Creative search for money

Dear reader

Financing growth is a challenge for any Swiss start-up. This week has demonstrated how Swiss founders are becoming more creative at tapping into sources of money. Five companies have secured new funding from five very different sources: QualySense has closed its third round of financing, which has come mainly from existing donors; Geneva IT security company WISeKey has gained Brazilian media group GJC as a strategic investor from a growth market par excellence; Selexis has sold potential milestone and royalty payments for more than 15 biological development programmes, and will use the funds to reinforce and expand a promising technology platform; Eaternity has received CHF20,000 of support from the Swiss Climate Foundation; and Lausanne medtech start-up SmartCardia has been awarded the Helbling Innogrant 2013.

And good new news too for the Innogrant, a special fund designed to promote innovation and support young entrepreneurs in new business ventures at EPFL. US IT company CA Technologies will give financial support to the fund over the coming years.

Such exposure shows the degree of interest that Swiss start-ups encounter abroad – and kooaba is yet another example this week. The Zurich-based IT start-up has been recognised by the world-renowned consulting firm Gartner as a ‘Cool Vendor’. “For our customers, this classification has a very high value,” commented kooaba CEO Till Quack.

Success also from Germany: Swiss start-ups Politnetz and Interactive Things have been selected as nominees out of 1600 proposals for the prestigious Grimme Online Award. You can cast your vote in the Public Choice Award. And Interactive Things can also use your support for a further award: the Zurich data visualization studio has been nominated (with Neue Zürcher Zeitung) for the Data Journalism Awards 2013 too.

Have a relaxing weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Managing Editor, startupticker.ch