From survival to acceleration

Dear reader

This week, the Federal Council announced support measures for innovative start-ups. Together with additional funds from the cantons, a total of more than CHF 150 million will be available from the end of April as emergency aid guarantees for start-ups (article in German and French). The decision is a success for the Swiss start-up scene, since it shows that the Federal Council recognises the concerns of start-ups and the ecosystem’s representatives who joined forces in this case have been heard.

Start-ups in canton Zurich have been supported by cantonal funds since Easter. Zürcher Kantonalbank is in charge: we asked Daniel Schoch, head of Startup Finance at ZKB, how much interest there is and why the bank is using convertible loans instead of ordinary loans.

The details of the federal support are expected to be announced at the end of next week. It seems clear that it will take the form of emergency aid to give start-ups some breathing space to adapt to the new circumstances for weeks or a few months, but no longer. Some good examples of how start-ups are adapting have emerged; for example, Kinastic is making its fitness app, which was developed for fitness clubs, available to schools. GotCourts has further developed its reservation system for tennis players, in order that tennis clubs can meet the requirements to start operations again in May.

Many biotech companies are now also researching vaccines and therapies for Covid-19, including eight Swiss start-ups and scale-ups – details in our updated list. It is currently difficult to estimate how much the biotech sector, which is extremely important for Switzerland, will be affected by the crisis. Expert Jürg Zürcher is cautiously optimistic in our article on the new edition of Swiss Biotech Report. This week, incidentally, FoRX, a very young Swiss biotech company, completed a seed round of CHF 10 million with international investors.

Ten life sciences start-ups were selected this week as part of the Venture Leaders programme. Venturelab has also started the 10th anniversary edition of the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award with the jury voting. In times of uncertainty and crisis, it is important to celebrate visionary entrepreneurs, explains Venturelab’s Jordi Montserrat, who promises to make the award a “major post-pandemic happening”.

The ZKB Pionierpreis Technopark was awarded this week, without any spectators, which makes it worth taking a look at the winner of the CHF 100,000 – ETH spin-off MicroCaps.

Also without much fanfare, serial entrepreneur and angel investor Cédric Waldburger launched Tomahawk.vc this week. The fund has CHF 20 million and has already made its first investments.

Finally, I would like to point out the deadlines for three accelerator programmes and a support programme: F10’s fintech and regtech ‘Prototype to Product’ programme on 26 April, ‘BIC of CERN Technologies’ on 30 April, InnoBooster on 1 May and Kickstart on 4 May.

Have a good weekend
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch