April 24, 2015
Having fun with Swiss start-ups
Dear reader
Among the winners of the prestigious Red Herring Europe Awards this year are again several Swiss start-ups. It is noteworthy that the usually more IT-focused Red Herring jury chose, among others, a cleantech and two medtech start-ups from Switzerland.
Life sciences start-ups from Switzerland are consistently ranked among the best international companies. However, this week a number of start-ups with cool lifestyle products also attracted attention.
The dating app BLINQ was able to complete a financing round of CHF1 million. The special feature of the app is that it connects the virtual world with real clubs and bars, with the help of small transmitters. For example, if two people with matching profiles are in the same restaurant, they will receive a message and the two can then meet immediately.
The ski boots from Dahu are also suitable for going out. The outer shell – the exoskeleton – is removable and thus one can move directly from the ski slope to the après-ski. Dahu was able to secure CHF1 million francs from a business angel. And another round of funding was completed by the shopping app Bring!
There was also an exit in the lifestyle sector: Tamedia took over the online fashion pioneer Stromberg.
And even outside the IT field, successful start-ups make life easier or more enjoyable. Pasta producer PPura has won an export award from Switzerland Global Enterprise, and LumaBeef, a young company that produces meat specialities, is one of the finalists of the Swiss Economic Award. The tech start-ups are not missing here either: biotech company Piqur and internet recruiter Staff Finder are also among the finalists.
Speaking of awards, applications for the Swisscom Startup Challenge opened this week. You can also apply for the Entrepreneur of the Year competition until the end of April and the deadline for the International Create Challenge runs until 4 May.
I would like to point to several events in Zurich. The Überall App Day takes place next week, and then the Digital Economic Forum and several fintech events are running in the first week of May, including the Fintech 2.0 conference and a Startup bootcamp event.
Have a fun weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch