A delegation of startups from Mauritius was present alongside the Economic Development Board at Viva Technology 2022, the largest European technology trade fair.
The objective was to promote Mauritius as a technology and innovation hub and to expose our startups to encourage their financing and international development.
From June 14 to 18, an intense program awaited our delegation for a mission week in Paris, also including the French Tech Community Summit and the “Viva Africarena” event.
The delegation of Mauritian startups
Under the impetus of French Tech Maurice and in partnership with the Economic Development Board, a delegation of Mauritian startups was present on a very well-located stand in the Africa Tech zone of the Viva Technology fair. These startups are:
- Inspecforless, the first global BtoB inspection platform.
- Auxo World, high-end immersive metaverse/web3 solutions for brands.
- Dodobird.ai, recommendation engine for e-merchants.
- FinClub, innovative crowdfunding platform for individuals and micro-enterprises.
- Holberton School, computer engineering school based on an innovative and inclusive pedagogy.
- Lean Search, “Search Engine Marketing” solution (UX driven SEO, conversion driven ads).
- OceanDBA, MySQL database expertise and solutions.
- La Plage Factory, incubator-accelerator specialized in ‘Tech for good’
“After a successful first participation in 2019, which notably initiated the take-off of the startup Rwazi, we are delighted to be back at Viva Technology, in collaboration with the Economic Development Board. Our delegation bears witness to the vitality of the innovative ecosystem in Mauritius, with the fundraising of the startup Inspectforless, winner of the Tech4Good Challenge”, affirms Michel Cordani, co-president of French Tech Maurice.
Africa Tech, new for the 2022 edition
Africa was in the spotlight this year at Vivatech, with a dedicated zone and the participation of many countries and thematic conferences centered on the economic and technological development of the continent.
Mr. Heerun Ghurburrun, permanent representative of the EDB in France, participated in a round table on the theme “Staying at the forefront: how African fintech companies maintain their competitive advantage”. « It was an opportunity to improve the visibility and attractiveness of the Mauritian ecosystem and to affirm the country’s positioning as a key investment destination in the Tech sector for French and international companies. » underlines the EDB representative.
VivaTech also organized the first edition of the AfricaTech Awards in collaboration with Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Mauritian startups had the opportunity to be challenged on an international level.
Mauritian Startup Inspecforless winner of the Tech4Good Challenge Mauritius
For one day, the “Viva Africarena” event transformed Station F, the world’s largest startup incubator, into a stage for African technological entrepreneurship on June 14.
The objectives of Viva Africarena are to:
- create a meeting platform between European startups wishing to develop in Africa and African startups and/or ‘ecosystem builders’,
- attract VCs and entrepreneurs from African Tech to Paris and VivaTech,
- create ‘showcases’ in Paris for the African tech sector targeting investors, corporate VCs, and business angels.
On this occasion, Stefan Sakoschek “pitched” to investors during Viva Africarena to promote his startup Inspecforless, the world’s first inspection ‘marketplace’, which puts companies directly in contact with inspectors.
This Viva Africarena manifestation gathered a large community of investors, founders, or actors of ecosystems focused on Africa. The full program consisted of discussion panels on African tech, networking sessions, and “pitch” contests on themes such as Fintech, e-health, sustainable tech… in short, “Tech for Good”.
In this context, around forty of the best African technology startups were honored 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 French Tech Maurice 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 winner Inspecforless at VivaTech encouraged other startups to take part in Viva Technology, to form a strong Mauritian delegation.
Stefan Sakoschek, CEO of Inspecforless, gives a glowing assessment of this mission to Viva Africarena and Viva Tech: “We are delighted with our participation in Viva Technology. The important points we retain are the great meetings with VCs, fruitful exchanges with large inspection companies, and contacts made with marketplaces that wish to use our platform for product inspection. Furthermore, we met in person the representatives of Circularity, one of our partners who has accompanied us from the start. Choosing a large stand with other startups makes all the difference in terms of visibility and atmosphere at a trade fair as important as Viva Technology.”
“Community Summit”, the annual meeting of the international French Tech network
All French Tech Communities and Capitals met on June 14 on the eve of the Viva Technology fair. Pandemic oblige, the last edition dated back to 2019 and despite the context French Tech has been able to continue its momentum and consolidate its international success.
Clara Chappaz, the director of Mission French Tech, recalled the remarkable journey of French Tech since 2013. Today, the label brings together a network of 13 capitals and 100 communities. Startups have created 1M direct and indirect jobs, 26 “unicorns” (market capitalization of more than 1 billion dollars). In 2021 alone, fundraisings by French Tech startups represented 11.6 billion dollars.
The priority is now on “scale ups”, these young companies with dazzling development that are imposing themselves globally. For the French government, the challenge posed to these young international companies is to reach the economic power level of American or Chinese champions. The development of French Tech coincides with current ecological and societal issues, as well as technological and industrial sovereignty.
Emphasis will be placed on strategic sectors of the France 2030 plan, with specialized support programs (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 remarkable from the French government. Furthermore, support for entrepreneurs from “diversity” (as opposed to students from elite schools notably) continues with the inclusive “Tremplin” program.
To meet the global size challenge, the main issues are financing, the regulatory framework, and recruitment. It is also a question of rebalancing sectors; digital is overrepresented to the detriment of industry (only one industrial unicorn: Exotec), with still too little “Agritech” and not yet a global champion in quantum even though these are two flagship sectors for the country.
International French Tech Communities, of which Mauritius is a part, as well as Madagascar and 7 other African countries, are encouraged to propose projects for the 2022-23 season of the Community Fund, the public-private financing scheme of French Tech. The priority themes are: “Expansion & Talents”, “Breakthrough Innovations”, “Ecological Transition”, “Diversity”.
Thematic workshops focused on network management to better collaborate and contribute to the expansion of startups and the identification of “talents”. Alice Woda and Daphné Lora, respectively in charge of international and territories, were thus able to identify many ideas and suggestions in terms of tools, communication subjects, and animation. “We wish to implement joint actions between our Communities in the coming months and in the continuity of our Tech4Good Challenge”, states Laurent Montaigne, member of the Council of French Tech Maurice.
Viva Technology 2022
VivaTech is recognized as the largest European startup and technology event that brings together more than one hundred thousand visitors, with a large number of startups and investors from more than 149 countries. The event aims to highlight the influence of technology in the transformation of business and society.
The event constitutes a platform of choice for our local startups to discover technological trends, meet industry leaders, present their latest innovations and solutions, and engage in future partnerships.
This edition of Viva Technology once again allowed technology sector actors to have privileged access to international clients, major investors, and new markets. More than 2000 exhibitors, including 1800 startups of which 45% were international and 700 investment funds, met during 3 days dedicated to professionals. More than 161,000 business connections were established, including 71% international interactions on the digital platform. According to the startups present, more than 25% of their annual prospecting was carried out during these days.
Thus, 91,000 visitors were able to discover all the innovations and attend conferences “live” in Paris, Palais des Expositions de la Porte de Versailles. The online audience amounted to 300,000 visits and the VivaTech News channel to more than 4.3M. 400 million people were reached and more than 3 billion views on social networks. The international dimension of VivaTech was reinforced with 146 nationalities reached.
More than 350 top speakers were present at this edition, including Evan Spiegel (Snap), Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), CZ (Changpeng Zhao) (Binance), Bret Taylor (Salesforce), Sumbul Desai (Apple), or Ryan Roslansky (LinkedIn). 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 Future), Thierry Breton (European Commission), Audrey Azoulay (UNESCO), Frédéric Mazzella (Blablacar). Furthermore, as every year, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron was also present and took the time to talk with many young entrepreneurs from startups in all sectors.
VivaTech allowed its visitors to discover more than 300 innovations, including 50 exclusives, covering all pioneering areas of Tech: GreenTech, digital at the service of mobility, Future of work, Web3 and the Metaverse…
This year, many initiatives were put forward by VivaTech to promote diversity, particularly in favor of women and young people.
India was the first “Country of the Year” at VivaTech, thus honoring the dynamism of its digital ecosystem on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of its independence. Ashwini Vaishnaw, Indian Minister of Technologies, and Jawed Ashraf, Indian Ambassador to France, were present.
SEE YOU FROM JUNE 14 TO 17, 2023 at Paris Porte de Versailles!
