February 21, 2014
Strong start-up scene in western Switzerland
Dear reader
The startupticker brunch has already appeared twice in Zurich, and last Thursday it had its premiere in western Switzerland. The event was organised in conjunction with Innovaud and the Vaud Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CVCI). The response was good: more than 75 guests attended, including start-up supporters and founders of young companies.
You can read more about the event in our article written by Eugene Schön, who has supported us since January as correspondent for western Switzerland. This week, he reported on Cronodeal, the online auction site start-up, which is off to a flying start.
Other western Swiss companies also attracted some very positive headlines this week – in particular, Novimmune. The biotech company, which is seen as a stock market candidate, has completed a financing round of CHF60 million. Investors also discovered a very young biotech start-up, Amal Therapeutics, which gained two prestigious investors from Germany for its seed round. And the agribusiness company CombaGroup secured CHF1.3 million in a Series A round with the help of investiere.
We’ve mentioned investiere several times in recent weeks; the investor platform has helped numerous start-up companies in the search for funding. We are proud to announce that it is now supporting startupticker as a newsletter sponsor.
Similarly, we are very pleased that the canton of Lucerne is now also a supporter of startupticker. Under the name ‘StartUp Support Lucerne’, the canton’s Business Development support has established a central contact point for start-up companies and offers a free initial consultation.
This week has shown again how important the support gained through coaching and entrepreneur prizes is to start-ups. Uepaa! has won at Venture Kick and the WA de Vigier Foundation, and as a carrier of the CTI Start-up Label went through the CTI Start-up coaching process. Now it is going from one success to another – this week, it agreed a financing round of CHF3 million.
Prizes are still available to win: you can apply for the venture leaders programme until 2 March, and the application deadline for venture, the second phase of the Business Plan competition, expires on 16 March.
Have a relaxing weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch