August 28, 2015
How can European conditions for start-ups improve?
Dear reader
The digital economy is still dominated by the US. Researchers at the University of St. Gallen, ETH Zurich and the Tuck School of Business in New Hampshire have pondered the question of how Europe’s role can be strengthened and come up with a five-point plan. Three of the five points relate directly to start-ups; they call for a fair tax policy for venture capital investment, support for entrepreneurship in education and a greater openness from large companies towards start-ups.
The five-point list summarises succinctly the most important measures for the improvement of conditions for start-ups in Europe, and is for that reason alone worth reading. However, start-ups must work their way to international growth whatever the conditions.
The European research programmes are a good way to make contacts with large companies and to find additional financial resources. This week Lausanne start-up Gait Up announced that it is involved in a project with well-known partners and a budget of not less than €6 million.
Experience also helps a company’s successful development: a good example is Avrios, a provider of innovative solutions for fleet management. The three founders have industry experience and worked with start-ups Starmind, Wuala and DeinDeal. Avrios’ backers include Dominik Grolimund, founder of Wuala and Silp, and Ankit Gupta, founder of news platform Pulse (sold to LinkedIn), headquartered in San Francisco.
Many of the founders of the promising start-ups that will present themselves to investors in Zurich on the 50th Swiss Venture Day have long experience too. University spin-offs with novel technologies, including an authentication solution based on wrist vein recognition, will also be present at the event.
Swiss Venture Day takes place on 9 September; next week also sees an event from SBB and Deloitte on the sharing economy in Zurich, and the Innovation World Cup Conference in Neuchatel.
Aspiring winners of the Swiss Technology Award at the Swiss Innovation Forum in Basel in November have until 31 August to apply. Applications are now open for the Meilleur du Web competition and the ‘social impact start’ for green and social enterprises.
Have a sunny weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch