Cash and accelerator entry tickets for Swiss startups

Held within the framework of the SPOT, the Sports for Nature Challenge, powered by Sails of Change, sought to recognise innovative solutions that promote and enhance biodiversity conservation with an actual or potential link with sports. The Thinkport competition attracted 70 applications from all continents. Thirty applications made it into the semi-finals, and only ten best startups pitched at the finals. Dimpora emerged among the three winners, taking home a CHF 10’000 prize. The ETH Zurich spin-off launched in 2019 developed the first sustainable, PFAs-free functional high-performant membranes for the outdoor textile industry. The winners were selected by an expert jury composed of Sails of Change founder Dona Bertarelli, IOC Director of Corporate Development and Sustainability Marie Sallois Dembreville, and the Director of the Centre for Society and Governance at IUCN, Dr. Radhika Murti.

NVIDIA supports Clearsky
Clearsky is joining the NVIDIA Inception program for startups, designed to help startups evolve faster through access to cutting-edge technology and NVIDIA experts. In addition, the program provides opportunities to connect with venture capitalists, and co-marketing support to heighten the participant's visibility. Unlike traditional accelerators, NVIDIA Inception supports all stages of a startup’s life cycle by working closely with members. Based in Lausanne, Clearsky developes a personalised AI assistant to run locally on any device ranging from mobiles to embedded systems. The solution augments the most confidential conversations with state-of-the-art speech processing technology. Use cases include For example, the tool can record notes for doctors or lawyers during a discussion or record the key insights without sending any data to the cloud. The participants can fully concentrate on their conversation. Clearsky will take the opportunity during the Nvidia program to advance its solution to further foster data privacy, personalisation and reduced carbon footprint.

Enhance-d joins Headbits product development master program
Headbits has selected enhance-d (Sestante Analytics AG) as the winner of the 5-day masterclass program. The startup was chosen for its clear focus, strong mission and willingness to take feedback and improve its product. The Headbits team will provide the startup with know-how to help them improve their product and take it to the next level. Besides benefiting from the CHF 9’285 worth program, the Bern-based startup will get to raise up to CHF 100K in a seed round and access headbit’s network. Founded in 2022, enhance-d built a single digital hub for diabetes self-management. The platform enables patients and healthcare providers to keep track of all the factors that influence their glucose - exercise, meals, insulin. By combining real-time diagnostics across every aspect of the digital diabetes experience with AI-powered analytics and visualisations, the platform helps users to see and understand their glucose data for better decision-making.

(RAN)
Photo: Dona Bertarelli and Anna Beltzung (co-founder Dimpora)