The Captain’s Blog by Zemp Business Solutions CEO Oliver Zemp – Venturelab
At the end of November, the ten Swiss fintech startups selected to participate in the Venture Leaders Fintech program went to London for an investor roadshow. Oliver Zemp, CEO of Zemp Business Solutions AG and team captain of the Venture Leaders crew, reports on the experience.
Early in the morning of 28 November, the Venture Leaders Fintech 2022 met at Zurich airport to travel together to London. We’re all proud founders and CEOs of ten amazing fintech startups, but we were still deciding what to expect from the week in London.
Day 1 | 28 November 2022
Arriving at the hotel near Paddington Station, Venturelab’s Daniel Gasser and Jordi Montserrat outlined the program for the week. The tension began to rise. We went together to our first meeting at the Swiss Embassy for an intro session organized by Swissnex at the Embassy, which was much appreciated. One of the highlights of the trip was what we saw in the meeting room: a Banksy painting. This was an unexpected and wonderful experience. At the embassy we were introduced to our two hosts, Charlotte Chenu and Luz-Peter Berg. We all fell in love with these two lovely people. They looked after us and supported the team throughout the week. Thank you very much!
The opening was made by Hugh de Lusignan, Head of Financial Services at the Department for International Trade. After the first two hours of the presentation, we felt good about how generous and open the British authorities presented themselves to startups from abroad.
Next stop was a screening of the FIFA World Cup match between Switzerland and Brazil at the Swiss Embassy. Unfortunately, Murat Yakim’s Swiss team failed to score any points.
Later in the day, after the game, we commuted to our first Venture Company Teachers’ Venture Growth, where we had our first official pitching and networking session. A very smart audience and great questions helped us prepare for the following pitching sessions throughout the week.
It was amazing how quickly the four investors took up our cases; the known markets we play in and the challenges and opportunities within these markets. Very impressive. Thanks to Ara Yeromian, Andi Kazeroonian, Mark Ransford and Chris Adelsbach.
The first great day in London ended with a good steak dinner.
David Giron, CEO and co-founder of MoneyMasters
Day 2 | 29 November 2022
The next morning we continued at the same pace. At 9.00 we started with a pitching session at Forestay Capital. Again, we can expand our network and have good conversations with potential investors after the pitching session. Big thanks goes to the host, Forestay Ventures David Epharati.
Cosimo Donati, CEO and co-founder of LEVA Capital Partners AG presents his pitch at the Forestay Capital event
In the afternoon we were back at the Swiss embassy. All Venture Leaders were invited to meet representatives of large companies such as Shell, VISA, RBS and others, which was not only a great experience, but could also open important doors.
In the evening, Ambassador Markus Leitner invited people from politics and business, as well as investors, to a networking dinner. The ambassador also invited us to pitch at his event, which was a great experience. The networking reception was the unofficial opening of the London Fintech Connect fair.
This wonderful evening ended early the next day. Sean from VISA Global invited us to a pub owned by his family and after the first drink there, he showed us the beauty of the London nightlife.
Michael Wüst, CEO and founder of Amnis Treasury Service AG
Day 3 | 30 November 2022
Again, no rest for the weary as we started early with an hour’s tube ride to the Excel expedition area in London, where the FintechConnect trade show was taking place. In collaboration with Swissnex, VentureLab organized a stand where we could interact with visitors, potential partners and investors. In addition to the stand, Swissnex booked a 10-minute pitching slot on the main stage for each of the Venture Leaders. For many of us, this was a great opportunity to meet interesting people after the pitch and opened important doors for investors who have been surprised by our presentations and startups.
Looking around the large exhibition hall, attending keynote and breakout sessions, we noticed that our 10 logos from our startups were printed everywhere. Our logos were on almost every wall and every presentation in every breakout session. It was a great experience and made us all very proud.
Day 4 | 1 December 2022
Our fourth day also started early with a long tube ride to Canary Worth. Charlotte from the Swiss Embassy managed to get the Venture Leader team into the Revolut headquarters. It was quite a challenge for Charlotte as this is usually impossible for security reasons. Her persistence paid off and we were allowed into Revolut’s hallowed offices. Our luck was that we weren’t greeted by just anyone: we had the pleasure of meeting a member of the management team who helped build Revolut’s technical platform. He showed us exciting impressions, from the first day of Revolut history to today, including failures as well as successes. We were all very impressed with the insight we received and were especially impressed with the person who stood in front of us and gave us all this insightful information. Rarely have we met such an intelligent person. Overall, we all got a lot out of our visit to Revolut.
After this amazing experience at Revolut in the morning, we ended our fourth day by going back to FintechConnect.
Severiyos Aydin, CEO and founder of AIDONIC
Left to right: Severiyos Aydin from AIDONIC AG, Kristina Morf from nobank, Michael Wüst from Amnis Treasury Service AG, Cosimo Donati from LEVA Capital Partners AG and Oliver Zemp from Zemp Business Solutions AG
Oliver Zemp, CEO and co-founder of Zemp Business Solutions AG
About the experience
But what was most important to me was the exchange of experience among us ten fintech startups. They are all very good people with a lot of experience, and we benefited a lot from each other. We have also made new valuable friends who will stay with us for a long time.
We’ve gotten to know each other so well and seen each other’s pitches so many times that each of them could fill in for the other and pitch each company on stage.
Learn more about Venture Leaders Fintech 2022 below:
AIDONIC is a social fundraising and last mile distribution technology for humanitarian and development programs. Organizations and authorities can distribute symbolized aid vouchers, rights and… Read more
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We offer a fully automated, seamlessly integrable and finma-compliant verification solution for self-service customer onboarding that is based on machine learning (artificial intelligence). Financia… Read more
grape is the first fully digital insurance company for companies and employees in Switzerland. grape is a startup from ETH that has received its insurance license as an MGA and now offers employees… Read more
LEVA is an award-winning online platform for easily setting up and managing your deal-by-deal investment opportunities. LEVA’s technology allows you to easily raise capital from your network of co-investors … Read more
Splint Invest is the easiest way to invest in alternative assets, starting with just 50 EUR. Fully mobile and within less than two minutes anyone can create an account and start investing. Splint… Read more
At Efrontier, we believe financial education should be part of everyone’s core education. We’ve created an interactive financial EdTech platform that makes learning about money easy and fun. In… Read more
nobank offers a smart contract-based, non-custodial wallet, which is distributed on multiple blockchains. Users benefit from advanced security features that are easy to use. nobank offers a safe p… Read more
Our ZEMP APP(s) converge point of sale and payment seamlessly into one excellent customer experience, all on your smartphone or mobile device. Enabling 23 million ambitious European retailers to handle all… Read more
