The Talent Route, LHoFT;
Innsomnia, together with 10 other accelerators and Innovation Hubs from Europe and Israel, gathered to sign a collaboration protocol of ‘The Talent Route’ in the Marina of Valencia on Thursday 5 July 2018 under the auspices of the 1st Summit of European Accelerators which was supported by ICEX, the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade.
The act, which took place in the headquarters of Innsomnia, brought together four of the eleven members of the agreement. In his speech, Jorge Alvar, Director of infrastructures, Health and ICT of ICEX, highlighted “ICEX focuses its effort in order to make Spanish talent internationalize, especially in Europe and Latin America since Fintech is a strategic sector."
To this effect "Innsomnia is pioneering the launch of the world's first network of independent accelerators to connect global talent" said Fran Estevan, CEO of Innsomnia.
During the morning, the 11 participating accelerators and Innovation Hubs have been able to get to know the different innovative ecosystems of each represented country, as well as gaining an understanding of the acceleration models of the companies involved. The event was attended by the following European Fintech ecosystem stakeholders and Innovation Hubs: LHoFT Foundation from Luxembourg, Fintech District from Italy, BlackFin Tech from France and Innsomnia from Spain.
In addition to face-to-face talks, online participation included the accelerators Fintech Aviv and JVP of Israel, Accelerator Frankfurt of Germany, Kickstart accelerator of Switzerland, B-Hive of Belgium, Startup Palace of France and Start-up Garage of Germany.
1st Summit of European Accelerators and Innovation Hubs
The first forum saw the signing of collaboration between the accelerators and Innovation Hubs. "For us, Innsomnia is key for managing these types of alliances that are necessary and therefore we join this initiative," said Jorge Alvar. "This is only the beginning, now there are 11 members but the goal is to reach more."
The accelerators participating in the event have emphasized the impetus that this network will assume for all the startups with which they work. "We are very excited about the Talent Route project, fosters the exchange of best practices and opportunities between accelerators from many ecosystems, in order to provide the best accompanying framework conditions to all the early stage European fintech and insurtech startups" said Gabrielle Thomas, investment manager for the Capital team of BlackFin.
"It's important to collaborate between hubs, to leverage talent of the local ecosystems throughout Europe and beyond. We believe the expertise of local hubs is complementary and creating a global network between us will greatly benefit our members and partners", said Raf De Kimpe, business development & partner manager at the Belgian Tech4Fin platform B-Hive.
For his part, Alex Panican, Head of Partnership and Ecosystem at the LHoFT, explained in his speech how innovation is vital to the Financial Industry: "It’s exciting and poignant to see that 60 years after the signature of the European Economic Treaty, we manage to sign a partnership in order to build the first European Fintech Community. I am deeply convinced that this partnership will increase the European Competitiveness in Fintech and we will help each other on the international level, leveraging our own ecosystems”.
And the head of Fintech District, Alessandro Longoni, said: "we are proud to make a step forward towards our international expansion. We joined The Talent Route promoted by Innsomnia together with The LHoFT and BlackFin Capital Partners with the goal of bringing new international opportunities and benefits to the Fintech District startups community".
The Talent Route: In search of international talent
The Talent Route is a project created and promoted by Innsomnia, the first fintech accelerator in Spain. "We have designed this global project in which we are in contact with 10 countries through the Talent Route", said Estevan from Innsomnia. This network of European and Latin American accelerators and incubators has become a benchmark for innovation in Belgium, Luxembourg and Israel. "Thanks to this initiative and to our agreement with ICEX we will attract the best international talent”. The objective is to help promote the internationalization of projects by creating bridges. With The Talent Route, all the actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem will be able to access new markets and foreign talent.
