A Founder’s Journey From Europe to China and Now to Canada — Lionello Lunesu, Defang Software Labs
Before moving to Canada and joining Launch Academy, Lionello Lunesu worked in the Netherlands, Romania and China, launching tech startups, running software development teams, and programming for Microsoft. Now he’s on a new journey — building Defang Software Labs, a service for building, deploying, and managing cloud applications, together with co-founder Prakash Sundaresan.
Dropping Out of College to Develop a Startup
Lionello Lunesu started his first startup, Mondo Bizzarro, almost by accident. In 1997, while studying IT in Eindhoven — known as the Netherlands’ tech and design hub — he and a friend spent their free time building 3D games. “We stumbled upon someone who had a lot of virtual reality hardware. He asked us, ‘Hey, can you guys write me some software?’ So we started building a game for his VR helmet. We also did non-VR work, like Windows programs for other companies.”
Lionello left university to focus on the startup. But finding customers was a challenge. As two geeks with limited sales experience, they sometimes went two months without a project — or income — until the next client came along. Help came from their first customer, who invited them to a conference. There, they landed a contract with MaxFlight Corp. to build a flight simulator and monster truck simulator for their motion platform.
Everything was going well — until the 9/11 attacks and the dot-com crash hit in 2001. With the simulator market collapsing, Mondo Bizzarro was acqui-hired by Crystal InterActive, a company building software for semiconductor giants like TSMC. The deal cleared the startup’s debt and secured stable jobs for the team.
The flight simulators that Lionello and the team were building were exhibited in the Washington DC Air & Space Museum
Relocating to China and Joining Microsoft
Joining Crystal InterActive opened a new chapter in Lionello’s life. Since one of the company’s dev teams was in Romania, he moved from Eindhoven to Bucharest to lead a team of 10 programmers. After five years, he relocated again — this time to Beijing — for a similar role.
“It was easy to work with people there, but the cultural differences were real. In the Netherlands, giving feedback in public is normal. In China, that’s seen as disrespect. I once gave code feedback, and the person started crying. That was a tough lesson.”
After two and a half years in Beijing, Lionello decided it was time for a new challenge. With his background in startups and team leadership, he aimed high. “I thought, okay, let’s go for the biggest company and the biggest project.” That mindset brought him to Microsoft Shanghai, where he worked on Windows for three years.
New Startup and New Challenges
“After Microsoft, I joined a startup with some ex-Microsoft folks but left after a year to co-found Xinchejian, China’s first hackerspace.”
While his friends technically started it, Lionello became the first member and joined the core team. It was during the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution — a time when individuals could prototype their own products without large factories.
At Xinchejian, people came to build things. Some were hobbyists, others founded hardware startups, using 3D printers, laser cutters, and more. One of them wanted to create a virtual assistant (like Alexa or Siri) in the form of a cute little cube.
The electric “Sofacar” that Lionello created at the Xinchejian hackerspace
The founder, not being technical, brought Lionello on board. They found an accelerator in Hong Kong that connected them to factories and mechanical designers, so they moved.
“As our project took shape, we realized it would cost around $150. No one would pay that. We learned a hard truth — in hardware, you have to make money through services to recover hardware costs. So we canceled the project. It’s common for a product not to reach market. It might feel like wasted time, but it’s all learning. Especially for someone like me who didn’t finish school — it always feels like an education.”
The little cube that didn’t make it to the market
Unexpected Acquisition and Landing in Vancouver
Lionello’s next venture pushed him to cross the ocean. He co-founded Enuma Technologies in Hong Kong, offering software services. The company grew, hiring eight developers — until one of their key clients was acquired.
The acquirer, Workday, didn’t want “just a USB stick with code” — they wanted the team behind it. But Workday didn’t have a dev office in Hong Kong, so Lionello had to choose from 10 global locations.
“At the same time, my wife got into a PhD program at UBC in Vancouver — one of my relocation options. It made sense for both of us to start fresh together, rather than one of us sitting at home job hunting.”
Building a Startup in Canada
The itch to build his own company never went away. That was true when he quit Microsoft, and again after nearly three years at Workday. In 2021, Lionello reconnected with Prakash Sundaresan, a former manager from Microsoft US, and together they decided to start something new.
“After 20 years of building web services, you start to see patterns. Every service needs security, scaling, CI/CD, access management, and observability. But trendy tutorials skip those parts. You build a Twitter clone, and it crashes at 100,000 users because someone like Elon Musk tweets your link. We’re building a template to help founders avoid that — something resilient and scalable from the start.”
They named the company Defang Software Labs.
As newcomers in Canada, unfamiliar with the local market, they looked for guidance. Prakash joined the Maple Program at Launch Academy, and Lionello followed soon after.
“I like working in an office, and Launch provided that. It also helped my co-founder with immigration.
The people I’ve met here are top-notch. I can bounce ideas off them — and since many need web services, I might even find clients here. Having that kind of network from day one saves so much time.”
Prakash Sundaresan and Lionello Lunesu at the Point Roberts US-Canada border. It was Lionello’s first day out of quarantine in 2020
About Lionello
Lionello Lunesu is the Co-founder of Defang Software Labs, engineering lead and community organizer and he has 20 years of international industry experience working with software and hardware. He has lived in Eindhoven, Bucharest, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and recently moved to Vancouver BC. In 1997, Lionello founded a virtual-reality software company, acquired by a multinational company for real-time 3D rendering technology. In 2019, Workday acquired Trusted Key, the blockchain digital identity startup he helped found.
Find Lionello Lunesu on LinkedIn.
