About founders and foundations

Dear reader

Foundations and other non-profit organisations provide founders with the financial resources they need to get on the radar of investors and customers. Now this topsoil of the ecosystem is also becoming denser away from the big start-up centres of Zurich, Lausanne and Basel: thanks to support from the Albert Köchlin Stiftung, the central Swiss funding initiative *zünder will be able to award an amount of up to CHF 510,000 for the first time in the coming year. And in eastern Switzerland, St. Galler Kantonalbank and Stiftung Startfeld are increasing their annual commitment by CHF 10,000.

Boldbrain Startup Challenge in Ticino has awarded a total of CHF 120,000 to start-ups from the accelerator program for the fourth time. The winner of this year’s edition was announced yesterday evening: InkVivo founder Elia Guzzi and his team.

Last week, however, Swiss high-tech founders received recognition not only in their homeland. As it does every year, the German-language Forbes magazine has compiled a list of the 30 greatest Swiss talents under the age of 30. The astonishing result is that 23 of the winners work in tech start-ups.

In financing rounds, Zurich Insurance announced that it is acquiring a stake in the car subscription provider Carify. Bookseller Orell Füssli is also active as a strategic investor and is joining the Evrlearn training platform, and Valais hyperloop pioneer Swisspod has attracted international investors.

The transaction amounts were not communicated in any of these three cases, but there were concrete figures for the three medtech financings of the week: Zurich-based Hylomorph collected CHF 5.2 million. At Vivent in canton Vaud, investors injected EUR 1.8 million and the Geneva-based Medimaps Group generated USD 20 million.

Next week a hybrid Noah Conference is planned. We will be on site at The Circle at Zurich airport. And on Tuesday the first Tech4Eva Conference will take place in the morning and the second Swiss Accelerator Showcase in the afternoon, both online.

Finally, two calls to action: Innosuisse and and the Embassy of Switzerland in Israel are launching a second start-up exchange programme with Israel, with the targets early-stage start-ups from the life sciences and digital health sectors with an active coaching credit from Innosuisse. And applications are open to female entrepreneurs for the SEF.Women Award until 10 December.

Have a relaxing weekend.

Jost Dubacher
Editor startupticker.ch