Four exits, two magazines and one alliance

Dear reader

This week we reported on the acquisition of four very different young technology companies. Swiss fintech pioneer Appway is already a global leader in client onboarding and client servicing for financial institutions and has now been taken over by the British FNZ Group. Basel-based Optravis is an established B2B SaaS niche player and has gone to Germany’s msg Group. ETH Zurich spin-off deepCDR Biologics has been acquired by a US company that is also active in the field of antibody discovery and optimisation. Finally, employee engagement platform Alaya has been bought by a Canadian unicorn.

The number of takeovers has certainly increased again this year and in general Switzerland is not a bad place for exits. Although in relation to the number of inhabitants, Switzerland has an exit rate only half as high as in Israel or the US, it is significantly higher than in the UK or Sweden and more than twice as high as in Germany. This is one of the results of Swiss Startup Radar released this week. In the new edition of the magazine, Michael Rockinger, professor at HEC Lausanne, and I delved into the attributes of Swiss start-up founders, the wave of digitalisation triggered by Covid-19 and the financing situation of Swiss start-ups. The magazine ­– which as always is trilingual – can be downloaded from the startupticker website.

SICTIC’s Swiss Angel Investor Handbook is also available to download free of charge. I recommend it not only to all business angels but also to start-ups.

Work has already started, with analysis for the current year, on the next edition of Swiss Venture Capital Report. For the first time, it will be published by Startupticker and SECA in collaboration with startup.ch, a partnership that is intended to further increase transparency in terms of financing. Of course, you can also make a contribution to transparency by reporting financing rounds to us at news@startupticker.ch.

This week we reported on a total of eight investments: Embion generated the most money, at CHF 4.5 million, with a Series A financing round led by global brewing group ASAHI. There was also good news on the investor side: MTIP closed its second healthtech growth fund at USD 250 million

I would like to draw your attention to Talent Kick’s deadline on 15 December. The new programme is designed to help masters and doctoral students at Swiss universities form interdisciplinary co-founder teams. The application phase of the Baselaunch programme for entrepreneurial biopharma projects ends on 19 December. The early bird phase of the next Startup Days, which will take place in May, has also started; reduced tickets are available until mid-January. 

Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch