South Korea has gained a strong reputation for its Fintech services and electronic payment systems. However, for some of the top Fintech startups in Korea to grow, they will, at some point, need to expand out of Korea’s limited market. Seoul Fintech Lab was established to promote Fintech startups in Korea on a global scale. Therefore, Seoul Fintech Lab partnered with LUXKO (a business expansion accelerator in Luxembourg) and LHoFT (Luxembourg House of Financial Technology) and brought five promising Fintech startups in Korea to Luxembourg via an online Fintech event called 10X Extension. 

Why Should Fintech Startups Enter Luxembourg?

Luxembourg has a well-established and vibrant venture capital environment. Therefore, there is a very open attitude from the Luxembourg authorities, the financial community, the Bankers Association, and the banks regarding financial technology and new fintech companies. Furthermore, Luxembourg has been very proactive regarding welcoming virtual currencies at all levels within the environment. In addition, many organizations in Luxembourg have shown a proactive approach to welcoming virtual currency. This includes the regulators, the bankers, and other associations interested in seeing virtual currency grow in Luxembourg. 

For the last 30 years, Luxembourg has had a vibrant Fintech industry based around fund management, the security of monies, and reliability. In addition, Luxembourg has a well-established and solid legal framework. Therefore, startups coming here will get professional/reliable representation and solid legislation to back them up. Startups will be able to follow the way many of the large companies did when they moved to Luxembourg.

“A Fintech company needs to have reliability. It’s not just storing people’s photographs or memories. It’s actually storing their money which is a totally different level of reliability and security that the customers expect and that’s provided historically by Luxembourg,” said Michael Jackson, Partner at Mangrove Capital Partners.

10X Extension – Online Fintech Event

For financial institutions, investors, and fintech experts, 10X Extension was a great event to strengthen relationships with the international Fintech ecosystem. The cross-border event connected the international fintech ecosystem and network with peers and industry leaders shaking up the Fintech sector. 

5 Innovative Korean Fintech Startups that Partipated in 10X Extension

Spiceware

Spiceware on Cloud is a SaaS that securely protects all data operated by enterprises in the finance, public, telecommunications, and healthcare sectors by providing data security and PII (Personally Identifiable Information) protection services for building infrastructure utilizing the cloud, big data, and AI. It is a cloud-native PII Protection Service with the following features: Encryption, Access Log Management, PII Deletion, Anonymization & Pseudonymization. Spiceware was established in 2017, the company is invested by AhnLab, a major IT security company in South Korea, along with others Vc’s in Korea. Spiceware has been an Amazon APN Select Technology Partner in the category of DB Encryption since 2018.

VOLTA (BC Labs)

VOLTA provides a trading strategy open marketplace that connects retail investors and professional traders so that retail investors can trade like professionals with the aid of professional traders. Many teams consist of just one or two talented programmers who make high profits just by running a few trading strategy algorithms. However, these groups lack the resources such as the brand, organization, and capital for marketing, funding, and customer services. They are looking for an automated platform to focus on trading solely.

XQuant

XQuant is a leading Korean language specialist for the processing and analysis of unstructured data for financial institutions. Their products TS-Expert and ESG-Analytics, will help your organization extract the relevant information and improve your team’s efficiency. TS-Expert automatically extracts information from the Term-Sheet of OTC financial products such as Swap, Options, Forward, or Structured Products. In addition, ESG-Analytix helps investors and financial analysts find information and automatically assesses the involvement of corporations on Environment, Social, and Governance related themes.

Quotabook

Quotabook is an equity management platform for both companies and investors. Startups and VCs can sync crucial equity data and corporate governance issues through an online equity platform so that every shareholder and portfolio company can communicate through a single source of truth. Therefore, Quotabook is used by the top-tier VCs and startups in Korea. In addition, they have partnerships with 33% of the transfer agents in Korea. The company was incorporated in late 2019 and has been funded by almost 20 VCs, accelerators, and banks.

Finhaven

Finhaven is a capital markets technology company that offers a simple, safe, and secure paperless custodial and settlement solution for all market participants. Their technology platform leverages distributed ledger technology and covers KYC, AML, suitability, capital raise, primary distribution, the marketplace, settlement, depository, investor relations, and corporate action management. Furthermore, this new digital capital market system will have a real-time settlement. It will eliminate the need for clearing agencies, central depositories, and custodians. Finhaven Capital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Finhaven Technology Inc., is a registered exempt market dealer in 6 jurisdictions from BC to QC in Canada (Finhaven Capital operates as “Finhaven Private Markets”). Finhaven Asia, another Finhaven subsidiary, is located in Seoul to expand the company’s business in Asian markets.

About LUXKO 

LUXKO consulting is a business expansion accelerator constantly looking for the next potential unicorn. Luxembourg is a new gateway to the EU, and they support your expansion with top tech gurus and local investors. 

About Seoul Fintech Lab

Seoul Fintech Lab was developed by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in 2018 to develop the financial sector. It is already hosting 100 companies specializing in the financial technology sector. The companies are provided space for around two years and guided by their specialized accelerator programs.