January 31, 2020
Swiss start-ups at a new level
Dear reader
On Tuesday and Wednesday, together with Seca, we presented the Swiss Venture Capital Report to the public at two events in Zurich and Lausanne. Almost CHF 2.3 billion was invested in Swiss start-ups in 2019, an increase of more than 80% compared with the previous year. All the background information can be found in the magazine, which can be downloaded from the website, along with the financed start-ups and their investors in the list of 250 financing rounds. In addition, the magazine contains an interview with the new national councillor Judith Bellaiche and other articles on relevant themes; for example, the return on start-up investment.
Frontify’s financing round of CHF 22 million, which was announced officially this week, illustrates once again the important trends identified in the report: Swiss companies are increasingly able to attract growth financing. A lot of money comes from abroad, and in the case of St Gallen-based Frontify, the well-known Swedish investment company EQT Ventures acted as the lead investor. But it’s also clear that Swiss investors that started in a relatively small way are now involved in later stage financing such as this. In addition, smaller regional start-up ecosystems, such as St. Gallen, are also producing globally successful start-ups.
In addition, this week also saw a few exits: Italian aerospace and defence group Leonardo took over Swiss helicopter developer Kopter, Open Systems bought the big data start-up Sqooba, and Dept acquired the digital agency Hinderling Volkart.
Meanwhile, digitalswitzerland has outgrown the early stage phase and is now five years old. We talked to managing director Nicolas Bürer about the achievements, the challenging collaborations between corporates and start-ups, and the initiative’s plans for 2020.
Venture Kick will support 80 start-up projects this year. Endotelix Diagnostics and Cowa Thermal Solutions are the first two companies to succeed in all three stages of the programme and will now receive CHF 150,000 each.
In addition to these established support organisations, other initiatives are constantly added, such as Tech4Trust: its acceleration programme has now recognised four cyber security start-ups.
Internationally, funding through the European Research Framework Programmes plays an important role, and several Swiss start-ups have each received about EUR 2.5 million in grants from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator pilot.
Next week you can meet me at the kick-off event of the >> venture >> competition. In addition, the application deadlines for numerous other awards are currently running – our Awards Directory gives an overview.
Have a good weekend
Stefan Kyora
Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch