Many achievements and a challenge

Dear reader

Occlufit develops a new type of implant for heart surgery: the start-up, founded six months ago, has now received an investment from the UZH Lifesciences Fund. Biotech company ADC Therapeutics has five active substances in the clinical trial phase and has now generated another USD 76 million. RetinAI, a digital health start-up, and Parashift, a business software company, already have market-ready products and have closed financing rounds to accelerate market development. Atracsys has long been successful in the market with its optical tracking products for computer-assisted surgery, and the company has now been acquired by US group Smith & Nephew, but remains as a separate entity.

The week’s news shows how well the Swiss start-up system is established and the way in which it works along the company lifecycle. And not only investors rely on Swiss start-ups; for example, Metaco and financial services group AON have launched a storage solution for crypto assets aimed at banks. And Fairtiq’s public transport app is used not only in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, but now also in Finland.

As pleasing as all these developments are, there is still a lot of catching up to do in one area. The proportion of women at the top of start-ups is still very small. Our map of start-ups with female CEOs has been updated over the past few weeks, and now numbers about 100. An evaluation of the company’s founding years shows that the number is rising sharply; 25 of the 100 companies were founded in 2018 alone. However, even for companies founded in 2018, the proportion of women-led start-ups is still well below 10%.

One method of changing this is to attract more female jury members, mentors and investors. This is exactly the idea behind an enlargement of the jury of the Digital Economy Award. No fewer than five female experts from the digital sector will supplement the jury, and applications are open until 21 June.

The application deadline for AIT Camp India, which supports scientists in the realisation of their entrepreneurial project through an international exchange programme, runs until 20 June. Applications for the next SBB Sandbox have just started – once again, start-ups can test their products and prototypes with passers-by and travellers at Zurich main railway station.

Have a good weekend
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch