The lux future lab once again played host to start-ups from Le Camping, a major Paris-based business incubator. Following an intensive four-month preparatory period, Le Camping organises a road show for its start-ups to support fundraising. Since last year, Luxembourg has been a key stage of the international tour, alongside Paris, London and Berlin. After three years, Le Camping has built up a portfolio of 60 start-ups selected from more than a thousand applicants. Of these 60, 88 per cent are still in business. The incubator’s firms have raised more than €10 million in three years and created 259 jobs. 60 per cent of the start-ups already had customers by the time they left Le Camping.

The eight Le Camping companies were joined by a further eight local start-ups looking to share their new business ideas. Over the course of the day, each firm was given six minutes to present its business model to investors. The pitches covered a vast span of areas, including electronic money, analytical platforms, audiovisual and music production, online shopping, car hire, agricultural platform, sponsorship and event management, renewable energies, and art.

This year’s Pitching Day, like last year’s event, was partnered by key participants in the Luxembourg business ecosystem. While some, including Technoport, PwC’s Accelerator, LBAN, Impactory and lux future lab put forward start-ups for the pitching sessions, all of the partners highlighted Luxembourg’s advantages and made the case for visiting start-ups to come and build their projects in Luxembourg.

Future developments in the marketplace were addressed in a panel discussion, with participants including Mario Grotz (DG for Research, Intellectual Property and New Technologies at the Ministry for the Economy), Jean-Paul Schuller (Luxinnovation), Laurent Probst (PwC Accelerator), Diego De Biasio (Technoport), Vincent Hieff (LBAN & Espace Entreprises) and Frédérique Gueth (Seed4Start, Business Initiative). The session, facilitated by the lux future lab’s Karin Schintgen, ended with a presentation by Romain Mazeries of MangoPay, a French start-up that joined the lab in 2013 and benefitted from the Luxembourg government’s proactive stance on electronic payments.

Commenting on the event, Karin Schintgen, head of lux future lab, said: “Pitching Day embodies Luxembourg’s dynamic attitude to innovation. It shows how, by combining our strengths and organising our offering, a small country such as ours can truly provide a valuable platform for young business founders in the heart of Europe. By supporting entrepreneurship, the lux future lab wants to truly impact the social and economic dynamics of Luxembourg”.