New investors appear

Dear reader

This week, Swiss start-ups again received more than CHF 100 million, with the lion’s share going to the fabless semiconductor company Kandou from Lausanne. Its technology improves chip-to-chip connections, ultimately leading to smaller, more efficient and cheaper electronic devices. The EPFL spin-off has now received USD 92 million, with the lead investor the well-known US venture capital firm Bessemer Ventures. Another growth financing round for VIU, the eyewear company that relies on a direct-to-customer model, included Credit Suisse as one of the donors.

Start-up CREAL generated CHF 6.5 million: it’s working on glasses for virtual and augmented reality that give images real depth and thus enable natural vision. SEED Biosciences generated CHF 1 million from business angels.

The picture of the last few months has thus been confirmed: financing rounds can still be carried out. Large sums of money are coming into Switzerland from the US, and an increasing number of new investors are appearing in this country, including private individuals, new funds and large companies.

The latest addition is Migros Aare cooperative, which has launched a corporate venture capital fund – MA Ventures. For entry into the venture capital business, support has been secured from the specialists at Redstone.

Two start-ups that were among the winners of the Swiss Technology Award – Bloom Biorenewables and Hemotune – have already completed financing rounds this year. And HeiQ, founded in 2005 and another ETH Zurich spin-off, won the award in the Innovation Leaders category for more mature companies.

Project Circleg is also based on university research; however, the idea arose at Zurich University of the Arts. The founders are industrial designers and the team prevailed against global competition and took first place in its category at the Cybathlon. The marketing idea of the digital health start-up sublimd is also unusual: the company has launched a free app for training healthcare professionals. Find out more in our article.

Virtual Venture Day will take place next week, and we present the 12 companies that will pitch at the event. Eight companies will present themselves at the Liechtenstein Investor Summit, four of which are from Switzerland. I would also like to mention the deadline for the Bern Business Creation Competition Stage Up on 27 November.

Have a good weekend
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch