January 22, 2016
Switzerland makes its presence known
Dear reader
How can Switzerland make itself known as a start-up centre? There are several answers to that question – for instance, those Swiss start-ups that prevail in international competitions and thus act as ambassadors. This week, Kizy Tracking and Swissprime Technologies were nominated for the IOT / M2M Innovation World Cup. Another means are the start-ups that appeal to a wide international audience with clever marketing and clever products. This week, Swiss flying robotics company Flyability posted a spectacular video, which has already been viewed more than 50,000 times. And nanotech start-up Scrona finished a crowdfunding campaign for μPeek, a credit card-sized microscope that can be combined with a smartphone camera. More than 1,400 supporters contributed CHF250,000 on Kickstarter.
Another answer to the question has provided the most widely read news of the week on startupticker: the launch of Kickstart Accelerator. Its goal is to achieve global success for start-ups by giving them exclusive access to Switzerland’s growing hub of tech and innovation. It is open to Swiss and international start-ups. The accelerator will be presented again at an event in Zurich next week.
The launch of Kickstart Accelerator, an initiative by the Kick Foundation in cooperation with DigitalZurich2025, was the first big event of DigitalZurich2025. At the Investor Summit, Swiss start-ups met well-known investors from home and abroad. The start-ups seized the opportunity to deliver impressive pitches. A quote from Knip CEO Dennis Just typified their performance. He debunked the stereotype of the Swiss founder as risk-averse when he answered the question of what, in retrospect, he would do differently: “I would risk more, earlier.”
The fact that the large companies among the founding members of DigitalZurich2025 are really interested in start-ups was demonstrated not only through the initiative. This week, Swisscom participated in the Geneva-based company Open Web and Ringier joined Foodarena.
Next week our two brunches take place in Zurich (Tuesday) and Lausanne (Wednesday – this event is fully booked), with coffee and croissants at 8:30 am and the presentations starting at 9 am. The PDF version of the Swiss Venture Capital Report will be published on startupticker in the course of Tuesday morning.
Finally, the end of the application period for the Swiss Economic Award is looming: registration runs only until 31 January.
Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch