January 13, 2017
Talent and excitement
Dear reader
Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to an experienced early stage investor from America’s East Coast. I asked him about the ingredients for a thriving start-up ecosystem, and his answer highlighted two crucial factors: enough smart heads and enough excitement around start-ups so that young companies can attract the smart heads.
In terms of excitement, fintech probably sets the benchmark in Switzerland at the moment and very good news came from this area this week. Helvetia Versicherung has set up a corporate venture fund of CHF55 million – almost twice as much as in a typical Swiss venture capital fund.
Advanon concluded a financing round that brought the SME financing platform a total of CHF13.5 million.
The success of Swiss companies abroad is also a cause of excitement. And here also the week had a lot to offer: Scandit received $7.5 million from Atomico, the extremely well-known VC company established by Skype founder Niklas Zennström and still the CEO today.
Two Swiss start-ups won awards at the Consumer Electronics Fair CES in Las Vegas: Ava won a Baby Tech Award and Fotokite won the pitch competition of the US accelerator Techstars. On the other side of the Pacific, Squirro was incorporated into the SuperCharger Fintech Accelerator in Hong Kong.
Useful attention can also be gained when celebrities such as Jean-Claude Biver support young entrepreneurs. The watch entrepreneur and manager has joined the new Advisory Board of Swiss Startup Factory along with eight other well-known personalities.
With start-up founders, it is now almost a matter of course that they support other young companies. This is demonstrated by the new CTI coaches and the virtual reality start-up Red or Blue Labs, of which Tobias Reichmuth, founder of the investment company SUSI Partners, is a founding investor.
Registration is open until January 20 for the two brunches in Zurich (24 January) and Lausanne (25 January), where we will present the Swiss Venture Capital Report.
Next week, a Startup Grind event with Max Wittrock, founder of mymuesli, will take place in Zurich. In addition, several information events on the subject of solopreneurs take place. More about this in our calendar.
The deadline for the eastern Switzerland young entrepreneurs prize Startfeld Diamant expires on 16 January. All current deadlines can be found in our list of awards.
Have a calm weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Editor in Chief, startupticker.ch