The sixth edition of the K2Match Investor Lounge brought together ambitious startups and international investors at the prestigious Columbus Monte-Carlo hotel.
The evening began with champagne and networking before founders took centre stage to pitch their innovations to an international audience of investors from across Europe, the US, and Asia.
Badr Moudden, CEO and co-founder of K2Match, opened the floor for startups by highlighting what he considers the greatest risk facing early-stage investors: the phycological readiness of founders themselves.
“One of the biggest risks for investors, especially in early stages—pre-seed, seed, even Series A—is still the mental personalities of the founders and the mechanics of the team,” Moudden explained. “The startup is like a car—you can work on it, improve the business plan. But people are more complex.”
This philosophy has shaped K2MATCH’s approach to nurturing startups. The platform, which connects over 1,500 carefully curated startups with more than 450 investors globally, announced the launch of a 10-week accelerator programme starting in July.
Unlike traditional programmes, this begins with psychological assessment and resilience training before moving to technical aspects of business development. “We are starting with the mental part,” Moudden said. “So it starts with an assessment of the founders and a journey with our head mentor, to make them resilient and ready for the job.”
Tackling the education market
Among the evening’s standout presentations was Everybody Counts, an education technology startup targeting the global primary mathematics education market worth €60 billion annually.
A representative from Everybody Counts, replacing Co-founder Andy Ridgway, explained how their digital teaching platform for children aged five to eleven addresses cultural representation: “If you log into our platform in Nigeria, you’ll see children who look like you. If you log into our platform in Cambodia, you see children who look like you.”
The startup has secured €4 million in contracts and €1 million in grant funding, including €500,000 from Innovate UK. Their machine learning algorithms personalise learning experiences and can detect potential dyscalculia and dyslexia cases approximately one year before traditional diagnosis.
“At that age, every single week is important for early diagnosis,” Ridgway noted. “And all those traditional print publishers can’t do any of that.”
Blockchain battles luxury counterfeit
The evening also featured NiFTyGet, a blockchain-based authentication service addressing the growing problem of counterfeit luxury goods.
CEO and co-founder Ash Patel highlighted the scale of the issue, explaining to Monaco Life that 46% of customers have unintentionally purchased counterfeit items online.
“I’ve known a customer that purchased a Birkin bag online for €10,000, took it to a store for help with something, and it was a counterfeit,” Patel explained. “There are lots of money being taken off consumers.”
NiFTyGet’s solution integrates directly with luxury brands’ e-commerce platforms, creating a blockchain-verified chain of ownership for authentic pre-owned items. Each product receives a unique NFT identifier that transfers with ownership, ensuring authenticity and provenance tracking.
“We effectively add a blockchain layer, and is a unique identifier against every single product,” Patel said. “So we always know that it’s authentic. We know who owned it. We know where it’s come from.
Expanding the ecosystem
K2MATCH has evolved beyond simple investor matching to offer comprehensive growth solutions. The platform now provides AI-powered sales agents to help startups develop customer acquisition strategies, addressing the challenge of scaling personalised support across its extensive startup network.
The organisation’s ecosystem encompasses over 50 experts, 20 solution partners, 10 business communities, and 20 corporates alongside its investor network, facilitating funding from €50,000 to several million across all stages from pre-seed to exit
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Main photo credit: Monaco life, featuring Badr Moudden, CEO and co-founder of K2Match and Ash Patel, Ceo and co-founder of NiFTyGet