Startups continue to thrive despite the crisis

The current economic and social state is transforming how business is done. More online models have come in the spotlight, which has opened several opportunities for some of the startups that have been leveraging technology to make life easier and more convenient. The business models of the following startups sparked interest among the population and have brought success to the startups. 

Airconsole
The Zurich startup AirConsole (N-Dream AG), "the Netflix of games", is the leading platform for casual games. AirConsole transforms any Laptop or AndroidTV into a video game console and smartphones into gamepads, allowing game enthusiasts to play games without the need of downloading any software or the use of additional hardware. In the past week, the startup has gained traction with an 88% increase in traffic. Last Friday alone, over 136% more games were played than on the previous Friday. To bring together families and friends during this crisis, the startup is offering all games for free until March 31st, 2020.

Farmy.ch
In the retail industry, the majority of the population is now resorting to online shopping, and this has made order volumes on Farmy.ch's B2C online farmers’ market grow significantly. As a result of the new changes, the startup 18 months ahead of its business plan. 

“We’ve had an extreme increase since about mid-February until today. The demand for products has practically quadrupled, especially dry products for pantry storage. That has increased by about 450%,” Farmy spokeswoman Chiara Eckenschwiller told Reuters Television.

Five Up
The Five up app is used to coordinate help during Corona crisis. In the past seven days, the startup has recorded more than 35’000 downloads, and after the 10VOR10 coverage, the app has been registering 4000 users per 30 minutes. Today, the app has about 1500 closed groups, of which more than 400 groups have more than 300 members. The number of activities offered through the app has equally risen with 3000 new ones in the last five days. Five Up is also expanding beyond the swiss borders as downloads in France, Germany, Italy and USA skyrocket. 

For the startup, the greatest challenge is to bridge the analogue-digital gap to reach the group of people who are older than 70. Among other things, a helpline will be set up at the Swiss Red Cross as of this week to help older people to organise their help with Five up.

Derma2Go
In the healthcare field, doctors are now increasingly supporting via the internet. The platform Derma2Go enables patients to consult doctors online. In Switzerland, Germany and Spain many medical practices and clinics, such as the University Medical Center Hamburg and University Hospital Basel, are increasingly setting up online consultation hours to relieve their doctors and reduce the risk of coronavirus infection.  

"Compared to the previous month, we are registering twice as many patient enquiries on our platform; we attribute this in particular to the current situation with the coronavirus", says Christian Greis, founder of Derma2Go.

Amorana
The online sex shop has also seen a massive increase in the number of orders in the past weeks and the startup has reported that it has full stock to serve its growing number of customers. However, Amorana is not unaffected from the global crisis. The company expects gaps in the supply chain so that some products will go out of stock sooner or later.  

(RAN)