Lessons in ambition learned

Dear reader

When I spoke to a US investor 15 years ago about Swiss start-ups, he said that in his opinion Swiss founders are often over-ambitious. I was rather astonished until I understood that he had used “over-ambitious” as a polite term for “naive”. Times have changed and today there are some very ambitious start-ups with anything but naive founders.

A good example is Angle with its social audio app. The clubhouse alternative from Switzerland secured an investment from Atlantic Labs, a VC that has already invested in Soundcloud and was launched worldwide this week. Find out why Angle has a good chance of success in our article.

Ovation wants to assert itself in the booming eSports market and has now won billionaire twin brothers Maurice and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus as investors. The 23-year-old Kyril has already caused a stir in the traditional sports world: he recently acquired English club Sunderland AFC and became English football’s youngest chairman.

UpGrain won a well-known customer with mymüesli shortly after it was founded. The start-up’s production process enables a by-product of the brewing process to be used to make breakfast cereal, pasta and protein powder. UpGrain is planning to enter the demanding B2C market, and has now received the Start Summiteer Award in recognition of its success, the sustainability of the product and its ambition.

Instead of money, the Swisscom Startup Challenge offered comprehensive start-up support for product development with 5G. Fotokite used the collaboration to further facilitate the work with its tethered drone for rescue workers.

F10 Investment is also supported by corporate partners: it has now invested in six fintech and insurtech start-ups, of which five come from Switzerland.

Ambition is a prerequisite for those founders who apply for Venture Leaders Medtech: registration is now open until 2 May.

MTIP is a good address for fast-growing medtech companies looking for investors. The Basel-based private equity firm has announced the first closing of its second fund: the fund has a target size of EUR 200 million and has now reached EUR 130 million.

Startup Days is already on the horizon: this week the organisers announced that the event will take place on 23 June in Bern as well as online. Information on the participative sessions and the speakers will be added on an ongoing basis; Lawrence Leuschner, founder and CEO of Tier Mobility, was recently confirmed. Start-ups that want to register for the pitching battle have until 16 May to do so.

Have a pleasant Easter.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch