Startups cause a stir in Davos

The 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which started on Monday, 15 January, brought together players in business and politics under the theme Rebuilding Trust to provide the crucial space to step back and focus on the fundamental principles driving trust, including transparency, consistency and accountability.

Alongside the main event were side events that have been organised within the WEF framework, such as the Trillion Tree Challenge by Uplink, aimed at fostering innovative ecopreneurial solutions that enable forest restoration at scale, delivering carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and livelihood generation opportunities that help revive our natural ecosystems. Open Forest Protocol (OFP) from Lausanne was among the 12 winners of the ‘Restoration at Scale’ challenge. The startup developed a scalable open platform that allows forest projects of any size to measure, report, and verify (MRV) their forestation data. By managing data on a blockchain, the company ensures that data uploads and validation results are tamper-proof, immutable, and globally accessible for decades.

World Innovation Economics, a 3-day side event providing a platform for sharing ideas and discussing and exploring ways to resolve real-world challenges using innovations, also took place as a side event at the WEF. Organised by the Swiss Finance and Technology Association, the event held two awards: the Startup Innovation Awards and the Young Innovator Awards. Smartpurse, the fintech platform empowering women to invest by providing them with financial literacy, was one of the top 5 startups to win the Innovation Award prize. IMAI from Schlieren also took home a prize. The startup aims to improve cancer diagnostics with a rapid and automated tissue preparation approach, including digital tissue visualisation of biopsies.

Another startup in the spotlight was CEBS, the company behind Kooky disposable coffee cups, with its partner, Coca-Cola Schweiz. During the event, Kooky cups and return stations branded for Coca-Cola were available to WEF visitors. Through their partnership, the two companies demonstrated the power of digital reusable systems in driving the circular economy forward in food packaging.

The inaugural CRYPTO2030 was also held in Davos from January 15-19, bringing together industry pioneers, thought leaders and visionaries shaping the future of the Web3 space. The event’s format fostered thematic dialogues and networking, creating an ideal platform for various players. The award ceremony recognised outstanding startups such as Elysium Labs, which scored the top prize in the blockchain Privacy Patrons category, outcompeting over 100 startups. The Lugano-based startup offers a super wallet that allows managing and visualising crypto assets on multiple blockchains.

(RAN)