International business is picking up speed again

Dear reader

Parquery’s system provides information about the availability of parking spaces ­– and without any additional hardware installation. The AI-based software from the ETH Zurich spin-off evaluates images from existing cameras. Parquery has now been awarded the Innosuisse certificate and continues to grow: the start-up’s solution is already in use in 32 countries.

The shopping list app Bring! has found an important partner in Germany. The 22 million monthly users of Chefkoch, Europe’s largest food platform, can now use Bring! directly on the platform for their purchases. Biel cleantech company Joulia has been working with a German supplier for some time, and now the large company is also participating in the start-up as a strategic investor.

These examples demonstrate the international orientation of Swiss start-ups. This is confirmed by the latest edition of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. In no other country is the proportion of company founders wishing to export higher than in Switzerland. GEM offers a whole range of other insights – our article gives an overview.

Given this strong internationalisation, the current travel restrictions pose a serious challenge to Swiss start-ups. So it is particularly good news that cross-continent M&A transactions are now taking place again. Boston-based Appfire has acquired Beecom, a provider of tools for software developers; Beecom’s Zurich location will become Appfire’s innovation hub.

In addition, a whole host of Swiss companies were able to get foreign investors on board again this week. The EUR 10 million financing round from baby food specialist yamo was led by a French investor, along with a number of Swiss VCs. A Romanian investor was attracted by Swisspod, a start-up that wants to implement a hyperloop transport system in Switzerland. In the case of Sherpany, its investor comes from Germany, and HOPR was able to win Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, as a participant.

Overall, we reported on 9 rounds of funding this week. Next week, together with Seca, we will publish an interim report on investment in Swiss start-ups in the first half of the year. In order to be able to better assess the development, we have carried out additional analysis and surveys with support from the Institute for Financial Services Zug (IFZ) at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences HSLU.

The deadline for the public voting of the Top 100 Swiss Startup Award closes on Sunday. Registrations are open for the Venture Leaders Fintech programme until 15 July: the winners will be able to network with investors and partners in Hong Kong. Registration for both the Medtech Innovation Event 2020 and the i4 Challenge for start-ups from Industry 4.0 also ends next week.

Finally I want to recommend the documentary miniseries “Start-up” by director Manuel Stagars. The first film about the Swiss deeptech start-up scene premieres on 16 July at 4 PM.

Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch