Mission market leader

Dear reader 

Backbone has acquired German company IMOGENT in a strategic move to expand its leading position in the DACH region’s proptech sector. The Geneva-based start-up aims to become the European leader in marketing automation for real estate by 2026.

Swiss-based alternative lending platform Teylor is taking over German SME financing platform creditshelf. The acquisition makes Teylor, which was founded in Zurich in 2018, the clear digital market leader in the European SME loan market.

Ticino-based agritech start-up xFarm has taken over two companies: Spanish-based Greenfield Technologies and French-based SpaceSense. These acquisitions turn xfarm into a pan-European leader in the agritech industry.

Three start-ups, three verticals, but one goal and one strategy: to become the European market leader. Start-ups that pursue such ambitious growth strategies are still considered a rarity in Switzerland, but the fact that we were able to report on three such cases this week shows that they are not quite so rare after all.

It is also pleasing to see that new investors with international ambitions are becoming active in Switzerland: Samih Sawiris, known in Switzerland for his tourism project in Andermatt, is one of the investors to took a stake in Oxara in its latest financing round. Oxara’s cement-free technology produces building materials based on excavated earth and demolition waste, thus reducing the carbon footprint of concrete and brick by up to 90%. And 14Peaks Capital has raised USD 30 million for its first fund: the VC, which is involved in Instimatch and Tune Insight among others, is led by Edoardo Ermotti, son of UBS Group CEO Sergio Ermotti.

The local biotech industry is more global than almost any other sector in Switzerland. The latest Swiss Biotech Report was presented at Swiss Biotech Day, which attracted a total of 2,500 visitors to Basel, including more than 1,000 from abroad, and demonstrated this – and other strengths of the industry – impressively through figures.

There was also good news on the support side: the new Park Innovaare was inaugurated in Villigen, Aargau. Find out what it has to offer start-ups in our article. And Talent Kick, a cross-university programme that provides students with comprehensive support at an early stage of their entrepreneurial journey, has been very successful and will now take place twice a year. Applications for the next edition are open until 5 May.

The deadline of both the Youngsters Competition at Startup Days and the first fintech-focused Swisshacks Hackathon expires on 30 April. The application phase for First Ventures ends on 1 May  and the application window for the Ticino accelerator programme Boldbrain has just opened. Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the Circular Economy Demo Day next Monday in Zurich. 

Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch