Start-ups, investors and Joe Jimenez

Yesterday evening the award ceremony of the business plan competition venture 2014 took place at ETH Zurich. The ceremony was only one element of the day. In the morning seven companies pitched to investors at the Swiss Venture Day of CTI Invest and in the afternoon 25 teams with the best business plans of the venture competition had the chance to present their companies to investors, too.

From the very beginning of the day a lot of very active investors were present at the presentations, some of them from Switzerland and some from abroad. At the Swiss Venture Day they saw a selection of very different start-ups ranging from pure high-tech companies to start-ups active in more popular fields. A good example for the high-tech companies was Nanolive, a start-up from EPFL with a technology allowing for the first time to explore a living cell in 3D without damaging it. On the other hand the investors enjoyed live music when Relish Guitars demonstrated their innovative e-guitar called Jane.

In the afternoon the best teams of this year’s venture competition had the chance to pitch to investors. This year 141 business plans were submitted to the venture competition. Most of the teams are active in the ICT (28%) or Life Sciences (26%) sector. Regarding the geographical distribution there is a clear increase of teams from Western Switzerland (32% in 2014) compared to previous editions. The organizers have produced a booklet with descriptions auf the Top 25 teams that can be downloaded below.

The award ceremony in the evening had two highlights: the presentation of the awards and the keynote by Joe Jimenez, CEO of Novartis.

Aim high - and prepare a convincing elevator pitch
Joe Jimenez made some statements that are also important for start-ups. He encouraged the founders to aim high and said that they should not set the bar too low.

In addition he spoke about the future of health care mentioning demographic trends such as the increase of the number of elderly people which will in turn lead to an increase in healthcare costs. This means for healthcare companies that prizes for their products will stay under pressure for the foreseeable future.

Another interesting point was Jimenez’ opinion about the IP situation in China. He thinks that the situation has improved clearly at least in the Life Sciences sector. This was one of the reasons for the massive investment of Novartis in R&D operations in China.

But start-up founders could even learn more at the event, for example how important it is to prepare a convincing elevator pitch. One of the Life Sciences companies got the chance for such an elevator pitch to Joe Jimenez. The team put up a good show but could have done better.

However during the informal get together many other chances came up to meet potential partners or investors or even potential employees.