A delegation of Mauritian startups, alongside key representatives from the Economic Development Board of Mauritius, attended the biggest annual tech and innovation rendezvous, VivaTechnology.
The aim of this expedition was to promote Mauritius through a technology and innovation lens as well as to showcase our startups in order to promote their international exposure for funding and business expansion.
From the 14th to the 18th June, the delegation participated in an intense week-long programme in Paris which, on top of all the VivaTech activities, included the French Tech’s Community Summit and the Viva Africarena event.
The delegation of Mauritian startups
As an initiative of the French Tech Mauritius and in partnership with the Economic Development Board, the delegation of Mauritian startups attended in a well located stand in the Africa Tech salon Viva Technology. Here is the list of the startups in attendance:
- Inspectforless: The first global B2B inspection marketplace.
- Auxo World: Web3 and Metaverse solutions for high end brands
- Dodobird.ai: A digital recommendation engine for e-commerce sites
- FinClub: An innovative crowdfunding platform for individuals and SMEs.
- Holberston School: Engineering college for inclusive and innovative learners.
- Lean Search: Search Engine Marketing for the UX driven ads.
- Ocean DBA: Expertise and consultations in MySQL databases.
- La Plage Factory: An incubator and accelerator specializing in Tech For Good
“After a first successful participation at the summit in 2019, that resulted in the international propulsion of Rwazi, we are happy to have made our way to Viva Technology, in collaboration with the Economic Development Board. Our delegation embodies the vibrancy of the innovation ecosystem in Mauritius with a successful fundraising round for InspectforLess, the winner of the Tech4Good Challenge.” says Mihel Cordani, co-president of the French Tech Maurice.
Africa Tech
The African continent was well celebrated this year at VivaTech. There was a dedicated zone for the region, numerous countries represented and countless panel discussions centered around the economic and technological development of the continent.
Mr Heerun Ghuburrun, permanent representative of the EDB in France, participated in a roundtable discussion on “How Can Fintech Companies Maintain their Competitive Advantage?”
As a part of the discussion Mr Ghuburrun took advantage of the platform to showcase the attractiveness of the Mauritian ecosystem and to assert the country’s posinting as a preferred destination for Tech investments for French as well as international companies.
VivaTech also organized the first edition of the AfricaTech Awards in collaboration with Makhar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finicance Society (IFS). The delegation of Mauritian startups was presented the opportunity to compete at an international scale.
Inspectforless, the Mauritian startup that won the Tech4Good Challenge in Mauritius.
On the 14th June, over the course of one day, Viva Africarena transformed Station F, the biggest startup incubator in the world, into an African Tech entrepreneurship scene.
On this day Stefan Sakoschek, pitched in front of Viva Africarena’s investors in order to pitch his startup, InspectForLess, the first marketplace connecting companies to inspectors.
The Viva Africarena manifeste the largest community of investors, founder and ecosystem players with a focus on the African continent. The fully packed agenda consisted of various panel discussions on Tech in Africa, networking session and pitch competitions around FinTech, sustainTech, and all sectors leveraging technology for the greater good: Tech4Good!
In this context, some 40 of the best African technology startups were honored at Viva Africarena, including at Viva Africarena, including the Mauritian startup Inspecforless, winner of the Tech4Good Challenge in Mauritius.
As a reminder, the Tech4Good Challenge in Mauritius was organized by the French Tech Mauritius in partnership with FINAM and CCI France Maurice between October 2021 and January 2022. The prizes offered to the winner included a contribution to participate in Viva Technology. The participation of the Inspecforless winner at VivaTech encouraged other startups to take part in Viva Technonology, to form a strong Mauritian delegation.
Stefan Sakoschek, CEO of Inspecforless gives a glowing review of this mission at Viva Africarena and Viva Tech: “We are delighted with our participation in Viva Technology. Most importantly, meetings with VCs, fruitful exchanges with the major inspection companies, and the inspection companies, contacts made with marketplaces that want to use our platform for inspection as a service.In addition to this, we’ve been able to meet with representatives of Circularity, one of our partners who have been with us since the beginning. Choosing a bigger stand to share with other startups makes all the difference when it comes to visibility and atmosphere on a show as as important as Viva Technology “.
“Community Summit”, the annual meeting of the of the International French Tech network
All French Tech Communities and Capitals met on June 14, on the eve of the Viva
Technology. With the pandemic, the last reunion was in 2019. But despite this context, French Tech has been able to continue in its momentum and amass international success.
Clara Chappaz, the director of the Mission French Tech, recalled the remarkable journey of the
French Tech since 2013. Today, the brand brings together a network of 13 capitals and 100
communities. Startups have created one million direct and indirect jobs, 26 “unicorns” (market capitalization of more than 1 billion dollars).
In 2021 alone, startups in the French Tech startups represented 11.6 billion dollars.
Priority is now given to “scale-ups”, these are young companies that are developing rapidly and are making their mark globally.
For the French government, the challenge for these young international companies is to reach the level of economic power of American or Chinese champions.
The development of French Tech coincides with current ecological and social issues, as well as
technological and industrial sovereignty. With the French Tech initiative, the focus is to be on the strategic sectors of the France 2030 plan, with specialized support programs in ecology, agriculture, health, deeptech, industry. 50% of the credits of the France 2030 plan will go to startups, which is a major strategic shift and quite a remarkable undertaking from the French government. In addition an initiative has been designed to entrepreneurs from diversified backgrounds, as opposed to solely supporting students of big and reputable schools: The Tremplin programme.
The main global issues that startups face include financing, regulatory frameworks and
and recruitment. There exists a need to rethink and recalibrate these sectors. As it stands, technology tents to be overrepresented to the detriment of industry (only one industrial unicorn has been known to emerge: Exotec), with”Agritech” companies still being too few and no
Agritech” and no global champion in quantum technology having disrupted markets , even though these are two of the country’s leading sectors.
The international French Tech communities, of which Mauritius is a member, alongside Madagascar and 7 other African countries, are encouraged to put projects forward for the 2022-23 season of the Community Fund, the public-private financing scheme of the French Tech. The priority sectors are as follows: “Expansion & Talent”, “Disruptive Innovation”, “Ecological Transition”, “Diversity”.
Curated workshops showcased the importance of a vibrant network, in order to better collaborate and contribute to the expansion of startups and the uncovering of young talent. Alice Woda and Daphne Lora, respectively in charge of international and territorial affairs, have were able to identify countless ideas and recommendations for communication tools.
“We would like to continue uncovering opportunities for collaboration over the coming months as part of our shared interest in Tech4Good.” says Laurent Montaigne, board member French Tech Maurice.
Viva Technology 2022
VivaTech is the single biggest European event for startups and technology that sees over 100,00 visitors, consisting of large numbers of startups and hungry investors from over 149 countries.
The event has become the go-to platform for local start-ups to discover international tech trends, meet industry leaders, to represent their latest innovations and solutions and to source future partnerships.
This edition of Viva Technology has once again allowed the actors of the technology sector
to have privileged access to international customers, major investors and to new markets. More than 2000 exhibitors, including 1800 startups, 45% of which were international, and 700 investment funds met over 3 days dedicated to professionals. More than 161,000 business connections were made, 71% of which were international connections on the event’s digital platform. According to the startups that were in attendance, more than 25% of their annual prospecting is made during these days.
All in all, 91,000 visitors were able to discover all the innovations and attend live conferences in Paris at Palais des Expositions de la Porte de Versailles. The online audience accounted for 300,000 visitors and the VivaTech News channel had an audience of over 4.3M. 400 million people reached and over 3 billion views on social networks. VivaTech has successfully expanded to 146 countries.
More than 350 leading speakers were present at this year’s event, including Evan Spiegel (Snap),Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), CZ (Changpeng Zhao) (Binance), Bret Taylor (Salesforce), Sumbul Desai (Apple) or Ryan Roslansky (LinkedIn). But also Christel Heydemann (Orange), Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Renaud Dumora (BNP Paribas), Elliot Grant (Google X), Jonas Prising
(ManpowerGroup), Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm Yann Le Cun (Meta), Eric Schmidt (Schmidt
FutureThierry Breton (European Commission), Audrey Azoulay (UNESCO), Frédéric Mazzella
(Blablacar).
In addition, the annual technological surprise President Emmanuel Macron was also present and took the time to speak with many young entrepreneurs from startups in all sectors.
VivaTech has allowed its visitors to discover more than 300 innovations, including 50 exclusive ones, covering all the pioneering fields of Tech: GreenTech, digital for mobility, the Future of Work, Web3, Future of work, Web3 and the Metaverse…
This year, VivaTech has put forward numerous initiatives to promote diversity, particularly for women and young leaders.
This year, many initiatives were put forward by VivaTech to promote diversity, especially in favor of women and young people. India was the first “Country of the Year” of VivaTech, thus honoring the dynamism of its digital ecosystem in honor of its 75th anniversary of independence. In attendance, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Indian Minister of Technology and Jawed Ashraf, Indian Ambassador to France.
SEE YOU AGAIN JUNE 14-17, 2023 at Paris Porte de Versailles!
