Last Friday, our monthly Meet-Up took place in Amstelveen, hosted by our partner Atos. During this event, five companies had the opportunity to present their activity in front of an audience of more than 100 attendees – CXOs, regulators, start-ups, finance and tech professionals – before exchanging their views over a cocktail.
Don Ginsel, CEO-founder of Holland FinTech, opened the event by introducing our organisation, presenting its goals and ambitions: to foster in fine innovation in the industry, to optimise access to finance and the efficiency of the market. Our host Atos was represented by Jerry Norman, head of sales, and Remco Neuteboom, head of digital transformation, who both presented the company and the urge to play a role in the fintech scene. The firm, leader in digital services and active in 72 countries, is covering some of the most important industries, from aerospace to transport and education. Martin Schoenmakers, COO of Atos Netherlands and Don Ginsel, shared their vision on the evolutions the fintech landscape is going through; as underlined by Schoenmakers, “technology is driving the way we work, the way we live.”
This introduction set the scene for tech and finance start-ups to pitch. Laura Van Hemelryck, sales manager of the Leading Edge initiative, explained what is it to be a start-up in a corporate organisation and the challenges a start-up created in the womb of a corporation is confronted to. The Leading Edge program aims to include technological progress to business models and is meant to accelerate digital disruptive thinking.
Dealsuite, online finance platform, was then presented by its founder Floyd Plettenberg. This secured matching platform where private corporate finance professionals can trade financing, such as M&A, equity and debt, is focusing on the SME sector with the aims to improve transparency and efficiency on the market. Three hundred firms are currently trading on the platform, alternative and classic lenders inclusive, in partnerships with banks.
After Dealsuite came Bob Koster, sales director of Owlin, a news analysis platform. Accumulating now 2,8 million sources from 8 different languages and growing, Owlin makes news articles searchable and monitors more than 600 companies from all over the world. More than simple news, the platform allows to get information on potential partners or clients.
Gert-Jan Kroese, from Privacy Valley, took the stage after Owlin. The company, part of the legal regtech industry, develops a software providing companies with a privacy compliance. This solution enables companies to self-asses their privacy compliance. Currently focusing on company in the fintech industry, the start-up observes the growing number of data-driven clients as legal framework for compliance. The company now focuses on GDPR and PSD2 and thus answered several questions as the audience was concerned about the changes involved.
AxonIQ was the last start-up to pitch, with Frans Van Buul, sales manager, presenting this day. As software development company, the start-up designs scalable systems enabling growing businesses to adapt to their market. The solution, relevant for a wide range of companies, is tailored to the customers’ needs. Frans was able to answer questions from the attendance, such as why the framework conceived by the start-up grew more and more popular during last year.Don Ginsel wrapped up the event, as attendees were directed to a networking session around a buffet, where they could discuss issues and opportunities in the industry.
The next Meet-Up will take place on the 13th of October and will be hosted by the University of Amsterdam. The event will be organized around the topic of bitcoin.
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