venture kick: Two startups kicked by 130.000 CHF

2013 was the year of wearable computing: Smart Glasses and Watches began to dress us. In Switzerland the EPFL spin-off Composyt Light Labs with their wearable display technology for see-through augmented reality, have a good chance to swim with the big fishes in the next years.

Smart and stylish: EPFL spin-off created a new generation of smart glasses
You might know the augmented reality eyewear from Google, the Google Glasses, but what Mickaël Guillaumée and Eric Tremblay created reaches the next level. They developed smart glasses which provide more than a 40degree field of view in the smallest possible form. Clunky and obtrusive display technologies are a huge obstacle. The ultra-compact wearable display platform provides a new generation of aesthetic smart glasses. more

The perfect pair of jeans? Just a click away
On average, women try 20 pair of jeans until they finally buy one. Selfnation, a team of fashion designers and engineers, solves this problem and makes the jeans shopper’s life much easier. The ETH spin-off offers perfectly fitting jeans with online 3D visualization technologies and highly automated production processes. more

About venture kick
Since the launch of venture kick on September 26, 2007, 326 project teams have benefited from CHF 12.7 million. It contributed to the creation of more than 2400 newly created jobs and a financing volume about CHF 500 million. These results show that this approach offers a great return for the Swiss economy and its enterprises. Thanks to venture kick, startups learned how to win customers and convince investors more rapidly. The program is open to all young talents with innovative ideas, which have not yet founded their company and are enrolled or employed at a Swiss University: students, postgraduates, researchers and professors.

The private initiative venture kick is financed by the Gebert Rüf Stiftung, ERNST GÖHNER STIFTUNG, OPO-Stiftung, AVINA STIFTUNG, Fondation Lombard Odier, DEBIOPHARM GROUP and André Hoffmann. The project is managed by the IFJ Institut für Jungunternehmen in St. Gallen. The objective of the initiative is to double the amount of startups originating from Swiss universities and technical colleges. Each month, eight projects get the chance to present themselves to a jury. The four most promising receive CHF 10'000 and automatically qualify for the second round held three months later, where the two best teams receive another CHF 20'000. In the third and final round, taking place six months later, the winner is granted CHF 100'000.