app will be launched soon, are we’re currently collecting a test user base to become early bird users – also businesses.
On Greenworlder, content is king. Our aim is to offer content that answers the sustainability demand while still staying positive. For this, we will also collaborate with specialists in various areas of sustainability to make sure the content is relevant and good quality, as well as informative and meaningful.
We also keep the bar low so it’s easy for people to jump in and start producing content. We are currently developing user-favourite features that allow people to produce content in their preferred way, and our content categories help people to find the content they are interested in.
We are also looking to work closely with our audience, listening to them and their requests in terms of the UX, content, and all the other things regarding the platform. This is an important part of being a community – we are not just the platform but part of the community itself.
What is your target? The general public or a b2b variation of your social network for businesses?
Both. We will have a business profile for organisations and another profile for private users. On Greenworlder, we aim to have a very low – if not non-existent – bar between organisations and individual users so the conversation can flow easily and transparently.
We will also have a dedicated marketplace for sustainable brands to showcase their products and services for the sustainability-curious or committed audience. We are already getting the first companies on board to showcase sustainable alternatives to different areas of life.
What is the internal excitement of such a launch like? How does the team experience these emotions?
It’s been a long journey with the development of the app, especially since the new brand identity went live and we have taken big steps ahead with the app development. You can feel how the spirits of the team are very high. Every single one of us is extremely excited about the upcoming launch in the coming months!
For everyone who is equally excited about our launch, we recommend signing up to our reminder mail list.
Wine speculation is having a devastating effect on family-owned vineyards. Startup WokenWine hopes to tackle this problem, along with wine fraud and counterfeiting, via its wine NFT trading platform.
“Producers get nothing from this speculation,” Valérie Engel, co-founder of WokenWine explains. “Because when a bottle leaves their domaine for €200, and it’s sold on by the buyer at Christie’s for €2-3,000, their estate is valued based on the speculative price of the wine.”
Because of speculative practices, often when an owner passes away, their children are forced to sell the property to settle inheritance taxes.
NFT solution
Valérie Engel, along with business partner Valery Lux, both serial entrepreneurs believe they have an effective solution. WokenWine is a Luxembourg-based NFT issuer and trading platform for rare wines that will go live in the first quarter of 2023. The business model allows producers to issue NFTs for whichever bottles they wish, be it a single cuvée or the entire vintage.
The WokenWine platform also aims to solve a second problem: counterfeiting and fraud. According to WokenWine’s research, a quarter of all rare wines sold on the primary and the secondary market are counterfeit.
“NFT brings solutions to solve these problems. 5-10 years ago, it would not have been possible. But new technology brings new possibilities to solve these problems.”
Valérie Engel
The blockchain platform on which the technology is built ensures the traceability and transparency of each wine bottle’s life cycle. Valérie Engel explains: “Conservation is a problem for rare bottles. A bottle might travel around the world seven times so the last person who opens the bottle ends up disappointed.”
The platform guarantees a record of each time the wine is sold and moved, offering full traceability through the primary and secondary rare wine markets. Aimed at producers, collectors and professionals, it is fully AML compliant, with KYC procedures for anyone wishing to use its trading functions.
Valérie Engel says: “NFT brings solutions to solve these problems. 5-10 years ago, it would not have been possible. But new technology brings new possibilities to solve these problems.”
The team has already signed up some 12 highly sought-after domaines and expects to have onboarded 30 by the time of launching. But the process is slow going. “Most of our customers are very traditional people. We have to explain what NFTs are, what blockchain is,” she says.
As a wine lover herself, the Luxembourger is passionate about improving the lot of wine producers and says that it was over a glass of wine that the idea first took form.
“It is great that we have a solution with blockchain because it is a shame when our producers cannot pass on a domaine to their son or daughter. Normally what would happen is a big group buys the estate and then what happens to the quality of the wine?”
Launched in early 2020, Jobfirst has already helped more than 24,000 employees find a job suitable to their skills and personality. Co-founder Maxime Belair tells us more about the benefits the platform provides for jobseekers and recruiters alike.
When did you found Jobfirst and what problem does it solve?
We launched Jobfirstin April 2020 just after Covid-19 started. But we were lucky enough to do a proof-of-concept with Amazon which turned out really well as we helped them hire 18,000 candidates.
Our platform helps with resumé screening and the sourcing of candidates because it allows recruiters to create job ads in three minutes. This ad is then sent to 25 job boards such as LinkedIn, Indeed and Monster, so it has a very wide reach. Each candidate can then create a profile in 5 minutes on our website for which they don’t need a resumé and our matching algorithm will assess their hard and soft skills to see for which jobs they would be a good fit.
This matching really helps recruiters because they don’t have to scan 500 resumés but can simply look at the best 10 candidates selected by our algorithm.
What kind of candidates is your platform tailored to?
We work mostly with blue-collar workers and non-C-level workers. Industries we are quite active in include the construction industry, the security industry and the cleaning industry. But we also help to source for HR and business positions. Most of our user base is between 16 and 44 years old, so we are also targeting a younger demographic.
What do you hope to achieve with Jobfirst?
We want to ease access to the job market for everyone and we want to help recruiters find the right candidates faster. For us, this is a really important mission and one that we are committed to. Having helped 24,000 people find a job, I’d say it’s working pretty well so far.
Why do you allow candidates to apply without a résumé?
We believe that the resumé is no longer a good tool to assess someone’s skills and motivations for the job, especially when it comes to blue-collar work. A lot of blue-collar workers struggle with writing a complete resumé including all of their soft and hard skills or including their availabilities. Our platform allows them to fill in all this information in less than 5 minutes.
Our platform is also mobile-first. A phone number is all you need. If you don’t have an email or an address, no problem.
How do you test the employees’ soft skills?
We use Intelli7’s personality assessment which has global recognition and has been used by multinationals across the globe. It also gives you the average scores of the population and quickly helps you find a profile where the practical skills match the desired personality for the job.
What is your business model?
The platform is free for candidates for now but we might launch a premium model for candidates in 12 months that will make their job-searching experience even better. For businesses, we have a SaaS model where small businesses can get a first job offer for free and for larger businesses it’s a 12-month engagement period. Lastly, for smaller needs, we also offer a pay-as-you-go offer if they only want to do three hires or so for example.
Which countries are you active in and what are your goals for the remainder of the year?
We hope to sign more contracts with some of our big customers and launch a POC in the US and Morocco. It hasn’t been signed yet but we are hoping to launch this POC to see if we can expand the market. We are also looking to raise 500K, of which we have already raised half. Furthermore, we are working with Kryptown to allow some of our users, friends and family to acquire some equity with little financial input.
Lastly, we are currently a team of 5 people but expect to be 10 at the beginning of next year and hope to double that number by the end of 2023.
10 companies will compete at the 2022 Creative Young Entrepreneurs of Luxembourg (CYEL) Awards on 1 December. Three will be awarded as the most outstanding entrepreneurs in Luxembourg.
The 16th Creative Young Entrepreneurs of Luxembourg (CYEL) Awards Ceremony will be held on 1 December (at 6pm) at the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce.
CYEL is a competition organised by the Junior Chamber International of Luxembourg (JCI). It aims to promote and support business creativity and new enterprise or segment development, and to honor the entrepreneurial spirit of young entrepreneurs aged 18 to 40, who work within or own a company established in Luxembourg.
This year, the keynote speaker will be Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. Verbalius owner and founder and JCI Luxembourg Senator Pedro Castilho will moderate the ceremony.
10 startups have been selected. Three will be awarded as the most creative and outstanding companies in Luxembourg.
10 finalists
BlocHome (by Maroun Altekly), a new way for anyone to access the real estate market. The startup enables people to buy slices of property in just a few clicks.
Cascade Lab (by Maciej Waloszyk), a Luxembourg fintech/regtech startup selling solutions to help financial administrative firms automate operations.
Circu Li-ion (by Antoine Welter), a Luxembourg-based battery and cell upcycling startup.
emma (by Dmitry Panenkov), a multicloud management platform as a no-code application that helps to deploy and host seamlessly any infrastructure on any cloud.
Fundvis (by Leonhard Kossmann), a management solution connecting parties in the setup and lifecycle management of an investment fund.
Green Earth Agro (by Rushank Bardolia), a sustainable palm oil production and trading company that advances local employment and rural empowerment in Ghana.
Mission Space (by Alex Pospekhov), a SpaceTech which operates satellite-based space weather intelligence systems
RiDERgy (by Claudio Geyken), a startup helping e-vehicle fleet managers master the volatility of the energy market.
Veezzy (by Lyazid Benyahya), a startup helping SMEs access low cost, high quality tailor-made video content.
WEO (by Charlotte Wirion), as startup providing data from space and AI to help companies tackle major environmental issues.
The prizes
Several prizes will be granted to the finalists:
cash award for the three finalists;
free promo video by IZICAST;
access to the international network of JCI and participation to the European JCI competition;
free media exposure on Luxembourg medias;
free consulting sessions, based on their own activity of expertise;
a Surface offered by Microsoft for the winner;
12 months’ coaching/tutorial offered by Kenny Van Beeck, ISV Partner Leader at Microsoft;
Founded in 1915, the Association of young men for civic progress, became the Junior Chamber International (JCI) on 11 December 1944. The organisation included representatives from eight nations aiming to address global problems. JCI now includes 5,000 communities in nearly 120 countries from all continents. Its vision is to be the first global network of young active citizens. Its mission is to provide development opportunities for young people by giving them the ability to create positive change.
In the future, ultra high speed internet will be essential for many of our daily activities. MyConnectivity.lu CEO Geraldine Knudson explains why it is important to boost connectivity in Luxembourg before we reach that point.
Thanks to cable and fibre optic, people can access very high-capacity networks from 95% of Luxembourg’s territory. Despite this potential, of those eligible just 60% have subscribed. “On a European scale, the coverage is among the best,” says Knudson. “But uptake is not so great. Why don’t people take an infrastructure that is available to them?”
This is among the questions being explored by MyConnectivity.lu, an economic interest group launched at the end of 2021 by the government’s media, connectivity and digital policy service with LU-CIX Management.
The platform aims to bring 100% connectivity by 2025 by bringing connectivity to the 5% underserved part of the country and convincing the remaining population who are in an area where high-capacity networks are available to subscribe. Knudson reckons that a major blocking point for the latter challenge is technical issues.
She says that in many areas where telecoms providers have installed fibre optic infrastructure in the street, households and businesses have yet to connect the dots and feed the vertical cabling to the different floors of a building. This is the case for an estimated 20,000 buildings in the grand duchy.
“The other thing is that people are not aware of the importance of good connectivity. They might think that today, they’re still quite happy with their connectivity, but perhaps today and certainly tomorrow, it’s not going to suffice,” says Knudson.
“People are not aware of the importance of good connectivity. They might think that today, they’re still quite happy with their connectivity, but perhaps today and certainly tomorrow, it’s not going to suffice.”
MyConnectivity.lu CEO Geraldine Knudson
Reaching the ecosystem
MyConnectivity.lu’s four-strong team, comprised of Julien Larios as technical director and Marc Lis as head of marketing and communication, are laying the groundwork for establishing a centre of expertise in Luxembourg. The team has already worked closely with telecommunications operators to understand the pain points. Before the end of 2022, it will host four regional conferences to raise awareness of the value of connectivity with players in the construction sector. A 2017 law ensures that all new buildings are fitted with cable and fibre optic in apartments. But, the sector has work to do to bring older buildings up to this standard.
In 2023 MyConnectivity.lu will launch consumer-focused campaigns online and on social media to help the public make informed choices. Meanwhile, the platform will commission surveys to better understand the low uptake of high-capacity networks. Knudson says: “Our advantage is that we have no commercial interest. Our only interest is in the future of the country. And so, I think that we have a lot of credibility.”
Ambitious goals
Assuming that the team builds a hybrid connectivity model to serve the 5% underserved part of the country, convincing 100% of the population to subscribe to high-capacity networks within the timeframe set out by Xavier Bettel’s government is ambitious.
Whether they reach the target or not, Knudson sees MyConnectivity.lu’s mission as fundamentally important for Luxembourg’s social cohesion.
“I think that one of the key sentences for the government is really this aspect of ‘leave no-one behind’. Luxembourg is very much about social cohesion. The tripartite is trying to create social cohesion. I think in that same spirit you try to educate people to the point where they lose the fear of modern technologies,” Knudson says, adding: “I think the biggest challenge is to take this very complex, technical subject and express it in a way that really everybody can understand what’s in it for them.”
Women represent just 15% of the cheque writers of angel and VC investors. Women-led startups receive just 2% of total VC funding. Silicon Luxembourg examines the movement for change coming from within the industry.
