April 17, 2015
Start-ups on the big stage
Dear reader
On Thursday, the French president, François Hollande, and the president of the Confederation, Simonetta Sommaruga, visited EPFL. They inaugurated a new transport system with driverless buses, controlled through a solution from EPFL spin-off BestMile.
BestMile was just one of the start-ups in the sights of top decision-makers this week. At Swiss Biotech Day in Basel, Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez stressed the importance of biotech start-ups for the group and listed the numerous Swiss start-ups with which Novartis collaborates and in which the Novartis Venture Fund invests.
Major corporates seeking contact with start-ups will be well represented today and tomorrow at the START Summit in St. Gallen; for example, a SAP CodeJam will take place. Swisscom, Microsoft, Axel Springer and Evernote will also be active. We will be tweeting our impressions live from the event today and tomorrow.
Prominent support may also help secure the future of Merck Serono spin-off Asceneuron: the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) has awarded it a grant of $325,000. Financial support was also awarded to cleantech firm IS Save Energy: it has received the first loan guarantee from the Swiss Confederation’s Technology Fund. Scientific Visual and flatev reported the conclusion of financing.
Three start-ups have been awarded the CTI Startup Label: Anerdgy, an innovative cleantech company; Genohm, which focuses on IT for life sciences; and Netico, which leverages consumer technologies in industrial applications.
This has been an eventful week for the Swiss start-up scene and it will continue in the same style next week. At the Startup Champions in Lausanne next Wednesday, in addition to the 20 venture leaders, Sophia Genetics CEO Jurgi Camblong and Lemotix CTO Nicolas Abelé will speak. The EPFL Seed Night follows after the event. On Thursday, an interesting event on the topic of recruitment takes places in SBB’s Co-Working Space in Zurich, where experts will be available to answer questions. We will be present at all these events.
Finally, a last-minute reminder: the deadline for venture 2015 expires at midnight tonight. We encourage all ambitious start-ups to participate.
Have an exciting weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch