Growth in full swing for SEF.Growth High Potential companies

In addition to the SEF.Growth High Potential Label, strengthens the startups’ market position among customers, suppliers, and financing partners, the SEF.Growth program offers selected startups and SMEs access to various services and its network of partners to help them accelerate their growth. Since the launch of the label 12 years ago, 105 companies have received the label of which 95% are still active. The newly awarded companies offer mainly B2B solutions in various sectors.

Food

KOA | Zurich – works with local cocoa farmers in Ghana to upscale the previously discarded cocoa pulp, allowing them to secure additional revenue streams, create new jobs in rural areas and avoid food waste. With its recently opened factory, Koa is now processing cocoa fruit on a commercial scale to create new products like cocoa juice, flakes and more. Customers such as Lindt, Felchlin, Sprüngli Confiserie, and others mainly use Koa products as a new flavour and natural sweetener for chocolate products, ice cream, or soft drinks. The startup has a team of 100 people in four locations Switzerland and Ghana and works with over 10 farmers.

Medical sector

SamanTree | Lausanne – Founded in 2014, the startup developed the Histolog® scanner to allow surgeons to spot cancer cells promptly and leverage the likelihood of successful cancer surgeries. The hospital of Sion, the hospital of Munich, and the UCLH institution in London are already using the solution.

TRI Dental – developed and patented the world’s first approved dental implant technology, Matrix, that requires neither abutment nor cement and has no limitations. Thanks to the use of 3D printing for the crowns, the company can produce implants fast, with personalized designs, and at a lower cost. More than 1000 patients have received Tri Dental implants.

ICT & Robotics

Neural Concept | Lausanne – leverages neural networks and deep learning techniques to generate optimized design and engineering processes for a wide range of applications in the engineering field. In the aerospace and automotive industry, this approach allows for designing a new aircraft within five years and a new car within two years – a third of the currently required time. Founded in 2018, the company serves tier-one automotive supplier Plastic Omnium and automotive lightweight supplier Mubea. Several automotive manufacturing giants in Japan, USA, and EU – and remarkably, four out of ten Formula One racing teams. Further customers are in the architecture and critical infrastructure fields. Boosting this growth is a team of 40 employees.

Nexoya | Zurich – offers advertisers an AI-based SaaS platform to optimize marketing budgets and automatically distribute them across multiple channels such as Google Ads, Instagram, or Facebook. This relieves marketing teams of routine operational tasks, simplifies automated data-driven decisions, and reduces marketing costs by up to 30 percent. Founded in 2018 by Marco Hochstrasser and Manuel Dietrich, the company serves customers including well-known companies such as Emmi Group, Generali, Swisscom, CSS, and The House Agency in Switzerland and Magix Software in Germany. The startup already reached the million mark in turnover in 2022.

Brame | Feusisberg (Schwyz) – developed software to gamify marketing campaigns to strengthen customer retention and foster two-way communication between brands and consumers. International companies including Europe's largest retailer and one of the biggest fast-food retailers are using Brams (=Branded Game). Also, McDonald's has produced a digital scratch card campaign using Brame's software, resulting in higher customer engagement - 95% of all visitors to the landing page completed the game. After curbing the market in the DACH region, the company plans to enter Dubai where it recently opened an office.

Iprova | Lausanne – developed an AI-based Invention Studio platform that helps inventors to become aware of relevant market and technology advances, in real-time, that are relevant to their field, irrespective of the domain they occur in, and create new inventions as a result. Several large companies such as Nokia, Procter & Gamble and Sony rely on Iprova to create new product-defining inventions and file patents.

Yokoy | Zurich – uses AI to automate expense management and invoice processing for mid-sized companies and international enterprises. With over USD 106 million raised in its funding rounds, the company has grown to 280 people and will have 300 by 2024 to serve its growing customer base. Since 2020 the company has attracted over 500 customers.

Fairtiq | Bern – created the simplest digital ticketing solution for public transport, allowing commuters to activate the tracker in the app (the FAIRTIQ App or Easy Ride in the SBB app) when entering the bus or train and deactivate it again when they get off. With over 100k transactions made in half a day, the startup has also expanded to parts of Austria, Germany, and France and will soon become available in Denmark.

Sevensense | Zurich – the ETH spinoff uses visual AI navigation to develop the eyes and brain for mobile robots, allowing them to manoeuvre fully autonomously while keeping the environment safe and executing their tasks efficiently. The first commercial product was a professional floor-cleaning robot manufactured by Wetrok in Kloten. In other sectors, the company has several pilot projects including the integration of Sevensense's technology in ABB’s future vehicles. ABB has recently acquired the startup.

Proptech

Backbone – wants to speed up the selling process of real estate by capturing and delivering high-quality visual material for the marketing of properties to be sold. Backbone combines the art of creating real estate visuals with marketing automation software to find buyers faster. Founded in 2018, Backbone today counts 50'000 successful transactions, with plans to reach 100K property sales in 2024.

Properti | Zurich – is a real estate platform for selling and renting property in addition to offering clients, agents and service partners risk-free, flexible and simplified services. Since its inception, Properti has achieved remarkable growth, transforming into a scale-up with over 165 employees and raising CHF 10 million in equity to fuel its growth.

(RAN)
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