Thirty Start-Ups master the art of verbal persuasion

10 November 2010, Luxembourg - l’Essentiel

To seduce Luxembourg in 8 minutes is tough. But with 90.000 euro at stake one is motivated ...
At first glance it resembles a type of speed-dating. Thirty owners of start-ups face a jury of CEO’s, financial experts and investors. The former to convince the latter of their development potential in 8 minutes ... So, yesterday, the European Venture Contest Organized by PricewaterhouseCoopers did just that. Finally, two companies based in the Grand Duchy have caught the eye of the jurors. It's encouraging smiled defender Peter Van Combrugge from Intelli +. “We create a system that give meaning to a mass of any given data”. An award has also been given to Onformonics. Its charming director (Martin Petrov) presents a platform which helps monitor and track risk and compliance which is of interest to businesses of all types accepting or processing electronic payments. On December 16, in Barcelona the two winners are in the running for the first prize of 90,000 euro. It’s enough to make your heart race.

10 November 2010, Luxembourg - Luxemburger Wort

Two promising Luxembourgish Enterprises win at the Semi-Final of the Eurecan European Venture Contest 2010 Europe Unlimited and PwC Luxembourg

Yesterday, PwC Luxembourg and Europe Unlimited hosted the Eurecan European Venture Contest for the second time in Luxembourg. More than 30 very promising start-ups from nine different countries and working in the fields of ICT, Life Sciences and Environmental Technologies attended. The winners have won a place in the selection process to the European finals, and the program participants have also met potential investors.

The semi-final of the 6^th Eurecan European Venture Contest was held at the premises of PwC Luxembourg, bringing together some thirty competing businesses and 31 financial experts. The event was organized thanks to support from the following partners: the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, CRP Henri Tudor, Dexia, Luxembourg for Business, Microsoft, Caja Navarra and Luxinnovation. Start-ups presenting at this round of the Luxembourg European competition came from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Grand Region and other countries in Europe. At the end of the morning, ten companies specializing in ICT, life science and environmental technologies were awarded for the quality of their presentation, their growth potential and Technology.

Jeannot Krecké, minister of Economy and Foreign Trade presented the awards to the winners in Luxembourg:

-Catagorie ICT Onformonics (Luxembourg), System Performance Group (Belgium); INTELLI (Luxembourg) Nervogrid Oy (Finland) and Blue Talk (Belgium)

These participating winners proceed to the European Venture Summit in Dusseldorf (6^th and 7^th December). They are also part of the process of final selection of 25 finalists who will be invited to present their project in Barcelona on December 16^th, to the EEVC Final Jury. The three winners in each category will share a total of 90,000 euro.

For the second consecutive year, PwC Luxembourg has wished to reiterate its support for the high-growth companies in key areas for the Luxembourg economy, says Laurent Probst, a partner at PwC Luxembourg.

10 November 2010, Luxembourg - Le Quotidien

The age of reason for start-ups

Always innovating, these companies are rushing into new niches of the B2B market with good ideas and great ambitions

Far from the startup buzz which fizzled out during the burst of the dotcom bubble in 2000, today's start ups are armed and ready and use their expertise to access and collaborate with multinational players. Following is a portrait of two such start-ups at the business incubator (Technoport) in Esch-sur-Alzette.

By Camille Leroux

Start-ups born in the crucible of new technologies rely primarily on their expertise. Intelli+ and Onformonics focus on niche industries and both are very sharp in their respective fields. Onformonics was created in April 2008 by the Bulgarian-Dutch national Martin Petrov. His field of expertise: protection of cardholder data stored, processed or transmitted by businesses working with the five leading payment brands the best known of which are Visa and MasterCard. "The last incident took place in 2009: 100 million cardholder records were compromised. When you think that it costs 20 euro to replace a single card, you can imagine the impact on finances but also the image of the company who was the victim... "

In 2005, before hackers could find more inroads, the five leading payment card schemes decided to impose a standard of data protection that their suppliers and employees must comply with. "These companies have to prove annually that they are in compliance. I myself was an auditor for five years and performed over 75 audits." He then realized that he lacked a methodology and tools. His idea: develop an ongoing program providing businesses with a constant view of their compliance in real time, "and not just in the weeks preceding the audit when they are struggling to upgrade and remediate on time..."

And for Martin Petrov this approach has been met with success. "On one hand, we're like the police: clients fail to see the need when all seems to be going well " But when the risks are clearly kept track of, the benefits to the overall business are clear. Besides his colleague at the Technoport, he also has two employees in London, four in Dublin and three in Bulgaria. Average age: 30-35 years. "We are now the only training provider for Visa Europe and CEMEA. What was decisive in us creating this alliance was our independence and our ability to express our experience in order to create more understanding of the industry and its problems and challenges as well as solutions". Onformonics also signed contracts with payment service leaders in Scandinavia and the Benelux countries, not to mention two important deals within the UK and the United States. The former auditor expects a turnover of 600,000 to 700,000 in 2010.