Keep things going

Dear reader

On Wednesday, the most frequently read news on startupticker was that of qiio’s financing round, with the IOT start-up securing a total of CHF 5 million. The participation of Orell Füssli in Procivis and the investment of a New York accelerator in the AI start-up Hades also met with great interest among our readers. The great response renewed our optimism, as it shows that interest in the start-up scene and everyday successes is still there.

The start-up world is still turning, so it’s important to keep things going – and in this context the Federal Council can be relied on. It has just announced a CHF 42 billion package to support the economy (article in German and French). The assistance will be quick and unbureaucratic. In addition, entrepreneurs are also entitled to short-time work. This essentially fulfils the demands made by the two national councillors Judith Bellaiche and Andri Silberschmidt based on their survey of start-ups (article in German and French).

At the same time it is impressive how quickly organisations such as IFJ, Venturelab, SICTIC and HackZurich have organised online courses and events. For example, Innovaud and Venturelab are jointly organising a webinar next Monday on the topic ‘How to adapt your business to COVID-19’. The next SICTIC Investor Day will also take place online: the eight start-ups presenting to investors have now been announced.

We have summarised our articles on political measures and demands relating to the coronavirus crisis under CoronaPolitics. All the articles on support for start-ups in these challenging times can be found under the CoronaSupport tag.

The last few days have shown clearly the usefulness of digitalisation as a resource – thanks to it, people can continue to work and teach. And Swiss start-ups continue to draw international attention despite closed borders. Three Swiss start-up entrepreneurs are on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list published this week, and 11 Swiss energy start-ups made it into the top 100 companies in the energy sector from around the world.

The winners of the Swiss Fintech Awards – Instimatch Global, Legartis and F10 – were also announced this week. Find out more in our articles on the individual winners.

Speaking of awards, the deadlines of a series of awards are approaching. Applications are open for >> venture >> until 26 March, and for the SEIF Tech for Impact Awards until 31 March. You can register for Venture Kick at any time. I would also like to highlight F10’s scale-up acceleration programme, and the scale-up bootcamps on the themes of enterprisetech and fintech & cybersecurity organised by digitalswitzerland, Gebert Rüf Stiftung and Venturelab.

Stay healthy.
Stefan Kyora