Ten European accelerators join forces to power the fintech

“When you are a fintech, national influence is not enough. You have to be able to develop quickly in other countries,” says Fabrice Marsella, director of the Village by CA Paris, one of the 31 business incubators of the Crédit Agricole group. This led to the idea of creating a network of accelerators on a European scale to promote the development of start-ups in finance.

“The director of Scotland Fintech is Italian. He naturally spoke to the director of the Village by CA Milan. He turned to us because we have a very beautiful fintech ecosystem in our village,” says Thomas Benaïm, deputy director of the Village by CA Paris.

Immersion for large banking groups

From this word of mouth came the European Fintech Discovery. The program brings together nine European accelerators, in addition to the Village by CA Paris. These are Innsomnia (Spain), Portugal Fintech (Portugal), The LHoFT (Luxembourg), TechQuartier (Germany), B.Hive (Belgium), Copenhagen Fintech (Denmark), Fintech Scotland (Scotland), Holland Fintech (Netherlands) and Fintech District (Italy).

The idea is to propose to established groups to meet fintechs from different accelerators during learning expeditions,” explains Thomas Benaïm, in charge of this program.

In concrete terms, large companies will be able to choose, on a dedicated online platform, one or two themes that interest them. Also, they will be able to select four accelerators from the program (their own countries and three accelerators abroad).

In the program, they will meet 5 to 8 start-ups per accelerator. In total, the participating companies will meet between 20 and 30 European fintech companies among the 1,500 accelerated in the ten partner structures of the project.

Immersion for car manufacturers

Moreover, the Village by CA Paris, which is a generalist structure (unlike the Swave, for example) nevertheless, it has about fifty fintechs alone. Among them, LiquidShare (blockchain for listed SMEs), Loansquare (digitalization of bank loans for SMEs), Sismo (decision support solution for asset management professionals) or Linxo (open banking) and fintecture (open banking).

The new European program primarily aims to established financial players, but not only.

“We can well imagine that car manufacturers with captive banks and therefore financing activities may be interested in this program. Just like the actors in distribution or cybersecurity. These learning expeditions can be sources of inspiration and reinterpretation for them,” explains Thomas Benaïm

Qualified contacts for fintech companies looking for internationalization

This quest for inspiration and new sources of income will cost the participating large group 40,000 euros. To clarify, that’s for a four-day learning expedition in four countries for 20 people. Moreover, the Parisian accelerator hopes to be the initiator of two sessions in 2020.

Also, it will, not surprisingly, present this system to Crédit Agricole. “But for the moment, we have not yet approached any major companies,” says Thomas Benaïm. Expeditions can be sources of inspiration and reinterpretation for them,” explains Thomas Benaïm.

On the startup side, “everyone wins”

“It is a way for them to meet qualified contacts. Also, they can meet executives from large groups who have time to exchange ideas and who would be difficult to approach in other circumstances,” explains Fabrice Marsella.

In France, only a handful of fintech companies already have a strong international activity. This is the case for Shift Technology in the automatic detection of insurance fraud.

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(Featured Image by nastya_gepp)

First published in latribune, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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