A digital bootcamp for seven Swiss startups to explore the US market

For the first time in 10 years, the swissnex Startup Bootcamp is taking place virtually.  During the two-week digital bootcamp, seven startups, which are participating in the Innosuisse Internationalization Camp will have the opportunity to work with the swissnex San Francisco team to define strategies to reach their set goals and milestones during the camp. Additionally, they will have office hours for 1:1 mentorship and networking opportunities to establish contacts in the United States. Further activities during the camp include Best Practice session (fireside chat) with Ava and Rosie Reality from the previous bootcamp, toolbox sessions and peer learning sessions. 

On May 14th the seven startups will pitch in an internationally broadcasted virtual Demo Day and have the opportunity to network with the attendees on a dedicated remote networking platform after the pitching event. Registration is open for both events.

The selected startups are:

Aero41, Frédéric Hemmeler – designed an AI-powered crop protection drone for complex plots and spot spraying. Swiss made redundant flight control unit.

AgroSustain SA, Olga Dubey, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer - is developing natural solutions for pest management. Its bio fungicides and coating will increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

Coach better AG, Patrick Patzig, Co-Founder & CEO, Davide Faga, Co-Founder & COO – developed a digital soccer platform that enables beginners and semi-professional soccer coaches, and clubs to train, communicate and manage as professional coaches and clubs do.

Faitron AG, Fabian Graf, Co-Founder – with the HeatsBox, the startup introduced the first smart heating lunchbox which allows users to warm up meals at the office or on the go.

Gilytics, Heather Clark, Co-Founder – offers an infrastructure mapping tool and an interactive platform for managing the increased complexity of grids and demand for clean energy. Through offering GIS SAAS, the company provides instant access to routes for powerlines, pipelines, roads or railways saving time and money.

LatticeFlow, Petar Tsankov, CEO & Pavol Bielik, CTO – is a platform for testing and certification of modern AI systems. AI teams use LatticeFlow to ensure their machine learning models behave as expected and are ready for production use.

Read on, Sandra Kaufmann, Industrial Designer, CEO & Monika Fink, CEO – developed an extremely flat pair of reading glasses with a sophisticated case to minimise scratches. The glasses were designed and engineered as a multifunctional smartphone case with thin, integrated readers.

The program comes with a wide range of activities to ensure optimal networking between the Swiss startups and ecosystem players in the US, as revealed by Franziska Steiner, Head of Entrepreneurship at Swissnex San Francisco. "We are currently exploring different options for virtual networking gatherings to make up for networking events in the Bay Area. We will invite local experts as speakers with a huge network as speakers. Exposure to these experts through the camp is also crucial as these are multiplier platforms for our startups. That is key as the startups want to benefit from a local mindset and network."

Since the startups cannot travel to the US at present, swissnex San Francisco will allow the selected startups to use its facilities for the full camp length after the crisis. The startups will also receive travel stipends from Innosuisse.

(RAN)