Violaine Raybaud, Head of Business Development at Descartes Underwriting;
Credit: Docler Holding
French InsurTech startup Descartes Underwriting has won the Pitch Your Startup competition of this year's ICTSpring Europe event in Luxembourg.
The 5th consecutive edition of Pitch Your Startup took place during ICTSpring Europe in Luxembourg on Tuesday 15 September 2020. Out of eight finalists, an InsurTech startup won the grand prize of €50,000 offered by Docler Holding. Descartes Underwriting won over the jury to be named the best project and pitch of the contest.
The event organisers, Farvest, gathered more than 320 applications in eight different categories for this year's edition. The event, introduced by Marc Hansen, Luxembourg's Minister Delegate for Digitalisation, was broadcasted live from the European Convention Center in Luxembourg- Kirchberg. Diane Tea, Board Director & Tech Investor from the Luxembourg Business Angel Network, and Kolos Kaszaly, Docler Holding's CTO, handed out the prize. They commented: "We had a very hard time deciding the winner. We believe that each startup will have success in their fields, but to us, Descartes Underwriting stood out amongst all the startups".
"We went through different criteria," added Diane Tea. "And the startup that won impressed us a lot in terms of the real problems they are addressing, the potential of the solutions, and above all, the commercial traction they have built in such a tiny period of time".
Violaine Raybaud, Head of Business Development, accepted the award on behalf of Descartes Underwriting and shared her company's ambitions: "We were already really proud to have been awarded the prize in our category, InsurTech. We are sure we can make a big difference and today proves it. We are thrilled to have this support and to continue making businesses more resilient across the globe".
Founded in 2018, Descartes Underwriting is an insurance underwriting company committed to providing policies on behalf of a selected number of first-tier insurers, reinsurers and Insurance-Linked Securities funds.
The jury was made of: Priscila Chaves - Tech Ethicist & Impact Entrepreneur; Philippe Linster - Chief Executive Officer, House of Startups; Julia Zhou - Communications Director, Kairos Society Europe; Kolos Kaszaly – CTO, Docler Holding; Amélie Madinier – Director, Hub@Luxembourg Le Village by CA; Taylor Ryan – Partner, Klint Marketing; Diane Tea - Board Director & Tech Investor, Luxembourg Business Angel Network; Yannick Oswald – Principal, Mangrove Capital Partners; François Giotto - Senior Innovation Officer, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL).
