After a series of digital pitching sessions in front of a jury composed of entrepreneurs, investors and other startup experts, 10 ICT and 5 space start-ups received the good news that they have been selected for participation in the 11th edition of Fit 4 Start, Luxembourg’s flagship accelerator programme. They were selected among a total of 255 applications received from start-ups in 35 countries.  

The selected start-ups will benefit from the specialised coaching as well as €50,000 of funding from the Ministry of the Economy each, with the possibility of receiving an additional €100,000 if they graduate successfully from the programme and manage to raise some private capital. For this edition, the programme has been extended to cover six months instead of previously four.  

“Experience has taught us that four months is not really enough to cover all aspects that would help the startups move forward in their development,” explains Stefan Berend, Head of Start-up Acceleration at Luxinnovation. “Participants in previous editions have also indicated that they would have welcomed a longer programme in order to have time to benefit even more from the skills and experience of the coaches.” The programme will also focus more strongly on participating start-ups’ market launch phase, and notably intensify its networking activities in order to help them find relevant partners such as research centres or larger companies. 

Fit 4 Start #11 will kick off in mid-June, and initially be completely digital. However, Mr Berend has hopes that this situation will evolve. “Hopefully, we will be able to move to a hybrid mode in the coming months, and if the health situation allows we might even conclude with going back to the face-to-face meetings we used to have before the pandemic.” 
 
Selected start-ups 
ICT: 
 AiVidens (B)  Cascade Lab Sàrl (L)  ChemChain (L)  Divizend (D)  Kodehyve (L)  LetzMath (L)  No Big Deal (L)  The Kindness Group (L)  The Privacy Office Luxembourg S.A. (L)  to Stories (L) 
Space :  Blackswan Technologies (LT)  Clutch Space Systems Limited (UK)  Mission Space (LV)  Novo Space, Co. (US)  Plus Ultra Space Outposts SL (ES)