When Sophie Winwood and a group of fellow European women VCs envisioned the first European women VC summit, they only expected a handful of attendees. In September 2022, a week before the one-day event at Station F in Paris, the booking system was showing “sold out”.
“We hadn’t even released the agenda yet. We were working full time as investors while organising all this. The day became so much bigger than what we hoped,” recalls Winwood, a principal with Anthemis.
Altogether, 350 women from across Europe took part in the networking events and talks about access to VC careers, fundraising and fund progression.
“During the evening we were joined by our male allies,” said Winwood, adding: “That was cool because the guys were like ‘I’ve never been in a room where I’m the minority before, it was really intimidating!’ I said: “Welcome to our life, that’s literally every other conference!”
The conference offered a snapshot of the passion, momentum for change and mutual support women VCs are bringing to a traditionally male-dominated industry. And this work is much-needed. The damning European Women in VC report, published in May 2022, found that depending on the geography, female cheque writers represent 5-15% of angel and VC investors.
Women invest in women
The upshot is that the lack of gender diversity in VCs means even less diversity among the beneficiaries of VC funds. Pitchbook, a research firm, found that in the US female founders received only 2% of VC money in 2021.
The financial and sustainability benefits of all-women and mixed-gender founder teams have been widely documented. But, according to the WEF 2021 global Gender Gap Report, if female entrepreneurship continues at the current rate of growth, it will be 135.6 years before we close the gender gap worldwide.
“We need a greater pool of investors to bring more diversity, growth and jobs to Europe’s innovation ecosystems […] From a funding perspective, the gender gap is ubiquitous,” European commissioner for innovation Mariya Gabriel was quoted in the European Women in VC report.
Sophie Winwood, pictured, is a principal with Anthemis (Photo: Sophie Winwood)
Missing from the candidate pool
Women are not the only ones pushing for change. When Tioga Capital Partners, a Luxembourg-headquartered VC firm focused on early-stage crypto blockchain investments, expanded its team in early 2022, it found that women were missing from the applicant pool.
“For every 10 candidates, less than one was from a woman,” said managing director Patrick Van de Mosselaer. In a bid to build a more diverse team, Tioga sought professional advice to structure the job advert to be as inclusive as possible and requested headhunters to target female candidates. “We barely got any candidates.” Van de Mosselaer concluded that the “hectic” working conditions at a small and very specialised tech VC firm (Tioga employs 9 people) were not attractive to women candidates. But is that true?
Silicon Luxembourg interviewed four women VCs working in France, Germany, Luxembourg and the UK who described highly rewarding, meaningful and engaging roles.
“It’s the best job in the world because every day you learn something new about technologies that will change the world,” said Julia Hubo, investor at Berlin-based VC firm Embedded Capital, adding: “And you can go really deep when analysing opportunities.”
“It’s the best job in the world because every day you learn something new about technologies that will change the world. And you can go really deep when analysing opportunities.”
Julia Hubo, investor at Berlin-based VC firm Embedded Capital
Clarisse Lam, an associate at New Alpha, a VC firm investing in early-stage fintech & insurtech, said she was aware that some VCs firms were struggling to hire women. “I always find that so surprising because I know so many people who want to get into VC.”
Mia Lewis, an investor with Luxembourg-based MiddleGame Ventures, adds: “It does become somewhat chicken and egg when you look at a fund page and you can’t see anyone that you feel an affinity with. You feel like that might not be a route for you.”
Julia Hubo, pictured, is an investor at Berlin-based VC firm Embedded Capital. (Photo: Julia Hubo)
One explanation could be that technology, particularly financial technology, which Tioga invests in, is already gender-skewed. According to the International Monetary Fund July 2022 Women in Fintech report, women represent less than 10% of leadership—both as founders and as members of executive boards–of fintech firms. The pace of change in new technologies can be intimidating for anyone entering the VC world. Winwood said that she seized on the opportunity to work on an insurtech fund because “I felt I had missed the wave on fintech, and insurtech was still in its nascency.”
Lewis argues, however, that you don’t always have to be an expert in the specific sub-sector the fund is investing in. “You can’t always be the subject matter expert, because often you’re speaking to a founder who’s lived and breathed that for multiple years,” she said, adding: “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a really engaging and valuable conversation from both sides of the table. It’s about drawing on relevant experiences and having the appetite to learn and explore new areas you may be less familiar with from the outset.”
Who is in your network?
Winwood reckons the greatest challenge for women accessing VC roles is getting the first break. She describes the Catch-22 of VC, in which firms require VC experience but you cannot get experience if you cannot get into VC. Winwood was very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with a female partner from the start of her career. She said: “Anthemis was the second role that I applied for. I was very fortunate they took a chance on me having had no VC experience previously.”
“I was very fortunate they took a chance on me having had no VC experience previously.”
Sophie Winwood, Anthemis
Lam reckons that the field is opening up. She landed her current role after participating in UK mentoring and development programme Future VC during the pandemic. Today she sees more VC job postings online, something which she said was less the case before. “I think that also helps bridge the gap between men and women because everyone can at least be aware of the same opportunity vs. when the hiring is made through the network,” she said.
Not all VC firms struggle to recruit women. Of the 45-strong team at Anthemis, half are women, half of the partner team are women and one of the two founders is a woman. “Anthemis is a weird beast,” admits Winwood, explaining that the founders were intentional from the start. “They knew that in order to cultivate change in the financial system we needed to have a diverse and inclusive team at the forefront. That is why diversity and inclusivity remains one of our guiding principals.”
Am I qualified?
Assuming a VC job is posted in a place where women candidates can see it, it is a widely reported practice that women are more likely to apply if they have 90% of the attributes required, compared to men who apply if they meet only 60% of requirements. Meanwhile, some of the stereotypes about qualifications and previous roles for entry to VC may be dissuasive for women candidates.
Lam, who has a master’s in management from a business school in France, broke into the industry after participating in a dedicated programme. In Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Private Equity Association’s (LPEA) began an Academy to make knowledge about the sector more accessible. “Normally, it starts with great studies, internships, and a little bit of luck,” LPEA director Stéphane Pesch said, acknowledging that business schools are costly and can be an obstacle to diversity.
Different treatments in the business
Once women break into the VC world, experiences can be mixed. “The community is incredibly supportive,” said Hubo. “Once you’re in, it’s very easy to not just see new opportunities within the world popping up. But also people who are so helpful in the sense that the GP of the first fund I was at connected me with the founders of the place I work at now.”
Lewis found that working for a small firm meant she was more included in high-level discussions. “There are four partners and me as an associate so I have direct channels to each of them and can actively promote and engage in all discussions. I can present and debate at the investment committee even though I may not have an official vote, it’s still expected that I engage as if I was on that level,” she said.
“It’s harder to network, you have to work so much harder to get into these circles that men are naturally in.”
Sophie Winwood
People may use different language and ways of communicating around women, whether consciously or not, which can impact their career progression. For instance, research shows that women are more likely to be asked risk prevention-oriented questions, compared to their male peers, something that Dana Kanze speaks about in this 2017 TEDTalk.
And despite the fact that all four women said they felt fully included in the process to decide which firms to invest in, some felt they were not viewed equally by founders. Lam said: “There are times when they don’t expect me to have any weight in decision making. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman. Maybe it’s just because I’m an associate and I don’t have that partner title.”
Clarisse Lam, pictured, is an associate at New Alpha (Photo: Clarisse Lam)
Some of the four shared stories they had heard of unequal treatment and exploitative behaviours. These included female founders going to what they thought was a pitching conversation with a male investor and finding out it was a date. Another heard of a female GP raising funds whose contract stipulated an eight-hour working day, “because they don’t trust them to commit their time to the fund.”
Progressing from junior to senior roles
The sheer numbers attending the European Women VC summit show that the industry is embracing the skills women can bring to venture capital at the junior level. Real change will come as they progress into general partner roles. But, as Commissioner Gabriel points out: “The employment pyramid is steep with very few at partner level [….] even though women investors often surpass their male counterparts in achieving returns on investment.”
“The employment pyramid is steep with very few at partner level [….] even though women investors often surpass their male counterparts in achieving returns on investment.”
European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel points
Winwood feels she has been very lucky to work with Ruth Foxe Blader, a partner at Anthemis – who she counts as a role model, mentor and friend. Ruth pushed Winwood to go for a promotion before she felt comfortable. Nevertheless, being the only woman in the room at networking events takes its toll.
“It’s harder to network, you have to work so much harder to get into these circles that men are naturally in,” said Winwood. She adds that it can be frustrating too when she sees how hard she has to fight for female founders “when I feel that they’re the same level, if not better than men. Because it’s so much easier to say ‘yes’ to a man, who receives passive recognition. Probably no one is doing it maliciously, it’s just the status quo.”
Mia Lewis, pictured, is an investor with Luxembourg-based MiddleGame Ventures (Photo: Mia Lewis)
Lewis agreed that while there is a growing diversity in funds, “as you then move up the stack, it drops off fairly significantly.” She views VC inclusivity more holistically and sees a solution in working with the top rung of the VC chain, starting with the limited partners. She said: “We need to see greater female representation throughout the value chain: LPs, GPs and Founders. I think it’s something like only 20% of LP engagement is with women. GPs themselves need to have stronger female representation and raise larger funds. And then female founders and startups need to receive more funding.”
“We need to see greater female representation throughout the value chain: LPs, GPs and Founders.”
Mia Lewis
Hubo agreed on the need for more women in the cap table, something which could be achieved with greater financial education of women. She said: “Hopefully, bringing more women into cap tables of companies as investors will have a knock-on effect and then lead to them bringing more of their personal networks in on the founding side and more female founders being funded.”
The LPEA’s Stephane Pesch said he expects change to come “but it takes time”. The difficulty is that female founders are fighting for their businesses which, like any startup, require funding. They cannot wait 135.6 years for the power dynamic to shift. Women VCs are working hard for greater diversity in the industry, not just in terms of gender, but also seeking to include people from other minorities.
“You can’t just sit there and expect them to come to you. You have to work harder. But not that much harder. You just have to be a little bit more open and think about your networks and where they lead you,” Winwood said. “You can’t expect to continue the way you were and expect results.”
Luxembourg space company Spire has revealed a new game-changer “satellite bus”, doubling the capacity of the 16U cubesat, while having the same advantages as a nanosatellite.
The company, which is one of the most high-profile in Luxembourg’s space ecosystem, unveiled the next-generation satellite at Space Tech Expo Europe, in Bremen, Germany.
“The satellite bus is tailored for customers with missions that require larger payloads and more power, volume, and data capabilities than a conventional 16U, such as Earth observation and space domain awareness missions,” Spire said in a statement.
The space-to-cloud data and analytics company uses one of the world’s largest multipurpose satellite constellations to source hard to acquire, valuable data and enhances it with predictive solutions. It provides this data as a subscription to organisations around the world so they can improve business operations, decrease their environmental footprint, deploy resources for growth and competitive advantage, and mitigate risk.
Spire, which has a manufacturing plant in Glasgow, Scotland, has built and launched more than 150 satellites. Thanks to a partnership with Exolaunch, it has been able to further optimise the capacity and volume of its standard cubesat. According to Spire, the 16U satellite can accommodate payloads of up to 30 kilos.
“Increasingly we’re seeing that our customers’ missions require buses that offer the performance of a larger satellite with the agility of a nanosatellite,” said Joel Spark, co-founder and general manager, Space Services, Spire. “Our next-gen satellite has been a natural next step for us, driven by the needs of the market.”
In 2023, Spire will launch its next-gen 16U satellites to orbit, carrying payloads for Space Services customers NorthStar Earth & Space and GHGSat.
Every month, the members of the Founders Club meet for a breakfast during which they can get to know each other. It’s a unique occasion to take the time to discuss, present their respective activities and exchange best practices.
20 members gathered together to enjoy a delicious breakfast, network and create new connections. BThe Founders Breakfast was also a very special occasion to listen to a presentation by the sponsor of the breakfast, Greenworlder. Urban Gillström, Peter Bartholins and Irene Mäkelä Brunnenkreef spoke about their social media platform for sustainability soon to be launched.
Thank you to our partner of the event, NH Luxembourg for this warm and gourmet welcome.
The Founders Breakfast is part of the events organized exclusively for members of the Founders Club. If you would like to join our closed circle of leaders, contact us to find out more!
The international management consultancy and the Luxembourg-based real estate company are pooling their expertise to support the need for less carbon-intensive business models. Their primary focus will be in the field of hydrogen consulting.
According to a report by the International Energy Association, hydrogen “is currently enjoying unprecedented political and business momentum, with the number of policies and projects around the world expanding rapidly”. As we move towards a less carbon-intensive future, the demand is only projected to increase.
Horváth and Drees & Sommer have clearly caught on to this trend as they have decided to strengthen their existing partnership to support clients in the design and implementation of hydrogen strategies and projects. Joining them is Stefan Kaufmann, the former German government official responsible for hydrogen.
“Our interdisciplinary team of experts supports clients from the first potential analysis to the operational implementation and commissioning of production facilities and infrastructure. The focus is on tailor-made solutions for industry, chemicals and mobility, in order to produce green hydrogen and its derivatives, to import them and to make them available and usable efficiently at the point of consumption”, said Dr. Alexander Stubinitzky, head of the hydrogen team at Drees & Sommer.
Driven by their vision for a successful energy transition and the recognition that companies have their role to play in it, both partners will not only offer their consulting services for hydrogen processes but also help companies find ways to integrate hydrogen into their business processes and set up entire hydrogen ecosystems.
As Europe continues its path towards becoming the first climate-neutral continent, companies are encouraged to find less carbon-intensive business strategies. For Europe as a whole, the target is to achieve net zero by 2050. Other countries such as Germany have already decided they want to hit these targets by 2045.
While the partnership will first constrain itself to a pretty local level, both companies already envision national and international expansion in the near future.
The transnational platform PUSH.GR creates awareness for start-ups and facilitates business cooperations.
The Interreg project PUSH.GR, coordinated by the University of Applied Sciences in Saarbrücken (htw saar), raises awareness about the potential of transnational cooperations, start-ups and business successions in the Greater Region. The multilingual Greater Region is a perfect place for young founders to gain initial experience when it comes to internationalization. Why? Because the five regions in the four EU countries Belgium, Germany, France and Luxembourg encompass an economic region that is home to some 11.5 million people.
This is where the information and communication platform ‘PUSH.GR’ comes into play as the heart of the Interreg project. The online platform bundles all relevant information on legal and tax aspects, funding opportunities, important events and also features a “Wall of Fame” with some 200 start-ups in the Greater Region. The majority of the content can be accessed in both German and French.
In addition to the offers from participating project partners, the cross-border event calendar is regularly updated with events from the Greater Region on all aspects of entrepreneurship. Once registered on the platform, visitors have access to the menu item “Angebote (Offers)” that contains a wide range of content. This is where project partners can present their institutions and offer concrete support to people interested in starting a business or to those who have already done so. It also facilitates networking by bringing people together. A start-up video course introduces key methods such as design thinking.
Eliminating hurdles makes it easier to establish a business in a neighboring country
Due to the fact that the legal and tax rules, as well as the relevant institutions differ from country to country, setting up or succeeding a business in a neighboring country involves a number of uncertainties. The PUSH.GR project has collected comprehensive studies and relevant information on this subject via the University of Trier and the University of Liège.
Users can search an extensive catalog of transnational funding opportunities based on desired funding amounts, scholarships, etc. For example, the service “Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen der Unternehmensgründung (Legal framework conditions for setting up a company)” focuses on possible company forms in a comparison of countries. Interested parties can find an overview of public consulting offices, professional articles and video tutorials in the section “Steuerliche Rahmenbedingungen/Dispositions fiscales (Tax provisions)”.
Inspiration: Start-up wall of fame
The “Wall of Fame” now includes some 200 start-ups and scale-ups that can be regarded as shining examples in the Greater Region. Individual founder portraits are also available on the interactive map of the Greater Region. In short videos, these entrepreneurs talk about their experiences, their motivation and their path from an idea to a successful start-up in the Greater Region.
Networking by matchmaking
Since the beginning, the project has put special emphasis on networking players in the Greater Region on an international level, e.g. within the framework of the ConnectInGR event or the Business Dating Greater Region. It is worthwhile for both founders and experienced entrepreneurs to extend their horizons in order to establish promising new contacts for cooperations, investments, innovative business models and company successions. With the upcoming matchmaking tool, scheduled to be launched on the PUSH.GR platform in autumn, interested start-ups will be able to contact each other, as well as other companies and exchange ideas.
Background information: Funding and partners
The project is funded by the INTERREG V A Greater Region program with 2.2 million euros from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The total budget amounts to more than 3.7 million euros. The htw saar is responsible for the project under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Charis Förster, Vice President of Research, Knowledge and Technology Transfer.
The following companies and institutions are involved as operational partners in the project: Créaction International Belgium SPRL; EUROKEY Software GmbH; Grand E-nov; Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft des Saarlandes; Hochschule Trier; INTERFACES – Gründerzentrum EURODEV CENTER; ISEETECH; Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Technoport SA-Belval, Universität des Saarlandes, Universität Trier, Université de Liège – Campus Arlon.
They are supported by the following strategic partners: CFALOR – Deutsch-Französisches Zentrum Lothringen; Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie du Luxembourg belge; Chambre de commerce Luxembourg; Conservatoire des arts et métiers en Grand Est; FITT gGmbH; Hochschule Kaiserslautern; IHK Saarland; Lorraine Inside; Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Arbeit, Energie und Verkehr des Saarlandes; Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Innovation, Digitales und Energie; Semia; Sparkasse Saarbrücken; Universität der Großregion; Wirtschaftsjunioren Saarland e.V.
Using the cloud or putting your entire infrastructure in the cloud has become standard practice. Ensuring the protection of data has not. Christian Lazard, Senior Consultant Storage & Backup Solutions at Telindus, helps us see more clearly and tells us more about the upcoming Cloudification in cloudy times conference.
What can be done to minimize the risk of data loss?
Today, data protection is a real challenge when we think of data loss or external threats. We need to be sure that data can be used with confidence, that it is well protected against external or internal attacks, and that it can be recovered in case of disaster.
Data must be accessible at all times by the only people who need to have access to it according to the GDPR regulations. Solutions exist to enhance data protection and recoverability.
So how can we be sure that data will not be lost, due to an unwanted deletion, a software or hardware problem, or by something or someone else? We need a comprehensive backup and recovery solution to protect production data from loss.
Following the 3-2-1-0 rule is a good way to start…… but what features would help achieve this goal?
And therefore how to optimize the data recovery process as much as possible?
If we can confirm that the data is well protected against data loss and external attacks by a comprehensive backup solution, before recovering that data it might be wise to ensure that the data is consistent and free of vulnerabilities.
So what about a sandbox recovery process? This process could certainly help to verify the availability and consistency of data in a secure area.
How fast could we recover this data in production? There are some interesting features that could help us achieve this goal….. Are you ready for this?
Cyber-attacks are on the rise. In addition to a good backup and storage, how can companies innovate to stay as competitive as possible?
