Ukraine's attraction to Luxembourg

At the entrance to the main stage of the event, visitors were welcomed to the Ukrainian national stand jointly organised by the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Ukrainian Embassy in Belgium, the Ukrainian Startup Fund, the Luxembourg-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (LUCC) and Luxinnovation, in partnership with the European consortium Seeds of Bravery and the Outside platform, with the support of TechUkraine.

"Seeds of Bravery not only provides grants to Ukrainian startups, but also offers various additional services, including access facilities for key events and matchmaking," explains Senior Advisor for Startup Acceleration at Luxinnovation Inna Perepelytsya, in charge of coordinating this project at the national innovation agency. 

“The Luxembourg-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce was delighted to contribute to the remarkable presence of Ukrainian startups at Nexus2050, which highlighted the resilience and innovation of Ukrainian businesses. We firmly believe that Luxembourg is one of the leading countries for showcasing emerging enterprises,” says Evgeniya Paliy, President of LUCC.

Connections between players

In fact, the importance of networks and connections is one of the strengths of the initiative. Connections between startups and relevant players in the ecosystem are thus facilitated.

"I had a very constructive exchange with Jean-Philippe Arié, the manager of the Luxembourg Healthtech Cluster at Luxinnovation," explains Oleg Vustenko, founder and CEO of Progalit, an artificial intelligence solution to automate and personalise treatment plans for kidney stone patients, using a Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) model. "Thanks to this, I will be able to update the company's development stages, which, according to my estimate, will save us six months."

Progalit is part of the first cohort of startups in the Seeds of Bravery programme to receive an initial support of €10,000 EUR and managerial support.

Beyond borders

Inna Furman, Founder & CEO of 3D UTU (Ukraine's first and only 3D printer for the construction sector) also benefited greatly from these meetings as part of Nexus 2050. "This presence opened for us not only new horizons for the development of additive technologies in Luxembourg, but also presented new partners from our Ukrainian delegation. We thank the organisers for uniting people with common values." 

These opportunities to establish new contacts go far beyond the borders of Luxembourg. Ruslana Dovzhyk, founder and CEO of TechNovator (which has developed a revolutionary wireless charging technology that can simultaneously power various devices remotely with high efficiency and minimal environmental impact) was able to experience this: "At Nexus2050, we managed to meet with representatives from Panasonic and Fujitsu and agree on the next steps for a potential collaboration."

For her part, Veronika Chernoryzhka, a member of the HowCow team (AI-based solution to increase farm productivity through real-time animal monitoring and precision fertilisation) is pleased to have been able to "meet a representative working with German cattle farms. One of the visitors to Nexus2050 also put us in touch with a cattle farm in western Ukraine."

A key step

For some of the companies present, the Nexus 2050 exhibition was a further step in a networking process that began several months earlier. Julia Bialetska, co-founder and CEO of S-Lab, made the first contacts with Luxinnovation at the end of November 2023 in Helsinki (Finland) at Slush, one of the largest international trade fairs dedicated to startups. 

S.Lab has developed its proprietary production technology designed explicitly for plant-based packaging from only 2 components: agricultural waste and mycelium (network of mushroom roots). "Our material has all the same features as polystyrene in terms of durability and thermal insulation, but polystyrene takes 500 years to decompose, and our material will fully decompose in just 30 days," says Ms Bialetska, who was guided by Luxinnovation to the European Innovation Council and Seeds of Bravery accelerator.

"Our goal is to reinvent the industry and make sustainable packaging available for companies of all sizes. This year we opened our first production line in Spain, and we keep working on scalability of our solution. Luxembourg is an interesting and promising location for us, not only because of its proximity to investors and research institutes, but because the country is a leader in adopting sustainable practices. It means solutions like ours are in high demand here."

Seeds of Bravery is funded by the European Union, under the European Innovation Council (EIC). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them. The UASEEDs project has received funding from the Horizon Europe Framework Programme under grant agreement No 101104445.