American start-up establishes Malta presence

With offices in the USA, UK, Poland, and the Philippines, Trust Stamp, an American start-up company, has recently established its presence in Malta which will serve as a base for research and development, reaching out to African counterparts and markets

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With offices in the USA, UK, Poland, and the Philippines, Trust Stamp, an American start-up company, has recently established its presence in Malta which will serve as a base for research and development, reaching out to African counterparts and markets.

When visiting its new offices, Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Businesses Silvio Schembri said the government remained committed to attract foreign direct investment to its shores, particularly start-ups.

“As a government we’re providing the necessary impetus for start-ups to take that leap forward and implement their projects and ideas,” he said. “Malta is already attracting high quality start-ups to its shores and we intend to maintain this momentum by preserving its competitive-edge and continue providing an optimum ecosystem for start-ups to operate and flourish.”

Trust Stamp’s mission is to create and deploy artificial intelligence solutions to empower financial and societal inclusion. This ranges from providing account access and fraud detection for an American bank with over 60 million customers, to working with Mastercard, to creating identites for 100 million undocumented people throughout Africa to allow access to vaccinations, medical care, and aid.

During this visit, Schembri announced that the Start-Up Finance Scheme had been recently amended to encourage start-up investors to invest and provide more flexible financing options, including operational costs.

The amended Start-up Finance will provide up to €200,000 as a repayable advance on working capital to eligible start-ups’ undertakings, which may increase up to €400,000 if the start-up is an innovative enterprise.

The scheme was already in place before COVID-19. During 2020, Malta Enterprise approved start-up financing to seven beneficiaries. Total assistance granted to these beneficiaries is in the region of €3 million. Projects emanated from different areas which are expected to drive Malta’s economic growth further, including AI, fintech, biometrics and digital games.

Kurt Farrugia, Malta Enterprise Chief Executive Officer, explained that a survey carried out by the corporation among local start-ups showed that the latter are interested in allocating funds towards capital and operation expenditure to identify new markets and for R&D purposes.

However, the most pressing challenges encountered by start-up beneficiaries were loss of turnover, cancellation of contracts and cash flow management.

Moreover, the survey also showed how technology-based startups proved to be more resilient during the pandemic. Most importantly, the outcome of the survey demonstrated that the assistance provided through the wage supplement and other mitigation measures enabled them to retain the majority of their staff.

‘It is interesting to note that the interviewed companies expressed their interest to raise up to €200,000 and that they were seeking ways to raise funds throughout this year. Thus, through the amendment in the scheme, the enterprise will provide an essential head start to implement their projects,” Farrugia said.

The scheme is available until 31 December 2022.

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