SES S.A. (NYSE Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG), Arendt & Medernach, BHS Invest, BIL, État Luxembourgeois, POST Capital, Proximus and SNCI signed a letter of commitment to finance Luxembourg-based ICT startups via a public-private seed fund.
The signing parties agreed to collect public and private funds worth €19.2m to create a seed fund-type structure designed to finance innovative technology companies within the ICT sector.
The initiative taken by the Ministry of the Economy in the context of “Digital Lëtzebuerg” seeks to set up an ecosystem that fully adapts to the needs of startups within the ICT sector, while offering an adequate framework for the creation and development of young and innovative companies – an ecosystem that adapts to the needs of ICT startups, in particular in terms of financing such companies in the early stages of development.
The fund will make risk capital investments in projects that have reached “proof of concept” in the domains of cybersecurity, FinTech, Big Data, Digital Health, Internet of Things and satellite telecommunications. In order to facilitate transferring new technologies stemming from public research and, in particular, from the Luxembourg University Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), the seed fund also aims to support promising spinoffs.
The capital fund will be operational as of the beginning of 2016 and managed by a specialized team that has the necessary skills to best identify and select innovative business projects showing a strong development potential in Luxembourg.
FinSMEs
16/12/2015