In recent years, her face has become familiar to the fintech entrepreneurs who, like her, have made their home at the LHoFT (Luxembourg House of Financial Technology). Maria Mateo, originally from Alicante, on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, has established part of the InsurTech Ibisa team within the national fintech hub and startup incubator. The rest of the team are based in Asia and Africa, but Mateo herself has made Luxembourg her home, taking an apartment across the street from her office in Luxembourg City. “My commute time is limited to 30 seconds,” she jokes. Though, beyond the time-saving advantage of the location, she also praises the benefits of proximity networking and interactions with Luxembourg’s fintech ecosystem.
“With Ibisa, we are developing parametric insurance, which uses data provided by satellites over a fairly long period.”
Launched in 2019 with two associates who have since left her at the helm, Ibisa develops insurance products for climate disruptions, making climate resilience accessible, reliable, and affordable for a diverse range of stakeholders in emerging markets. But unlike a traditional insurer, “With Ibisa, we are developing parametric insurance, which uses data provided by satellites over a fairly long period to analyse the frequency of events such as floods or droughts, in order to build a model for pricing an insurance product,” explains the CEO.
The use of satellite images also makes it possible to analyse the effects of climatic phenomenon and compensate clients as soon as an alert threshold has been exceeded. Thus, in case of a typhoon, for example, based on the severity, it automatically calculates the payout per location and triggers the payment process to the insurer. This method reduces costs by avoiding the need for an expert assessment and quickly compensates the insurance policyholder, allowing them to continue what is often a fragile activity. “My family has been working in agriculture in southern Alicante for many generations, where we grow lemons, oranges, and almonds. I have personally experienced the challenges of traditional insurance – cumbersome administration, reliance on human judgment, and a lack of transparency. This motivated me to create a more efficient, objective, and accessible insurance model – one that not only streamlines the process but also provides peace of mind.”
Satellite Expert and Entrepreneur
The use of satellite technology was a natural progression for Maria Mateo. A telecommunications engineer with a master’s degree in Satellite Communications, she began her career at INSA, a company linked to the Spanish Ministry of Defense. There, she was responsible for deploying satellite communications in embassies, a role which allowed her to travel to many emerging countries. This passion for space communication solutions also brought her to Luxembourg in 2013. “I had just turned 30 and felt the need to try a professional experience outside of Spain. So I started looking at opportunities overseas, and in my sector, the Luxembourg company SES is clearly an international reference.”
I was impressed both by the professionalism at SES and the administrative simplicity for an expatriate settling in the country. Everything seemed easy to me.
She thus discovered Luxembourg during her job interview and has now been established there for 12 years. Was the transition easy? “It was summer,” she jokes. “More seriously, I was impressed both by the professionalism at SES and the administrative simplicity for an expatriate settling in the country. Everything seemed easy to me.” Quickly integrated into SES’s Luxembourg headquarters, she participated in humanitarian and defense sector projects before shifting to the aviation sector, where she also developed satellite communication projects.
While keeping her eyes on the sky, Maria Mateo clearly has an entrepreneurial spirit and can claim the creation of several companies on her CV. For the first, Invest Advice, she was just 16 and needed her father’s accompaniment to open a bank account. “I had started investing in the stock market, which wasn’t very common in Spain in the 1990s, and I set up a structure to advise others, mainly friends and family,” she recalls. Still in Alicante, she launched Mister Lemon, a company that processes lemons to take advantage of local production year-round, instead of resorting to imports for six months of the year.
Targeting Asia and Africa from Luxembourg
After only two years in Luxembourg, Mateo became passionate about blockchain technology and, with some friends, launched the company Bitvalley in 2015, while still working at SES. The new company set out to educate the finance world about the possibilities offered by the technology behind cryptocurrencies. Finally, in 2019, capitalising on her knowledge of the satellite industry, she put the startup Ibisa on track, with the ambition to develop products which would help insurance companies active in Africa and Asia to protect small farmers from adverse climate events.
Until now, Maria Mateo has focused all her attention on finding partners for Ibisa in emerging countries – India and the Philippines first, Ghana, Senegal, and Kenya more recently. But she is gradually becoming aware of additional benefits that the Luxembourg ecosystem can offer her. “Being based in Luxembourg positions Ibisa within a global hub for sustainable finance. Our mission, protecting vulnerable communities, businesses, and investments in emerging markets against climate risks, is an integral part of sustainable finance. We aim to increase awareness of how integrating climate insurance is game-changing for funding initiatives that drive sustainability, such as renewable energy, climate resilience, and social equity.”
Together with the Luxembour Space Agency (LSA) and the young Luxembourg company RSS-Hydro, which deals with the remote sensing of floods, Mateo is currently preparing an insurance product related to flooding. She also notes that the concept of parametric insurance, at the centre of her expertise, is beginning to interest European insurance captives. Luxembourg is the preferred European location for the captive industry, with close to 200 such firms established in the country.
In the long run, the Spanish entrepreneur hopes to shift into higher gear, building beyond the limits of InsurTech by leading a movement to make climate insurance mainstream.