September 12, 2014
Here we go
Dear reader
Contributions to the second pillar pension fund have been mandatory since 1985. Since then, there have been various political attempts to derive a small portion of these savings as investment in start-ups. So far they have all come to nothing. But now a big step forward has been taken: parliament and the Federal Council have approved a motion that aims to facilitate the investment of pension funds in start-ups – specifically, an umbrella fund for such investments. More about the planned fund is available in our background article.
A series of other firsts were also announced this week. Creoptix and Biocartis brought their innovative analytical devices on to the market. The launch of the first pepper spray shop in Switzerland showed that there are still unoccupied niches even in online stores. The alarm and rescue app from Uepaa! is now available in the UK, and Bluetector has signed its first customer contract, which will bring the cleantech start-up nearly CHF1 million.
Bluetector is also one of four new carriers of the CTI Startup label, along with Basel life sciences companies, Cellec Biotek, Koring and NBE-Therapeutics.
Start-up supporters also had some firsts this week: BlueLion Incubator announced that its first BlueLion Demo Day will take place on 2 October, and the first Startup Weekend Creative Business will be held in early October, with today the last opportunity to register. The Ludicious game festival takes place for the first time next week and will start with the presentation of the SGDA Swiss Game Award. The programme and finalists of the various awards are now known.
The next Innovation Roundtable from CTI Invest and Swisscom on the Swiss cloud ecosystem on 23 September promises to be very interesting. You have until next Friday to sign up for it. CEO Day will be held a month later and the numbers are very impressive: 400 participants have already registered for the event.
Have an enjoyable weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch