Quick Thoughts after NOAH Berlin 2019

Image by Adrianna Pisarska

The second NOAH 2019 Conference didn’t disappoint. The slogan gave a promise of “Connecting European Champions and Challengers,” and that’s exactly what happened. As I like to cut a long story short, here’s my NOAH19 Berlin digest:

• Blockchain is still super-hot, incumbents are starting to become established and there are many super well organized companies that are formed by former bankers and have no problem with working with one, but many have ambition of becoming one. Example would be Luno that has 2.5 million active accounts and is not afraid of Coinbase. Smartvalor has word-class team in Zug, Switzerland
• Great business can be built by operationally simplifying by digitizing traditional large scale services like wealth management or insurance. Nutmeg — is the largest digital wealth manager in Europe; getsafe — huge insurance market share in Germany.
• No matter how big you think e-sports is, it’s bigger. Games are not the only place to compete, it’s a place to hang out with your friends. Over 10 million people participated in Marshmello concert that took place inside a Fortnite game. Company called Learn2play deploys AI to coach e-sports players who are now celebrities outshining professional football players. E-sports is $1 billion market now, gamers around the world spend $140 billion on games every year.
• Forklift fleet management startup ForkOn estimates that forklift market is $40B in Europe alone.

What did you find the most interesting during the Berlin edition? It’s impossible to catch all the news spread on NOAH. I’m sure you have your own favorites!