Award winning companies at next Swiss Venture Day

Swiss Venture Day has once again gathered promising companies from very diverse industries; the spectrum ranges from travel to biotech to medical devices.

Swiss Venture Day will be held on 16 December at SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich. An Angel Day will take place in the morning, with the topic Lean Innovation. More information on CTI Invest’s website.

Seven start-ups were selected for full pitches:

Bee Helpful is addressing the problem of dying honeybees. For years, honeybees around the world are dying off with greater frequency, with a dramatic social impact, because honeybees are not only producing honey: pollination is important for the whole human food. Worldwide beekeepers face the problem by hive chemical treatments without a definitive result. The two founders of Bee Helpful developed a new class of hives that ultimately improve the health of honeybees, rising the pollination capability while reducing the hive chemical treatments.

Bookbedder is a private hotel-booking website with an equitable and collaborative business model directly involving hotels in the customer acquisition process. This collaborative effort yields a more efficient marketplace with lower marketing costs, resulting in greater margins for hotels and lower room rates for guests. The beta version of the service was launched a year ago. BookBedder members can already book in over 250'000 hotels worldwide.

Lambda Health System is a spin-off of the School of Business and Engineering of Canton de Vaud, focusing on development, production and commercialization of a rehabilitation robot for the lower limbs: Lambda that fulfils the current needs of therapists. The company aims at becoming the leading provider of technical solutions, which are combined with an outstanding, patented, technology that is adapted to the challenges of rehabilitation of the locomotor system that therapeutics and physicians are confronted with.

Lunaphore was founded in 2014 as a spin-off from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The company has developed an innovative tissue diagnostic platform for the analysis and classification of tumours based on a microfluidic technology. This product can analyse tumours in less than five minutes and the results are up to 90% accurate. The results are validated by published clinical studies with 80 breast cancer patients.

The Ecublens-based start-up Morphotonix was founded in 2014. The company developed a technological platform which provides a three-in-one solution for brand owners: security against anti-counterfeiting combined with additive-free processing and premium look for their products. This solution is based on holographic-like effects embedded directly on complex geometry articles without any additives, via micro/nano-patterning of complex-shape products/master moulds for industrial production of polymeric articles.

Peripal AG is a spin-off from the ETH Zürich focusing on patient aids for home care patients in the field of dialysis. Peripal develops and commercializes a patient aid for the chronic patient population in dialysis, supporting a critical therapy step: the manual connection of tubings. The Peripal system simplifies the therapy process, increases the access to therapy, enables short patient training times and also enables assisted home therapy. With this the system reduces healthcare costs, too.

Topadur was established this year in Rheinfelden. With a dedicated team, the company has developed special medication for the treatment of severe wounds including diabetic foot ulcer and chronic wounds as well as scar and keloid enabling significant improvements of patients’ quality of life. Topadur’s lead R&D programs are local active, highly potent and dual mode of action drugs.

Short Pitch
The Zurich based start-up Smoke Furniture produces furniture in a sustainable way. The furniture is made using only renewable resources such as plywood in order to preserve the environment. The company has committed itself to replant a tree each time they use one. For this engagement, the company can be regarded as the world's first forest-neutral company, planting 1 tree for every 1 it fells. The start-up will be dicussed as a case at the Angel Day in the morning.