A mix that works

Dear reader

The chain of mega-financing for Swiss start-ups is still going. GetYourGuide, the booking portal for travel activities, has generated CHF75 million. The team will be expanded in Switzerland and tonight this will be celebrated in the new GetYourGuide offices in Zurich.

In addition, two well-established companies invested in start-up companies this week. Together with smart-me, Energie Thun AG has founded a company that wants to make private electric car charging stations accessible to third parties thanks to simplified billing; and Swiss Life has joined bexio as an investor and collaboration partner.

Swisscom, Nestlé and Deutsche Telekom have demonstrated that working with and investing in start-ups can be a good idea for large companies. In our article, company representatives talk about success factors in collaboration and also list specific successes. For example, Swisscom Ventures’ Evergreen fund, which reinvests proceeds, was launched 10 years ago with CHF45 million and is today valued at CHF105 million.

Venture capital firm btov also provides an insight. Started as an investor network, btov has since launched four funds and manages funds for partners. At the end of 2016, it had a total of €300 million under management. The first btov investor report shows which countries and which sectors have benefited.

For some time now, the investors that support the regtech start-up Ledgy have also been active in the Swiss start-up scene, including Paul Sevinç, Myke Näf, Adrian Bührer and Luzius Meisser. The start-up has developed a cloud-based tool for online management of share registers.

What Switzerland has to offer in terms of deep tech is shown each year by the nine finalists of the Swiss Technology Awards. Today, the nominees for this year’s edition were announced.

The Swiss start-up scene is flourishing and slowly centres are emerging in which it can thrive. In Lausanne, just such a centre was opened in the summer with the co-working space Gotham. The first weeks have gone very well and one of the reasons for the success is probably that behind Gotham stand two experienced real estate experts and two start-up founders.

Next week, the Female Founder Summit will take place on Monday in Zurich, and on Wednesday the launch event of WeShapeTech Basel will be held. It is the third Swiss town in which the network for women from tech industries is now active. And in St. Gallen Startfeld will host the 9th Investor Forum on 8 November.

I would also like to point out the deadline for the IMD Startup Competition: applications are open until 12 November.

Have an enjoyable weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor-in-Chief Startupticker.ch