Many small and a few large

Dear reader

Switzerland has a new unicorn: Geneva’s SonarSource has raised USD 412 million at a valuation of USD 4.7 billion. The platform helps software developers to write clean code, free of bugs and security vulnerabilities. More than five million developers at more than 300,000 organisations, including IBM, Microsoft, Barclays, Alphabet and NASA, use SonarSource’s commercial and community products to improve their code quality. The investors are also well known, with one – British company Permira – investing in another Swiss unicorn, Nexthink, a year ago, as our Investor Directory shows.

Inyova, the platform for digital impact investing, has attracted many small investors rather than a few large ones. The fintech company launched a crowd investing campaign on Wednesday morning and after only half an hour CHF 3 million had been promised. By Friday noon, more than 2,600 investors had taken part in the campaign.

The number of investors in the business angel network SICTIC is also steadily increasing, with the 500 mark broken in 2021. The number of financing rounds in which SICTIC investors were involved grew even more, as the new SICTIC Investment Report shows, rising by 38% over the previous year to 110. To date, the network’s angels have invested more than CHF 300 million in about 200 portfolio companies.

Yet again big names can be found among the partners announced by Swiss start-ups this week, including Decathlon, Rieter, Hamamatsu, PostFinance and Hapag-Lloyd. Menhir Photonics, with its partners, secured a grant from the US Air Force and Resistell is supported by Pfizer.

The Swiss Climate Foundation gave financial support to 19 innovation projects last year: our article shows which start-ups are among them. Speaking of grants, deeptech start-ups should not miss the deadline of 8 May for Innosuisse’s Swiss Accelerator.

May brings the return of start-up events. You can meet me next week at the Swiss Biotech Day in Basel and at the Startup Champions Seed Night in Lausanne, and my colleague Ritah Nyakato at the Female Founder Pitch Event in Zurich.

Startup Days in Bern on 19 May is already 90% fully booked: we are organising a platform panel and will also have a booth and be available for one-to-one meetings. Booking for the meetings has been open since this week.

Registration is open for the new SEF.Founder Conference until 11 May. The event features top-class speakers, such as Roivant founder Vivek Ramaswamy,  and the opportunity to attend the Swiss Economic Forum’s evening networking event with 1,350 participants.

Start-ups that want to pitch at the Swiss Fintech Investor Day have until 8 May to apply. I would also like to draw your attention to the Startup Weekend Zurich, which takes place from 13 May to 15 May.

Have a good weekend
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch