Good overall with a few weaknesses

Dear reader

Basically, Switzerland is doing well in terms of digitisation and start-ups playing are a large part in that. This week, companies in this field were able to report some good news. NetGuardians and Finastra, one of the world’s largest software houses for financial services companies, will jointly launch a security solution. Largo, whose AI-based software can predict and help optimise the impact of films, won the prize for best technology start-up at the San Sebastian Film Festival. In the B2C market, Tombooks has been successful with its music learning app: 400,000 musicians in 50 countries use Tomplay.

The financing rounds are in a class of their own. This week alone more than CHF 70 million went to ICT start-ups. Most was received by Kandou, which increases data throughput in computer systems, thus reducing energy consumption: the Lausanne-based company generated USD 56 million in a Series C round.

Challenger Bank Neon received CHF 5 million from investors, and more than CHF 2 million went to regtech company Yonder. Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo also invested a million-figure amount in the construction equipment marketplace Equippo.

A comprehensive picture of digitisation in Switzerland in an international comparison is provided by the recently published IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019. As in the previous year, Switzerland ranks fifth and the talent base is particularly good. But the report clearly identifies the country’s weaknesses, including too few women with science degrees and in research, and a lack of large listed IT companies. And in terms of availability of risk capital, Switzerland is in only 15th place, but at least it has made up two places compared with the previous year.

On Monday the study will be discussed in Lausanne at the Digital Competitiveness Summit, an event organised jointly by IMD and digitalswitzerland. We will report on it. Digitalswitzerland has launched numerous initiatives to promote digitalisation in Switzerland, including the not so well known, but very interesting Swiss Accelerator Network, which should strengthen the programmes’ collaboration and improve the impact, in particular abroad.

The Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation should also ensure more thrust in terms of digitisation and innovation. It has now started its UpScaler programme, which is aimed at ambitious start-ups in the internationalisation phase. It offers customised support from experienced and well-connected entrepreneurs and industry insiders. The first start-up to be taken up by the programme is PXL Vision.

Next week, the Business Innovation Week will take place in Zurich; the 300 speakers will also include some start-up CEOs. In Lausanne, the Alpine High-Tech Venture Forum takes place. Start-ups should not miss the deadline of 6 October for the two scale-up bootcamps on the themes of ‘Smart Cities & Industry 4.0’ and ‘EnterpriseTech, AI & Customer Solutions’.

Have a good autumnal weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, startupticker.ch