Swiss entrepreneurship

Dear reader

This week we featured news about start-ups and initiatives from 13 cantons. Cybersecurity start-up NextDay.Vision concluded a round of financing, as did young Ticinese medtech company Gondola. Incidentally, NextDay.Vision is in the Jura location of Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area, which will open at the end of next week with an open day.

Arc Power and Terapet were selected for CERN’s business incubation programme in Villigen, Aargau. CERN is working with Park Innovaare, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) – both located in Villigen – and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. In Lucerne, HSLU spin-off Cowa Thermal Solutions is developing a new cold storage solution with the support of First Ventures. The AgriCo Campus officially went into operation in St-Aubin, Fribourg, and several start-ups from the food and agritech sectors are already tenants.

Of course there was also news from Vaud and Zurich. In western Switzerland, canton Vaud, EPFL, the Lausanne hotel school EHL and Nestlé have launched the Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley. And in canton Zurich, biotech company Numab caused a stir as it gained former Novartis boss Daniel Vasella as a director.

All these reports have one thing in common: they show how the start-up scene ties in with Switzerland’s traditional strengths, whether it is agriculture in canton Fribourg, the high density of industrial companies, cutting-edge research at PSI in canton Aargau, or Switzerland’s biotech tradition.

How to make good use of these starting points for international growth was a central topic at the meeting between federal councillor Guy Parmelin and eight very successful Swiss start-ups, which resulted from an initiative by the Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation. Our article and a video reflects the conversation.

Speaking of scale-up, applications are open for the first implementation of Innosuisse’s new scale-up coaching programme until next Friday. The deadline for the next start-up boot camp from swissnex San Francisco ends on 30 October. The last seats are also available on the Business Growth for Social Entrepreneurs course, which starts in two weeks. Start-ups have until Sunday to compete for a slot at Swiss Fintech Investor Day.

Next week, Venturelab will hold two pitch events: on 22 October, 10 start-ups will compete for a place on a business roadshow to China and the chance to win CHF 100,000. On 24 October, the Pitch Fest of Venture Leaders South Africa takes place, and the F10 Launch Event will take place on the same day. Finally, on 25 October, the first "Nacht der jungen Leaders" takes place in Basel, which aims to attract 200 founders and those interested in founding.

At the invitation of Swisscom, I will be accompanying the winners of the Swisscom Startup Challenge to Silicon Valley next week. I will keep you up to date on startupticker and social media.

Have a good weekened
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief Startupticker.ch