November 13, 2015
Life is a game
Der reader
The Swiss game industry is still very young. Among the pioneers is Studio Gbanga, which launched in 2007, with its games that connect the virtual and real world. Yesterday, Matthias Sala’s team was the big winner at the Best of Swiss Apps Awards, with its game ‘Gross.Stadt.Jagd’ gaining gold in three categories. The customer for which the game was designed, by the way, is Mercedes-Benz Switzerland. A clear indication of how established games are today.
The same was seen at the Swiss ICT Awards, which were held a day earlier at KKL Luzern. Game developers were in the spotlight there as well, with the team from Blindflug Studios winning the Newcomer Award for its game ‘First Strike’.
Winners of this award can go far. On Friday, GetYourGuide announced the completion of a financing round of $50 million. It is not only the amount that is noteworthy – the new investors are KKR and Nokia Growth Partners.
GetYourGuide won the Swiss ICT Newcomer Award in 2012 and since then has been helped by a number of Swiss start-up supporters; thus, the company also presented at CTI Invest. Anyone who wants to discover the next GetYourGuide will find the right opportunity in the coming week. At Swiss Venture Day Romandie on Wednesday, no fewer than 11 promising start-ups will be introduced to investors.
In terms of funding, other interesting news this week concerned Ava, which announced that former Sonova CEO Valentin Chapero has joined the start-up as a business angel. Flyability announced the closure of a second round of financing, and a team of senior pharmaceutical executives joined biotech start-up Cellestia Biotech as investors and co-founders.
Life sciences companies were also at the centre of this year’s Heuberger Winterthur Young Entrepreneur Award: Rqmicro, CellSpring and Inositec each won CHF150,000.
Next week, the awards continue with the Swiss Technology Awards at the Swiss Innovation Forum on Thursday in Basel. On the same day, Swiss Mobicamp will take place in Bern. In addition to an impressive array of international speakers, 12 Swiss gaming studios will participate in an exclusive masterclass with Jussi Mäkinen, who is responsible for global product and creative marketing at Rovio, the studio behind Angry Birds. You will find a discount code to the event in our article.
Next week numerous events are being held throughout Switzerland, with dozens taking place as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Our two articles for the German-speaking and French-speaking regions take an overview. In addition, this weekend sees the registration deadlines of several important awards – refer to our review article.
Have a sunny weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, Startupticker.ch