The crisis hits a strong start-up scene

Dear reader

The corona crisis may be a serious test for the Swiss start-up ecosystem, but don‘t forget that Swiss start-ups can now keep up with the best in the world. This includes young logistics company Skycell, which has attracted customers and investors with its smart containers for the transport of pharmaceutical products. This week it announced a USD 62 million financing round, and overall the company has already raised well over USD 100 million.

This week saw two financing rounds with internationally known investors: Andreessen Horowitz has invested for the first time in a seed stage company from Europe with cloud computing start-up Optimyze, which has its headquarters in Zurich. And Lakestar is one of the investors in Terra Quantum, a quantum technology company founded by a CERN physicist.

Further financing rounds were also announced this week; for example, by Astrocast, Yova, Taurus and TONI Digital. Unfortunately, these announcements say nothing about the current availability of venture capital. It takes at least three months from determination of the financing conditions to the official notification. This week‘s investments therefore reflect the situation before the coronavirus crisis.

An assessment of the current situation relies on surveys. This week we published the results of a survey of business angels by SICTIC and Business Angels Switzerland, in which 50% of business angels say will invest less or not at all in start-ups. Things look a little better for companies in which angels are already involved. Due to the increased competition among start-ups for venture capital, angels expect a decrease of 20% to 25% in valuations. SICTIC president Thomas Dübendorfer assesses these results in our interview and gives some start-up tips. The conclusion is clear: “Start-ups have to learn to make do with less money.”

The effects of the crisis on start-ups can already be seen. According to an analysis by IFJ Institut für Jungunternehmen, the number of new ICT and high-tech companies fell sharply in the first four months of 2020 compared with the previous year. You can find all our articles on the effects of the crisis on the start-up scene under our ‘Corona Analysis’ tag.

Speaking of clarity, details of governmental support for start-ups have not yet been released. As noted last week, however, it can be assumed that these federal and cantonal loan guarantees will be a very restricted emergency aid. We are likely to know more on Monday.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the deadlines for the Kickstart programme on Monday and the First Ventures programme for start-up projects at universities of applied sciences on 15 May. The number of webinars and online events is constantly increasing. Next week, for example, a top-class event on the current situation in start-up financing organized by Venturelab takes place on Tuesday, and the first joint Investor & Venture Day by Startup INVEST and SICTIC will take place online on 12 May.

Have a good weekend
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch