January 23, 2015
Exits pull in investors
Dear reader
Composyt Light Labs is one of those start-ups that disprove the myth of the unambitious Swiss founder. The company develops smart glasses, thus going head-to-head with Google, but the technology from Switzerland has clear advantages over its rival: it provides stylish normal-looking eyeware with a large image size. The quality of the technology, and the team behind it, was demonstrated this week with a spectacular exit: chip giant Intel has acquired the start-up founded only in 2014.
It was not the only exit this week: young Swiss cloud computing firm SixSq announced that Belgian engineering and software company RHEA has acquired a majority stake.
With such success, it is not surprising that Swiss start-ups find investors. This week, cleantech company Bluetector completed a financing round of CHF1.8 million. Investors from StartAngels and the investiere community were involved, in addition to Luzerner Kantonalbank and Zürcher Kantonalbank. And other business angel organisations are very active too: 2014 was a record year for GoBeyond, with investments in, inter alia, Lockstyler, Fastree3D and Flyability.
This is good news for entrepreneurs, particularly since new services in terms of financing are constantly being added. Berner Kantonalbank has launched a trading platform for start-up shares, and support organisation STARTFELD and guarantee cooperative BG Ost have launched STARTkredit, which helps start-ups with loans of up to CHF50,000.
Innovations are also in progress at the start-up competition venture. What these are will be revealed at two kick-off events, the first in Lausanne on 3 February and the second in Zurich on 5 February. Although the application period for venture has yet to start, the Swiss Economic Award is nearing its deadline – you have until 31 January to apply . Other interesting events are also coming up, including a business conference on internationalisation on 3 February in Zurich, and Lift from 4 to 6 February in Geneva.
Finally, an announcement on our behalf: we will publish the Swiss Venture Capital Report 2014 this coming Tuesday at 11 am on our website. You can pre-order a print version now.
Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch