Symetis has purchased Middle Peak Medical, a private U.S. and German medical device company focused on developing minimally invasive novel solutions for unmet needs in the treatment of mitral valve regurgitation. The acquisition marks Symetis’ first expansion from the TAVI space into the broader structural heart segment.

Dreamscape Immersive, a newly created VR entertainment company based in Los Angeles and Geneva, will be commercializing Artanim’s VR technology, Real Virtuality. Dreamscape is backed by Warner Bros., 21st Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), IMAX Coorporation, Westfield Coorporation, and Steven Spielberg.

Sophia Genetics, global leader in Data-Driven Medicine, announced that ten new genomic institutions from Latin America have started using SOPHiA - the company’s AI - to democratize access to clinical genomics on the continent, and improve patient diagnosis and care.

Benoit Henry wird neuer Chief Marketing und Operations Officer bei der Immobilien Crowdfunding Plattform crowdhouse.ch und neben den Gründern Robert Plantak und Ardian Gjeloshi drittes Mitglied der Geschäftsleitung. Gleichzeitig gab das Unternehmen bekannt, dass seit dem Start Objekte über 100 Millionen Franken über die Online-Plattform platziert wurden.

Der Klimafonds Stadtwerk Winterthur unterstützt vier weitere Projekte mit insgesamt rund 400‘000 Franken. Darunter befindet sich auch das Handgerät für die berührungslose Schichtdickenmessung von Winterthur Instruments.

CeBIT is the world’s leading IT trade fair. SICTIC offers Swiss start-ups the opportunity to present their company at the SICTIC booth. In addition the investors club organizes a bus night ride for start-ups for CHF35 only including entrance fee to CeBIT.

Launchpad Digital Health, a seed fund and accelerator for digital health based in San Francisco, announced it is leading seed round funding for Amicomed and four other companies. These companies have now begun its twelve-month in-house immersion program.

SenseFly has become the first drone operator to be granted anytime Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) authorisation in Switzerland. The country’s Federal Office of Civil Aviation has granted senseFly permission to fly any of its eBee-branded mapping solutions beyond the visual sight of a drone’s operator, using observers, without the need to set-up a flight operation ‘Danger Area’ beforehand.

Abionic has received today the SEF High Potential certification, which confirms the quality and the potential of its rapid diagnostic device. Abionic also received the same week the Finance Monthly Game Changers Award in recognition of its business model, that has the potential to change the world.

Die Initiative „The Things Network“ will ein schweizweites offenes Netzwerk für das Internet der Dinge aufbauen. Im Rahmen der Initiative engagieren sich bereits 300 Mitwirkende in acht Schweizer Städten.

Das Schweizer Startup Amorana geht eine Zusammenarbeit mit Valora ein. In einem Pilotprojekt werden ab sofort an 40 Verkaufsstellen von Valora während rund sechs Wochen die 7 WAYS TO LOVE Boxen von Amorana in speziell gefertigten Stellern zum Verkauf angeboten.

Microsoft organise du 20 au 23 mars son premier BizSpark Mountain Camp en Suisse romande et plus précisément à Loèche-les-Bains. A la fin de ce camp, un « pitchday » sera proposé avec à la clé une place dans l’exclusif programme BizSpark Plus. En prévision de l’événement en Valais, Manuel Michaud, Lead Tech Evangelist de Microsoft Suisse a répondu aux questions de notre rédaction.

SkeletonCAD, the next generation virtual product development platform, will benefit from a Swiss government grant from the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI). The approved project will be focused on further developing SkeletonCAD’s mechanical design software, and to expand the research efforts on it’s underlying technology.

Snapchat vient d’ouvrir sa filiale Snap Switzerland au Swiss Technopole Y-Parc d’Yverdon-les-Bains. Par ailleurs selon un article récemment publié par le site de Bloomberg, le géant américain des réseaux sociaux aurait engagé Laurent Balmelli, un des cofondateurs de Strong.codes, la société vaudoise de cybersécurité basée sur le même site.

Der führende Anbieter von betrieblichen Gesundheitsförderungsevents in Rumänien wird die dacadoo Gesundheitsplattform in sein Programm aufnehmen. Zudem gab dacadoo bekannt eine Kooperation mit dem polnischen Unternehmen Trocasa unterzeichnet zu haben, um gemeinsam den digitalen Gesundheitsmarkt in Polen aufzubauen.

Vorsorgegelder für das Wachstum von morgen: Nach diesem Motto hat sich die Sammelstiftung NEST entschlossen, künftig direkt in Schweizer Startups zu investieren. Dazu ist sie eine Partnerschaft  mit der Risikokapitalplattform investiere.ch eingegangen.

The six winners of the Innovation World Cup 2017 have been announced. Among them is Swiss startup Gait Up, awarded for their product Pomocup. Pomocup is the world’s first wearable delivering real-time performance metrics for ski mountaineering.

Glycemicon AG is a Swiss biotechnology company developing so called nutraceuticals for managing prediabetes, diabetes and obesity. Nutraceuticals are products naturally occurring in food sources with extra health benefits. The company will use the funds to conduct its first clinical trials.

Twenty Thirty is a Zug based startup focusing on creating a decentralized world by creating innovation centres using of Blockchain technology. The startup announced the closing of its first round for the development products and services and infrastructure for innovation Centres.

EPFL spin-off Lightbend today announced the acquisition of OpsClarity, an advanced monitoring solution specifically designed for end-to-end visibility into the application infrastructure and data pipeline for streaming applications. The addition of OpsClarity’s advanced monitoring capabilities to the Reactive Platform comes just nine months after Lightbend acquired Reactive consulting firm BoldRadius.

Auf der Fintech Plattform Creditgate24 wurden Kredite über mehr als 20 Millionen Franken finanziert. Das Wachstum hat sich in den letzten Monaten stark beschleunigt.

Das Online-Startup bexio lancierte im November 2015 die schweizweit erste Schnittstelle zwischen Buchhaltungssoftware und E-Banking. Nur 15 Monate später bietet bexio nun Verbindungen zu den fünf grössten Schweizer Banken an: Postfinance, Raiffeisen, UBS, Zürcher Kantonalbank und neu Credit Suisse.

The second edition of MassChallenge Switzerland starts today and is ready to take in the next batch of startups. Selected startups will benefit from the four months acceleration program, a strong network and cash prizes of up to CHF 1M. Registration is now open.

A new global community of parents, teachers, educators and enthusiasts is coming together to demystify the 21 century learning and nurturing system. Inspired by the desire to promote a better future for the children, Zurich based We Are Play Lab has been launched to help children discover and define success on their terms.

After more than ten years, the event format of the Swiss Venture Days has been completely revised. The first of the new Swiss Venture Days will be held in Zurich on 5 April. Start-ups can already apply.

Geneva based Prexton Therapeutics develops novel therapeutic compounds for the treatment of Central Nervous System (CNS) conditions. The Series B funding will be used to finance two phase II studies of Prexton’s lead product. Prexton Therapeutics was founded 2012 as a spin-off from Merck Serono.

Myravan Solutions vient de remporter avec nutriMenu, le programme développé en partenariat avec la Ville de Lausanne, le Grand Prix Suisse « Santé-Entreprise 2017 » de la section suisse de Citizen@Work | European network for health promotion and economic development. Ce prix est une belle reconnaissance pour le travail de l’entreprise portée par la Dr. Maryam Yepes.

SimplicityBio appoints its Co-founder Matthew Hall as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The start-up will keep focusing on discovering novel biomarkers for more robust and accurate diagnostics for its clients and partners. One example for a successful collaboration is the partnership with Minomic International. The two companies developed a new prostate cancer test.

More than 100 startups applied for the AI Bootcamp of the Deutsche Telekom and the incubator hub:raum in Berlin. One of the selected companies was Spitch, a Swiss provider of solutions based on Automatic Speech Recognition, Voice User Interfaces, and natural language voice data analytics.

Three Swiss startups in the sports industry have won the ISPO Award, a globally recognised award in the sports industry. On’s new running shoes cloudflash are among the 5 global products of the year 2017/18, selected out of 500 applications from around the globe. Two additional Swiss startups received awards from other categories.

Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) und Startups, die an der Entwicklung klimafreundlicher Produkte beteiligt sind, können bis 1. März bei der Klimastiftung Schweiz finanzielle Unterstützung beantragen. Die Beiträge der Stiftung sind à fonds perdu.

Die Webapplikation von yutongo dient dem strukturierten Sammeln und dem systematischen Bewerten von Ideen im Rahmen des betrieblichen Innovationsmanagements. Nun hat das Startup zusätzlich einen Brainstorming Chatbot auf Facebook lanciert.

The four finalists for the Swiss Fintech Awards 2017 have been nominated. The two finalists of the early stage startup category have the chance to win CHF24’000.

EdgeLab, a data platform company providing actionable intelligence to the financial services industry, today shares some of the operating and financial highlights from 2016. In its first year of commercial operation, company signs 16 customers, 6 major partners and turns a profit.

Zum Netzwerk der Schweizer Impact Hubs gehören Grossunternehmen wie die SBB genauso wie Startups. Synergien liegen auf der Hand. Dies will die SBB nun gezielter nutzen und hat einen Call für Startups aus dem Impact Hub Netzwerk gestartet.

Das Förderprogramm Venture leaders schickt regelmässig Gründer und CEOs von jungen Technologiefirmen ins Silicon Valley. Im März geht’s wieder los. Auf der einwöchigen Roadshow wird die Schweizer Delegation Investoren und Experten treffen. Nun sind die zehn Teilnehmer bekannt.

Flexpoint Sensor Systems, Inc. and Switzerland-based YouRehab AG announce the continued collaboration and commercialization of "YouGrabber." The product is a key component of the YouRehab advanced suite of medical rehabilitation technology products.

Das Insurtech Startup FinanceFox setzt auf die Kooperation mit Brokern. Dieser Bereich soll in Zukunft noch weiter gestärkt werden. Nun hat die Versicherungsplattform einen neuen Leiter der Abteilung Partner Services berufen, die für das Management und die Akquise von Broker-Partnern zuständig ist. Hugo Pfister bringt 20 Jahre Erfahrung in der Versicherungsbranche mit.

The Summerpreneurship program is again open for application. This program brings impact driven startups together with talented students for a summer internship from June to August in Zurich and Geneva. Registration for startups is open until 19 February, 2017.

The EPFL School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering ENAC has launched a new initiative "InnoSeed program" to help promote innovation and technology transfer within the school. The program dedicates specific maturation and funding programs to individuals with innovative technological ideas relevant to ENAC's research topics.

The early stage investing platform Go Beyond and a fintech incubator and accelerator F10, have joined hands to work on a number of initiatives. Members of Go Beyond will share their know-how and evaluate investor pitches of startups in the master class on investor pitching.

Apidel SA, a Geneva based pharmaceutical company, announced the completion of its third private financing round. The startup raised a significant amount of funds to accelerate and progress clinical and commercial development of its pipeline of therapeutic products.

Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative is looking for startups from Europe to participate in the two weeks YTILI Fellowship program in the United States. YTILI Fellowship is a series of professional development and leadership activities that are designed to support the growth and development of commercial and social business ventures. Registration closes on 6th February.

Die APG|SGA, das führende Aussenwerbeunternehmen der Schweiz, geht neue digitale Wege und baut ihre Aktivitäten im Bereich Mobile Media, Interactive und Data Collecting aus. Im Zuge dessen hat die APG|SGA das auf die Beacon-Technologie spezialisierte Start-up Blinq und dessen Mitarbeitende inklusive Gründer Alex Zimmermann und Jan Berchtold übernommen. In naher Zukunft wird die APG|SGA ein Beacon-Netzwerk ausrollen.

The main objective of the M-CUBE research project is to go beyond the limits of existing clinical imaging using an MRI scanner and radically improve spatial and temporal resolutions on image quality.  

Die Babybreie von yamo sind frisch, biologisch, ohne Zusatzstoffe und trotzdem mehrere Wochen haltbar. Nun wird das Food-Tech-Startups von Genilem gecoacht.

During its meeting on 1 February 2017, the Federal Council initiated the consultation on amendments to the Banking Act and Banking Ordinance in the fintech area. The revision should ensure that barriers to market entry for fintech firms are reduced and that the competitiveness of the Swiss financial centre is enhanced. The consultation will last until 8 May 2017.

Xeltis has been granted permission by the US Food and Drug Association to begin its Xplore-II clinical trial for its pulmonary valve in the United States. The startup aims to reduce the risk of complications and of re-interventions in this pediatric population.

Kickstart Accelerator is one of Europe’s largest multi-corporate, zero-equity technology accelerators and an initiative of digitalswitzerland. Applications are open to international startups. This year’s shortlisted startups will meet with over 15 corporate partners and mentors.

Vor drei Wochen lancierten die Pizolbahnen und die Belalp Bahnen Tickets mit wetterabhängigen Preisen. Hinter dem Angebot steht das Berner Startup tipo ticketing. Wir haben uns mit Mitgründerin Rahel Ryf über erste Erfahrungen unterhalten.