Why should we be aware of the need to protect and recover data securely? Because the current global situation (pandemic, economy, geopolitics, etc.) shows an increase in malicious activities. Although more and more new technologies can provide solutions to help protect against these situations, it would be a good idea to try to become more proactive in detecting these kinds of activities.
It is also a big challenge, but it is necessary. Although you have tools in place to enforce access to production and secure production data, detection and alerting can be done. Let us show you how!
Data protection is a major issue for companies, especially when they have international reach and must adapt to the legislative frameworks of each country. Is standardization possible and feasible with a sovereign cloud? An introduction to an answer with Ron Pooters, Business Strategy Manager Belux at Microsoft before the conference Cloudification in cloudy times.
It sounds like a buzzword, but what is the sovereign cloud about?
I believe that the increased interest in the topic of sovereignty stems from the realization that we, as Europeans, need to ensure that we better understand our dependencies on others in terms of production, security, innovation, etc. Dependencies create risks and risks need to be understood and mitigated.
The Covid-19 pandemic illustrated this as it exposed an overdependence we had on foreign countries that suddenly couldn’t trade with us anymore due to quarantine measures, closed factories and disrupted supply chains. We need to find a healthy balance between self-proficiency and benefiting from the strengths of our foreign partners.
Does it provide a real answer to data security?
Sovereignty is about control, transparency and privacy. Cybersecurity is a related but different topic. You can’t be sovereign if you are not secure. That is why we so strongly believe in building sovereign capabilities on top of our existing cloud investments.
We spend more than $1 billion yearly on security research and development, and we employ over 8 500 cybersecurity experts worldwide to make our cloud as secure as possible. We are building additional privacy and transparency features to serve the sovereignty needs of companies and organizations within government, healthcare, financial services industries and beyond.
Customers will have the choice to deploy their solutions on public cloud regions, connected private clouds, or even disconnected autarkic environments, knowing that they run on the same secure platform.
Laws and legislations differ from one country to another. Can the sovereign cloud be a solution to keep control of your data?
There will not be one sovereign cloud. Each country and sometimes even regions within countries might have different laws or guidelines. Also, depending on data classification, different rules might apply. We see the sovereign cloud as the smallest common denominator across countries, respecting those universal needs around privacy and sovereignty while creating the flexibility and freedom to refine and finetune the sovereign cloud to the local or hyperlocal needs.
We do this by always building encrypted solutions, providing landing zones with sovereign policies, working with locally trusted and experienced partners like Telindus and empowering customers with audit rights and transparency reports.
The journey can be a long one and the decision parameters can be multiple, starting with the willingness of top management to transition to the cloud. Marc Neukirch, Lead Architect and Eva Gram, Head of Codit Luxembourg discuss this topic before doing a deep dive at the conference Cloudification in cloudy times.
How do you adopt the cloud once and for all, or at least accelerate the transition to it?
More and more companies want to start with their cloud transition and are searching for accelerators, how-tos and best practices. But to create a cloud native environment and enable the full functoriality of cloud in terms of technology and culture is not a cooking receipt you can just follow. Instead, it is like your adventure journey to a sunken Inca temple where the path contains multiple crossings, wrong turns and pitfalls. Without a great travel guide, this journey can end in dangerous and costly wandering path or with the wrong accelerators in a deadly pitfall closely before you reach your dream destination.
Codit, with our broad experience in cloud transition, digital transformations and data integration, will accompany you on your journey independent of your cloud or data maturity. Together, we will identify your drivers and business values for the journey and find the right destination. We will plan your complete trip, train your talent to success, and accompany you with our expertise on your change towards a smart and sustainable environment fit for the future. Let’s reach the sunken temple together and search for treasures.
What are the keys to modernizing applications?
The most important thing is a long-term view of your application environment and the goals you want to reach. This can simply be done with recurrent assessments. Having this in mind enables you to create a future proof innovation strategy for your applications where you can control the track and not being stuck in a modernization loop, where you have to start from the beginning after some years again and again.
Having a long-term vision enables you to have the right people with the right mindset driving your projects. From our experience, the mindset of the people is a principal key point for your success as well as the environment they are working in. For innovation to flourish it needs to be tested, tried, and failed. Innovation is not running blindly after each hype. A good working environment with strong support from management enables a team to record performance. A fitting principle is “Failures are great if you have learned something afterwards” and “Fail, but fail fast”.
After having a strategy and the right people, the long-term vision needs to be broken down into a starting point and reachable milestones for the short-term future.
These keys are a good starting point for your application modernisation.
What are the essential points to follow to succeed in the cloud journey?
The first essential point to clarify is the why. What are your main drivers to start a cloud journey? This is often not an easy question; the answers can be very diverse, and all are valid. But the combination of your drivers will change your journey and the target environment.
Next comes the goals you want to archive. This is closely coupled to your drivers and both points need to be aligned. It is possible, that your drivers are not fitting to your goals, which means a consideration needs to be done to meet your drivers and the goals in the end.
Create a working environment which fits your cloud journey and the goals to be defined. Cloud can change the working culture of your technical departments. This happens especially, when you want to take the full benefits of cloud and target a full cloud native application stack in the end.
Having guidance to build your new cloud environment can speed up your adaptation and avoid pitfalls and costly failures. This guidance can support you in your strategy and the fulfilment of the defined goals.
Last but not least, train your people to fully leverage the new possibilities offered to them.
Work hard but be prepared for things not to go to plan, was the common insight shared by a handful of Luxembourg’s most high profile entrepreneurs at an inspirational event.
Hosted at 19 Avenue de la Liberté on 17 November, and organised by entrepreneurship support platform Nyuko with Spuerkeess bank, the event was a chance for the public to hear the origin stories and struggles of some of the country’s biggest names.
Nyuko director Lucile Barberet quizzed Bob Kneip, head of Kneip Management, Robert Goeres, managing director of Goeres Horlogerie, Stéphanie Jauquet, owner Cocottes and manager Um Plateau, and Carole Retter, partner at Moskito advertising agency, for 90 minutes on themes as broad as finding inspiration and dealing with imposter’s syndrome.
Entrepreneurs in the audience will not have been surprised by the long hours of work the speakers put into their respective businesses. Those of the panel who have children explained how this shift in lifestyle forced them to reconsider their priorities.
Carole Retter and Bob Kneip are pictured at the Nyuko event on 17 November 2022 (Photo: Stephanie Jabardo/Silicon Luxembourg)
Highlights
Robert Goeres talked about the challenge of living with dyslexia, particularly in school. He knew that he would be penalised in written exams and so always pursued subjects and courses in which the exams would be multiple choice, “to have the maximum chance of passing.” He said that he works around this difficulty by surrounding himself with people who have expertise in fields he is weak in.
Stéphanie Jauquet talked about the challenges of working with younger generations, especially family. She hired her nephew for a catering function only for him to arrive two hours late for work. The youngster was interested in starting his own company. She said: “I was so mad. I said to him: ‘what kind of example are you giving? Do you think these people will want to work with you again?’ When you see changing mentalities, that’s a real challenge!”.
Bob Kneip explained that he has imposter’s syndrome all of the time. He said: “I made the biggest mistakes when I had no doubts,” adding that his company invested a lot in transitioning from paper to digital only to realise that it wasn’t what the customer wanted. “When you have doubts, to my mind that’s a good sign,” he said.
Carole Retter echoed the difficulties of handling imposter’s syndrome. She was 29 when she took over the marketing agency. “Everyone was telling me ‘you’re so young’. I thought customers would tell me that they knew better,” she said. “Time and maturity” help Retter manage these doubts, as do having a positive attitude.
Luxembourg-based climate tech VC Satgana recently announced the first closing of its €30m fund for pre-seed startups. Silicon Luxembourg caught up with Romain Diaz, serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of the planet-positive VC.
What expertise do you bring to the climate and VC sector?
My background is very entrepreneurial as I have been involved in quite a few company creations and early-stage startup building for the past 10 years – a lot of it on the African continent. I was involved in what became the first unicorn in Africa, Jumia, which is similar to the Amazon of Africa. And then I was also involved in a sort of venture studio in South Africa that gave birth to three companies, after which I became CEO for five years of an early-stage venture fund in South Africa where we created four companies from scratch.
About five years ago, I became more aware of the climate and ecological emergency we find ourselves in. And that’s when I started to basically put all my learnings, time, focus, love and money into the creation of the new venture fund whose only focus was on climate. So that’s how Satgana was created. It took some time to build the team, pipeline and strategy, so we only started fundraising a year ago which led us to just announcing our first closing of €30m.
What was the turning point for you to put all your energy and time into a climate fund?
I’ve always thought that business was a very powerful source of impact, whether positive or negative. We can use business as a force for extraction and exploitation and depleting the resources and creating more inequalities and so on, or, on the other hand, we can use it to create a positive impact and regeneration, and really make a positive contribution to the world. So it was really this realisation that you can choose your side, that helped me in this decision.
Looking through the lens of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, I felt that climate was also the biggest lever I could pull to achieve them. Because if we don’t solve climate change, there will be enormous social impacts, especially in emerging countries and vulnerable communities. Obviously, we also have a tailwind from the ecosystem and climate tech booming a the moment.
Satgana invests across the themes of transportation, energy, food and agriculture, industry and buildings, carbon removal and the CE. Are there any themes you left out? If so, why?
I would say we cover most because we want to be agnostic on climate. There are some technologies or models that are a bit less adapted to us. So true breakthrough technologies, for example, are too risky from a technology standpoint and nuclear fusion or hydrogen are too techie or too capital intensive.
But we still have some room for discussion and we are open to taking a little bit of technology risk. We are also a bit less into B2C as well and more into B2B. So there are businesses for which we have less appetite, but in general, we’re still agnostic from a planning perspective.
Why is your focus constrained to European and African startups in specific?
It’s partly due to the fact that I worked in Africa for almost 10 years and therefore we receive a lot of deal flows and opportunities from there. But at the same time, most of our team is based in Europe, so we have expertise on both continents and our deal flow is pretty much 50/50.
And when we say Europe and Africa, it’s actually specifically some countries in Europe. So countries like France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, and Luxembourg are where we receive the most deal flows. And in Africa, it’s mostly Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, so far.
In the long run, we can extend our range a little bit, but already it’s ambitious the way we’ve set ourselves up. But our long-term perspective is to set up one fund in Africa and one in Europe with different geographies and themes as well. The African one would be probably more focused on adaptation and the European one on mitigation because that is where all the emissions are coming from.
How does your climate fund compare to others in Europe?
As far as we know, we are the only climate tech fund that is purely focused on pre-seed. What we see is that there are many generalist funds focused on pre-seed that want to do climate but do not only focus on climate. On the other hand, there are many climate-only funds – which is wonderful and we want to see more of them – but very few of them actually invest at pre-seed.
That’s why a lot of startups come to us because we have the ability to invest early because we like to be involved with them personally. Not only do we invest early, we also help them from an operational standpoint, investing, marketing resources, impact management, finance, future fundraising and more.
In the end, this boils down to a personal preference because I think pre-seed allows you to have the most room to source ideas that are nonexistent but also can have a massive impact. If you only source the already proven ideas, you might miss out on the ideas that can make the biggest difference.
What can you tell me about the companies you’ve analysed so far and the three that are already in your portfolio?
To date, we have analysed 600-700 companies and we have invested in three of them. One in the energy sector in Germany, one in the food sector in France and one in the electric mobility space in Kenya.
But we’re finalising two transactions as we speak and we have a lot of new very high-quality deal flows, especially since we announced the first closing of our funds. The inbound we get is a bit crazy since then but it’s also very good for us as we have a lot of interest from startups, candidates and the media. It’s a good time to be doing what we do.
What criteria is most important when deciding which startup you want to support?
We have four main criteria, most of which are quite traditional. They include the commercial potential, the potential impact on GHG reductions, carbon removal or biodiversity removal and, of course, we will look at the characteristics of the deal.
Last but not least, maybe most importantly, we look at the team and assess their hard skills – are they competent, do they have the right academic and professional background – but we also look at them from a more sensitive and intuitive standpoint. Do we think they are going to make it, do they align with our values?
We have very strong values when it comes to integrity, humility, empathy, diversity and inclusion. So we really try to find founders that are aligned with our values.
What should interested startups know about you?
First, we try to be quite clear on our scope: pre-seed, Europe and Africa, climate, and ideally, direct and indirect climate impacts. We prefer direct impact as compared to indirect impact and we are open to leading rounds and co-investing,
We are not too fast to deploy because we really want to understand the startup, the founders, the market, the philosophy and the intentionality of the impact. When founders tell us they are closing next week that is typically not something we prefer to do.
Lastly, in the face of constant climate disaster news and failed targets, what keeps you motivated?
Firstly, I’d say knowing that everyone, regardless of their qualifications or expertise, can make a positive impact. You can put pressure on your employer, join a political party or change your habits, so that gives me hope.
Secondly, speaking to entrepreneurs daily gives me hope. They have so much passion, drive and knowledge of a specific industry and come up with ingenious ideas in all sorts of climate related fields. They are proof that we can invent a new world if we just invest more resources, time and money into the right people and the right solutions.
Of course, we are just a small VC and it requires the whole world to make a change but I think VCs can play a tremendous role in catalysing climate innovation at least.
Elise Patelet is a Lawyer and Senior Partner at Harvey law firm. She has – discreetly – supported many startups in their fundraising journey in Luxembourg, including significant rounds managed by well-known women founders. As one of the most experienced law professionals in the tech ecosystem, she will be sharing her valuable experience at the Women Founders conference organised by WIDE on the 24 of November at the House of Startups.
You support many entrepreneurs in their fundraising efforts. Can you share with us a checklist for a successful round of financing?
There is no standard checklist, but I would say the most important thing to take care of from a very early stage is the general legal structuring of a project. This includes contractual relationships with the clients, suppliers and co-founders. Initial legal structuring (legal forms, corporate documentation, contracts, labour law…) can make the difference later. Anticipation is key. All documentation has to be ready and organised from the time an entrepreneur starts to pitch his/her project to a potential investor.
The founder(s) can succeed in their financing round and increase their valuation, especially at the due diligence stage. I see legal conformity as a real asset in any transaction. Indeed, it seems very risky for investors to participate in projects where intellectual property assets are not protected or well-managed. This applies to existing business contracts and their conditions (early termination rights, payment conditions).
A well-framed legal system is essential to ensure a smooth closing of a fundraising round.
It will later help ensure a good negotiation of terms sheets with investors. It’s important to mention that many entrepreneurs tend to forget that this initial document sets the general conditions of the deal. Being able to raise funds is good news, but it is important to be assisted by an advisor or lawyer in order not to set too strict conditions. This will serve as a base to the future shareholder agreement.
A good project starts with a good shareholder agreement. Can you also tell us the mistakes to avoid and the key points to mention?
The first mistake is to keep this for later, especially between co-founders, as it’s not usual to see initial team members leaving sooner than initially planned.
A shareholder agreement is the foundation stone. Every founder needs to protect his/her interests through his/her daily involvement in the operational management, thus ensuring sufficient control of the company’s share capital. I would recommend checking, in particular, for specific conditions/clauses such as bad leaver clause, opt-out clause, veto rights.
The document also translates the right level of balance between the operational rights of the entrepreneur and the financial rights of the investors, who are taking on most of the financial risks. It’s important to protect your position in the company and ensure that you will still have the freedom of being an entrepreneur.
You have also been supporting women entrepreneurs for a long time. Is there really a difference in business projects carried out by women compared to men? Are they more difficult to raise funds for or is it a label that should be removed once and for all?
Yes, I have been involved and I’m still involved in several projects led by women entrepreneurs. I have to admit that they are a minority in all the deals I have seen and are virtually absent on the investors’ side.
The type of projects is often different, women are more committed to impact ventures. Excellent leadership and strong values are often key drivers for them. Women entrepreneurs are a real inspiration to me!
Being a woman in business is not easy, especially when you have to deal with your family at the same time. I have clearly noted that women entrepreneurs have to work harder to raise funds. They are not always taken as seriously as they should when talking to investors. Most of them do not dare to talk about it openly, but since I have the chance to work closely with them for a long period of time, we can have this kind of conversation.
Supporting women in startup entrepreneurship and digital education for nearly 10 years, Marina Andrieu is a key figure in the tech ecosystem. The co-founder of WIDE takes a few moments to talk about the remaining challenges for women in tech, the recent changes in her organisation and the upcoming edition of the Women Founders, the major event giving visibility to female founders in Luxembourg and inspiring others.
You are organising a new edition of the Women Founders event. Is it still useful and necessary to genderize such an event? What topics will be discussed?
We have been organising Women Founders since 2017. The goal of the event is clearly to give visibility to women founders and inspire others. This is not a pitching event. We are looking for true testimonials, as we want to understand the founder’s journey better and be able to learn lessons from other entrepreneurs.
Of course, we always have had a focus on tech, international and scalable ventures. We want to show that women can have big ambitions and use digital to achieve their goals. We also like to invite key ecosystem professionals, like VCs (women and men), lawyers and mentors.
I am proud to say that we were the very first ones to invite most of the female founders in Luxembourg. We are clearly opening a door and we are very happy to be back, live, at House of Startups this year!
The presence of women in entrepreneurship is still a topic of discussion. What is your analysis? What notable evolutions have you seen in the last 5 years?
I have met a lot of women joining our events and workshops to gain skills (especially coding) and get inspiration in order to develop their own companies. We had the chance to work closely with more than 50 aspiring tech founders. We have seen very promising projects, a few are still going on. 2018 and 2019 were probably the best years with the start of F4A (Food4All), StarTalers, WEO, and Scrobble that we all had in our programmes.
However, with the pandemic, we have seen the number of applicants and attendees to our entrepreneurial activities dropping and national statistics also confirmed this trend. I am convinced that we have talented and educated women based here who are willing to start a tech and scalable venture, sometimes attending one event or meeting one person can make the difference to go for it. Having the confidence and allowing yourself to take risks is still a big challenge for many women.
We have seen a few successes but also mainly projects failing. After launching, many women have to give up because of a lack of funding. We barely count more than one women-led startup raising serious seed funding each year in Luxembourg
From an association, WIDE has become a SIS. Can you tell us about such an evolution and about WIDE’s current news and activities?
Becoming a social enterprise was a very important step for us. After all, we have been encouraging women to become entrepreneurs for nearly 10 years and we felt that it was high time for us to do the same! We wanted to create more social impact and be able to better measure it.
With the social impact company (SIS), we focus on digital skills, gender equality and entrepreneurship. We can offer new services such as training to companies. An upcoming training will be about “recruiting and retaining women in IT”. We also have a great partnership with the Digital Learning Hub where we organise popular coding and digital sessions and provide support to women looking for new opportunities in IT.
We see ourselves as a talent incubator and connector. Our pitching and funding conference will be back in the Spring. We are also working on our studio model and are committed to providing tech resources to women founders in order to develop Minimum Viable Products.
, présidée par SAR le Grand-Duc héritier & dirigée conjointement 
(@MinEcoLux) 
