Luxembourg startups Vinesia and Ignisign this week head to Lisbon’s Web Summit, showcasing innovative solutions in fine wine investment and secure e-signatures amid Europe’s bustling tech scene.
Over 70,000 participants this week are expected to attend the Web Summit, one of the largest and most influential technology conferences in the world, held annually in Lisbon.
Among the companies heading to this year’s Web Summit is Vinesia, founded in late 2022 as a stealth startup and incorporated in 2023. Vinesia has a vision to democratize fine wine investment. Its platform allows for portfolio management and incorporates AI-driven recommendations.
As Vinesia CCO and co-founder Laurence Zimmer explains, the platform targets high-net-worth individuals. Customers, most of whom are located in Europe, mostly in Germany and Switzerland, also have the option to keep their wine inventory inside a secure, bonded warehouse in Luxembourg, meaning that customers only have to pay VAT on the bottles that physically leave the warehouse.
Digital twins for all bottles
“All the bottles also have a digital twin, an NFT, which is what you have in your wallet, on your phone, on the website,” Zimmer explained. “You also get direct, daily information on the storage conditions, temperature, humidity, price.”
Vinesia draws from a variety of large wine databases to get a detailed overview on market prices—part of what the company calls its “peace of mind pledge”. It also benefits from a deep network of wine experts and sommeliers.
CEO and co-founder Fabrice Mopin, for instance, is also the team’s chief wine officer. A qualified sommelier, with a particular focus on rare wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy, Mopin also worked for many years in various Michelin-starred restaurants.
Occasionally, Vinesia will receive a very specific request for rare wines from its customers; if they don’t have the wine on inventory, they’ve managed to trigger their network to source them. “This has worked out, so far, every time,” Zimmer said. “And this is probably for us in the future a more economically feasible model… depending on how the market will develop.”
At this year’s Web Summit, the team is aiming to raise funds to help support Vinesia’s app development, warehouse expansion, and data analyst hiring. The company will also be participating in a special Swisstech evening on 11 November, hosted by Denis Knobel, Swiss Ambassador to Portugal.
Patent pending to address banks’ needs
Ignisign will also be attending Web Summit, in the hopes of broadening brand awareness as well as its customer base. What started off as a governance platform for board members to sign minutes and vote online has since developed into Ignisign’s more comprehensive solution, which allows for e-signing on three different levels based on user needs. The company promises “unparalleled security” for digital signatures and is Eidas, E-sign and Ueta compliant.
Depsite Docusign’s market dominance, CEO Julien Jenoudet is convinced that the Ignisign platform offers unique features, a legally binding alternative—plus competitive pricing and the possibility to pay-as-you-go, to boot.
During a recent interview, Jenoudet addressed banks’ distrust of software-as-a-service, or Saas. “They want everything on premises, which is not possible if we want to be certified in Europe,” he explained, adding that Ignisign is on the European Commission trusted list, with signatures being “equivalent to a notarized signature”.
Given Ignisign’s need to manage everything around the signatures, they have to function as a Saas and, as such: “There’s a gap between what the European Commission wants from us and what banks are looking for,” Jenoudet said.
To address this gap, Ignisign currently has a patent pending on a “full privacy” feature for banks. The patent would allow for Ignisign “to certify the signature of a document that stays in the bank’s environment,” Jenoudet said. “So, we’re doing our Saas business, but it’s like on premises for [the banks].”