NewTech Friday: Byrssa – Simplifying the startup fundraising process

Czech startup Byrssa is one of the five winners of the fourth edition of the LHOFT Catapult: Kickstarter program. Willem Lambrechts, Co-Founder & Chairman, and Gabriela Homolova, CEO & Co-Founder, tell us about their mission to simplify, accelerate and disintermediate the early stage startup fundraising process.


What led to the creation of Byrssa?

Together, we have a track record of more than 20 years in business management and financial technology sales. Financial technology is a flag covering many elements, one of which is fintech startups. In the context of our fintech sales activities, we built a significant network of people widely involved in financial services, from very traditional to hyper-modern. They got confronted with the big challenges that startups face when trying to secure funds for building and running their business. At the same time, they recognized the huge opportunities offered by new technologies such as blockchain and the changing regulatory context related to the digitalization of assets. 

All this triggered the Byrssa idea, which got converted into a real project thanks to Matthias, who managed to translate the idea into a practical approach. Many conversations with startups and investors affirmed the need for a Byrssa type approach of angel and seed-funding.

Could you present Byrssa’s offer?

Our firm offers a digital platform that facilitates the research, discovery, outreach, matching and deal closure in one process, whereby the deal is closed on a standard SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) contract, directly between the end investor and the founders (no intermediaries) where the contracts are stored on the blockchain. The CAP tables and investment portfolios are managed on the platform as well.

What's coming next for Byrssa?

We have been working so far with a bootstrapped website. Awareness creation and sales are continuously going on. We are about to start building a proper demo version of the market  and are already signing contracts with the first customers. In the meantime, we are creating the standard SAFE contracts for different European countries. The MVP is being built with ‘family/friends’ funding. If we win a grant from the Luxembourg Ministry of Economy, we will use it to set up our Luxembourg office and to put the prototype in production. The next big step is to close seed investment for developing the assessment tools and content that we intend to make available for our clients.