Staying at number 1

Dear reader

Switzerland again takes first place in the European Innovation Scoreboard, due to the good performance in almost all criteria. However, the scoreboard also reveals weaknesses: there are fewer SMEs with product innovations and therefore fewer exports of innovative products and fewer employees in innovative companies. This is one of the reasons why the economic importance of start-ups is so great. This week’s financing rounds show clearly how start-ups are stirring up traditionally strong sectors, such as medtech, mechanical engineering and the financial industry, with their innovations.

Four start-ups from the medtech sector have attracted investors – Avelo, Hedera DX, Nanolive and Scailyte – with a total of about CHF 30 million. Hedera DX secured the largest investment: this autumn, the company will launch a blood-based testing solution to profile cancer DNA circulating in the blood, helping patients to access better treatment.

The first product from matriq, the world’s first digital date and time stamp for injection moulding, is already on the market. The Industry 4.0 start-up completed a financing round of of more than CHF 4 million.

The fintech sector recorded the largest investment overall, with USD 50 million going to Portofino Technologies, which builds high-frequency trading (HFT) technology for digital assets. Ledgy received an additional USD 22 million: the consortium of investors includes Sequoia and Speedinvest, and from Switzerland btov and VI Partners. And well-known VC and accelerator Plug and Play Ventures has become involved with nobank.

The exit of Versantis this week drew attention. The biotech company was sold to a French company, with CHF 40 million due at closing. In addition, further payments have been agreed that could bring the purchase price to more than CHF 105 million.

I would like to point out once again the deadlines for the Venture Leaders Fintech programme, the ZKB Pionierpreis Technopark and the Boost My Startup Challenge, all of which are imminent. The deadlines for the Fashion Innovation Award and the Food Tech Award expires at the end of next week.

Next week you can meet me in Geneva at Fongit’s 30th anniversary event. Several workshops and webinars on the topic of financing can be found in our calendar.

Registration for Innosuisse’s Scale-up Coaching is open until 2 October, and the registration deadline for the Innovaud and IMD LeadiNNg to Scale-up programme is 5 October.

Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch