Full speed ahead

Dear reader

In most cases, our newsletter mentions the financing rounds that we reported on during the week. But this week there are just too many: no less than 10 Swiss start-ups were able to attract investors. The two largest rounds of financing were announced by digital health company Ava with about CHF 30 million and agritech start-up Ecorobotix with CHF 10 million.

What is remarkable in addition to the number and amount of financing rounds is the fact that all 10 start-ups are from the digitalisation sector – and most are already successful in the market. A good example is Viselio, which has digitalised the visa application process for different countries. Thanks to its success particularly in B2B and a financing round in the seven-digit range, Viselio is growing strongly and already employs more than 30 people.

The tennis community platform GotCourts and the campervan sharing platform myCamper also recorded high growth rates. The financing rounds provide start-ups with an extra boost.

To ensure that the pipeline continues to be well supplied with such start-ups, the canton of Vaud this week launched its FIT Digital programme, which promotes precisely these start-ups from the digitalisation sector with grants and loans.

But there was also good news this week when it came to support of deeptech business ideas: the University of Zurich is to expand its Fellowships for life sciences researchers working on business ideas with a grant of more than CHF 10 million.

An impressive performance of deeptech innovations took place this week at the awards ceremony of the WA de Vigier Foundation. Find out in our article how the award-winning projects can cut healthcare costs, restore independence for people with reduced mobility, and make cables more durable.

Innosuisse launched two calls this week. First, the Swiss agency for innovation promotion is looking for coaches for its milestone-based coaching programme for start-ups. And, second, it is calling on those start-ups that have been included in CTI coaching since 2005 to take part in a survey with a focus on the benefits and economic impact of start-up funding.

Looking ahead, from today you can register for Startup DAYs 2018. The event has been fundamentally redesigned and we talked to Startup INVEST managing director Jean-Pierre Vuilleumier about the realignment and the background.

The World VR Forum takes place next week in Crans Montana, and on Thursday and Friday the Swiss Economic Forum takes place in Interlaken, where the winners of this year’s awards will be determined – startupticker will be there.

Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora 

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch