Growth – in spite of and due to the pandemic

Dear reader

The federal testing strategy for Covid-19 has created business opportunities for start-ups. Thurgau-based Misanto has joined forces with the Adecco Group Switzerland in order to be able to offer mass tests to companies. And the digitalisation surge triggered by the pandemic is still going strong: fintech start-up Rivero and Viseca have jointly launched a solution that fully digitises chargeback handling and card fraud processing.

Proptech start-up Hegias is also doing well: it has massively expanded its customer base in the past few months and also concluded a financing round. Well-known supporters and investors have also been persuaded of the growth potential of two other start-ups. Nanoleq has launched a health-monitoring textile shirt that measures the heartbeat and can be used to create a continuous ECG: the start-up’s supporters include the CEO of the Mammut Group. And young security company Inpher has won Amazon’s Alexa Fund as an investor and will use the generated funds for global expansion.

Celebrating such success stories is particularly important in the current situation. New results from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for Switzerland show that the crisis has reduced the confidence of potential founders in start-up growth opportunities.

So, just at the right time, two new initiatives target potential founders at universities before they decide on the easier career route in large companies. S2S Ventures is a student-run venture capital firm that works closely with student entrepreneur clubs and VCs. It is expected to invest a total of CHF 10 million in entrepreneurial projects and start-ups in the earliest phase. Wingman Ventures also launched a campus fund this week, in which students make the investment decisions. It will invest in 15 student teams with start-up projects per year.

In contrast to these new initiatives, Startup Invest is one of the pioneers of the scene. Virtual Venture Day will take place next Wednesday; in addition to pitches by 14 start-ups and virtual one-to-one meetings, there will also be a session on how to make an exit in this Covid-19 era.

Gain Therapeutics’ IPO shows that these exits are possible. The biotech company, founded in 2017, generated USD 46 million when it went public on the Nasdaq this week.

I would like to point out the deadline for the >>venture>>  competition on 24 March. High-tech start-ups can apply for the next programme of CERN Technologies’ Swiss Business Incubation Centre (BIC) until 28 March. And registration for two scale-up bootcamps on the topics of mobility, smart city and industrial tech is open until 21 March.

Finally, Start Summit takes place next week and will attract virtual visitors from all over Europe; and next Wednesday, Trust Valley meets Silicon Valley with well-known panellists from the Bay Area.

Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora

Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch