Fit4Start Winners;
Credit: Marie de Decker
The Fit4Start jury yesterday chose ten start-ups to participate in the 8th edition of the start-up programme for young innovative companies in Luxembourg.
Launched in 2015 by the Ministry of the Economy, and managed by Luxinnovation in collaboration with Technoport and Luxembourg City Incubator, Fit4Start has become, in a few years, the Luxembourg reference programme for support to start-ups in their first phases.
For this 8th edition, 221 applications were considered from 44 different countries. Among these applications, 50 preselected entrepreneurs were able to defend their project before a jury of experts during the "Pitching & Graduation Day" on 28 March 2019.
Speaking at the start of the "Pitching & Graduation Day" ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy Étienne Schneider said: "The growing number of companies attracted by the Fit4Start programme and the success of certain start-ups that have followed the programme are proof that Luxembourg offers a favorable environment for the development of young innovative companies with high potential".
The ten start-ups chosen by the jury to participate in Fit4Start were: Ambitrace; Cargofive; F4A; Firefly; Gamma; Keexle; Niaouli; Rafinex; RoomMate; Valuu.io. These start-ups will benefit from the Fit 4 Start programme, which includes sixteen weeks of expert coaching in Lean Start-Up, a structured methodology for the rapid development of products and services, and Agile methodology that requires great flexibility and the ability to pursue and achieve well-defined goals in the short term. They will also have free access to a co-working space in a business incubator and a grant of €500,00, which the company must complete with €10,000 of its own funds. An additional aid of €100,000 may also be granted by the Ministry of the Economy to start-ups who have both successfully completed the Fit4Start programme and managed to raise at least €50,000 additional investment capital at the end of the programme.
The "Pitching & Graduation Day" evening was also an opportunity to honour start-ups from the previous edition of Fit4Start who successfully completed the programme. In addition to the ICT sector, the seventh edition of Fit4Start was open to health technologies. This will be the case for the next edition, as well.
