TOP 100: Presenting Switzerland’s best startups

Switzerland is experiencing a boom in people starting new companies. Each year, approximately 35,000 enterprises are launched in Switzerland, and this year a record number of startups is expected. This development didn’t happen by accident. Even from an international perspective, Switzerland ranks high on many lists as a competitive country and a leader in innovation. But which of these promising new companies will soon be causing a sensation around the world – or are already doing so?

 

That’s exactly what the IFJ Institut für Jungunternehmen wanted to find out with the help of journalist and businessman Claus Niedermann (publisher startupticker.ch). Their goal was to create the first-ever representative cross-section of the Swiss startup scene. The project was co-sponsored by the Swiss Federal Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI), the Gebert Rüf Foundation, the Swiss trade promotion organization OSEC, and Ernst & Young. Together they established the TOP 100 Project in which 100 sector insiders, investors, business angels and startup promoters each selected their ten favorite startups that were five years old or less. The best 100 were determined from the names they submitted; the results are summarized in a magazine published especially for this purpose, and they are also available for public review on the website www.startup.ch. Starting with this effort, the selection of the TOP 100 will take place every year.

 

Beat Schillig, Managing Partner of IFJ Institut für Jungunternehmen, reflects on the TOP 100 Project: “The firms on the experts’ radar screens are, of course, only a small cross-section of the more than 200,000 companies that have sprung up in Switzerland since 2006. Even so, this diverse cross-section demonstrates that Switzerland has excellent young companies that are going to have a major impact with their innovative products and excellent management.” The experts focused primarily on high-tech companies that have already completed a round of financing or that have been able to establish themselves on the market. Taken together, they have enormous potential for growth and success.

Thanks to Optotune’s deformable lens, it is possible to achieve a 3X optical zoom where the focal length can be changed continuously and within milliseconds using an electrical drive mechanism. In second place is the startup Dacuda, which, in collaboration with the electronics giant LG, just celebrated the global launch of its world innovation, a scanner mouse. Just one place back is Doodle, which has already been able to register 10 million users with its event-scheduling software.

All the companies in the TOP 100 are presented in more detail on startup.ch. There, interested readers can also download the TOP 100 Magazine in both German and English. In collaboration with SECA, the Swiss Private Equity and Corporate Finance Association, a launch event featuring experts and entrepreneurs will be held on October 19 in Zurich’s Hotel Widder.

 

The TOP 100 is a clear indication that the CTI’s national startup promotion programs at universities are bearing plentiful fruit. In fact, a large number of the startups being recognized have benefited from the venturlab training program and from the coaching process at CTI Start-up. The national entrepreneurial training efforts include a semester-long course for academics with business ideas and financing workshops. The efforts even include venture leaders, the official Swiss national entrepreneur team that travels each year to Boston, Massachusetts (USA) in search of investors. The idea behind the scanner mouse of second-place Dacuda, for instance, was born at a semester-long course at ETH Zurich where the eventual team of founders first became acquainted with each other and worked out their initial business plan.

 

The private promotional initiative venture kick, which was established roughly four years ago, has also left its mark on the TOP 100 because of its policy of making as much as 130,000 Swiss francs of seed capital available to high-tech projects coming from university settings. For example, the ETH spin-off Optotune, this year’s TOP 100 leader, was also among the first winners at venture kick three years ago. You’ll find many other companies in the list that have received such support. This initiative, supported by renowned foundations, has to date paid out more than 7 million Swiss francs of seed capital to 194 projects, of which some 140 companies have so far emerged.

 

Taken together, the TOP 100 are an excellent example of the high level of innovative potential in this country. They demonstrate that Switzerland can continuously produce startups that meet or exceed the highest standards of technology and competitiveness anywhere in the world – an important prerequisite to ensuring jobs in the future and allowing new companies and technologies to emerge over the long run. Even so, Beat Schillig says there’s still plenty of room at the top. “There’s no reason to rest upon what we’ve achieved up until now,” Schillig says. “If Switzerland hopes to exploit its full potential, then we must continue to improve the favorable startup environment that has been created during the past decade.” Only in this way can the entrepreneurial bug be further spread – especially at universities – and innovative startups be supported with training and expertise. “It must be our goal to once again double the number of spin-offs in the next few years,” states Schillig.