SICTIC reports strong growth

The Business Angel Club SICTIC has grown strongly in recent years. At the end of 2020, SICTIC recorded 427 members, including professional investors (e.g. family office, investment club, investor syndicate) and 36 preferred co-investors (leading Swiss VCs). This makes the club one of the largest of its kind in Europe.

In total, SICTIC Angels invested in 80 startups in 2020. More than a fifth of the startups are from the fintech sector, other important sectors are hardware, communication as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning.  In total, there are currently over 140 startups in the portfolio, all of which are described in the Investment Report. Nine companies have already achieved an exit. In 2020, AAAccell, Advanon and Wilmaa were acquired.

SICTIC works with smart-money investors that want to invest in early-stage Switzerland based technology product startups. Many of our angel investors have an entrepreneurial background as founder, CEO or partner (35.4%) or board member (13.6%). In addition 17.1% of the members have management experience and 9.8% served as Head of Department. This experience should enable them to share their knowledge and business network with the startups they invest in.

Good chances of getting funded

The chances of getting funded are quite high for attractive start-ups. In 2020, the SICTIC jury screened 275 tech startups in 2020, out of which 100 unique startups pitched on stage at the investor events which were held mostly virtually in 2020. Out of these 100, 64 startups closed funding rounds with contributions from SICTIC Investors.

SICTIC has clear investment criteria:

• The core startup team (i.e. decision makers) is based in Switzerland and works on the startup project as their main activity.
• There must be a strong infomation and communication technology (ICT) component that allows to quickly scale up the business.
• The startup must not be older than five years (since incorporation), have a reasonable chance to generate at least CHF 5M yearly revenues within five years after the investment.
• The valuation of the startups must not be higher than CHF 8M and the current round size must not be higher than CHF 2M.