Venturelab presents the 20 Venture leaders of 2016

The ten venture leaders in Life Sciences and ten in Technology will fly to Boston and New York this summer for a business boosting week, which will enable them to accelerate their development in the US market, meet top investors and experts. “venture leaders pursues its mission to play a key role in identifying and accelerating the development of some of the most promising Swiss startups at the international level”, explains Jordi Montserrat, Director of venturelab.

The Venture leaders Life Sciences are:

Andrea Maesani, Intento: a solution for the rehabilitation of severely paralyzed stroke patients, helping them to perform and recover upper limbs movements again.

Marcel Ottiger, Amphasys: A patented new technology enabling label-free, non-destructive and mobile analysis of any kind of single cells in a similar way as a scanner at the airport.

Martin Ostermaier, InterAx: a Biotech startups that helps pharmaceutical companies to develop new and better drugs.

Natali Pennese, Cellphmed: developes a method to verify the identity and quality of human cells, which will open doors for the advancement of personalized medicine.

Philipp Knechtle, Selmod: develops innovative small molecule therapies for the treatment of life-threatening invasive fungal infections, which represent around 2 million new cases every year worldwide.

Reto Naef, Topadur Pharma: Specialized drugs for the treatment of severe wound healing, which enables a higher life’s quality for patients.

Sabrina Badir, pregnolia: A diagnostic tool that measures the cervical stiffness in pregnant women, which reliably identifies women at risk of preterm birth.

Sandeep Raghunathan, PB&B: a new generation of fillers and anti-aging medicine for plastic surgeons and dermatologists. The patented technology stimulates a patient’s soft tissues to naturally gain volume with locally delivered lipids.

Sylke Hoehnel, SUNbioscience: Specialises in standardized cultures of stem cell-derived organoids, which are self-organizing 3D miniature tissues with organ-mimicking functions.

Tomas de Wouters, PharmaBiome: specialises in microbiota therapy as a new means of treatment of intestinal diseases. This solution is scalable, controllable and an efficient alternative to the use of fecal material which makes it a treatment of choice for intestinal infections.

The ten Venture leaders in technology are:

Alberto Hernando, SthAR: software provider of algorithms that draw on large quantities of telecommunications data to identify where and when to deliver a message most effectively. 

Alexandre Catsicas, Artmyn: developed a unique digitizing service setting new standards in the way Fine Art can be experienced and promoted on screen, via a web browser, accessible from any mobile device.

Andreas Hempel, embotech GmbH: specialises in software that transforms the way to build and design optimal decision making systems such as autonomous machines to reduce development cost, increase productivity and reliability.

Daniel Meier, Aerotain: provides fun and interactive flying solutions to boost the attention and coverage of brands and products.

Elias Kleinmann, Wingtra: the ETH spin-off develops a convertible aerial robot that takes off and lands like a helicopter, but flies like a plane.

Julien Moix, Advanced Sport Instrument: FieldWiz is a strategy and physical performance tracking system for outdoor team sports players by use of a standalone device worn on a player’s back to collect statistics.

Mathias Haussmann, Uepaa: a peer-to-peer»software that enables developers to integrate proximity features into their apps. 

Michela Puddu, Haelixa: provides intelligent DNA-based tracing solutions allowing fluid/item tracking and parameter monitoring of temperature, light, pH, oxidants to support the energy industry and ensure product authentication, quality control and liability management.

Olivier Hamel, Prodibi:a high-quality, powerful and easy solution to showcase images beautifully. With Prodibi, brands can directly use their images online without costly optimization.

Timo Steitz, ShoeSize.Me: offers data-driven business intelligence solutions to footwear retailers and brands. Their core solution enables online shops to provide their customers with precise shoe size recommendations for every shoe model they want to buy. 

Meet the venture leaders in Technology and in Life Sciences on 21 April at EPFL
The 20 Venture leaders will pitch to the audience during the Startup Champions on 21 April at EPFL Rolex Learning Center Forum, from 2PM to 5PM. The public will elect the respective teams’ captains. Two keynote speakers, Dennis Just, co-founder and CEO of Knip and the leading European investor and Atlantic Labs founder Christophe Maire, will be present at the event.

About the venture leaders 2016 
Both one week programs in Boston and in New York include presentations to US investors, partners and industry experts. Further to building themselves a strong network in the US, the participants will also be part of a team of entrepreneurs sharing the same objectives and challenges. This year’s teams of talented individual entrepreneurs are a unique display of the numerous high potential startups created every year in Switzerland. The technologies that will be showcased in New York and in Boston range from a professional solution helping severely disabled stroke patients to perform complex movements again, to fun and interactive flying solutions to boost the attention and coverage of brands and products. 

A program supported by a wide national network of partners
This year’s trip and business development programs, worth the equivalent of CHF 10’000 per participant, is made possible thanks to the support of our partners EPFL Innovation Park, EPF Lausanne, Canton de Vaud, ETH Zurich, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, CTI, and the Hansjörg Wyss and the Wyss Charitable Endowment. IMMOMIG and InSphero, two members of the Swiss startup team in 2007 and 2010, are also supporting the initiative, setting a valued precedent of former alumni giving back to the Swiss startup community. The programs are co-organised in the US by swissnex Boston and swissnex Boston New York Outpost.

More information on the website of venturelab.

(Press release)