Microlux issues small business loans up to €25,000 and provides coaching to entrepreneurs who, the outfit said this week, “do not have access to ‘traditional’ bank loans”.

The company was founded in March 2016 and is backed by the microfinance NGOs Ada and Adie, the bank BGL BNP Paribas and the EU’s European Investment Fund.

Many loan applicants are unemployed, low income or need to strike a better work-life balance, the company’s Samuel Paulus told Delano in March 2017.

As of this month, Microlux has fielded initial requests from “nearly 400” prospective entrepreneurs, coached “around 150 project leaders” and issued 72 loans with an average amount of €14,000. “These microcredits have enabled the creation of 58 companies and some 80 jobs,” the firm reported.

The microcredit which pushed Microlux over the €1m mark was disbursed to Victoria Brandt, a floral designer who said the financing and support would allow her to “restart my trade in Luxembourg”.

The loan to Brandt was granted in June 2019 and announced on 27 August.