February 20, 2015
Professional support works
Dear reader
Dynamism and learning aptitude are typical characteristics of start-ups, and in Switzerland they also feature among supporters of company founders. First, new offers are added: for example, at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, students and staff with business ideas can take advantage of co-working spaces and coaching, and in Lausanne the local branch of the global Innovation Forum is starting with a launch event.
Second, established players strive to improve their services. For instance, the Federal Office of Energy has entered into a partnership with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Technology Center. A goal of the collaboration is to strengthen exchange in the supportive frameworks for innovative start-ups in the field of clean energy technology.
Innovative changes are ahead for the venture competition as well. Events for entrepreneurs with business ideas will take place nearly every week this year in Lausanne and Zurich; the series begins with speed dating for start-ups and potential employees. In addition, the new Startup Acceleration workshops from venturelab will take place in Lausanne and Zurich next week.
Due to strong growth, the Swiss Economic Forum will take on a new structure in the next year. As Board delegates, founders Peter Stähli and Stefan Linder will focus more on the strategic direction of the company.
This week also demonstrated how start-ups benefit from such support. Hoosh Technology, a Swiss online marketing intelligence provider, has signed a partnership agreement with Oracle. The first talks with Oracle were arranged by Swisscom as part of the Swisscom Startup Challenge, of which Hoosh was one of the winners last year.
Nanolive has secured an interest-free loan of CHF100,000 from the Fondation pour l’innovation technologique (FIT), and the young watch company HYT has generated the necessary funds for its planned growth with the help of the initiative SEF4KMU.
Basel medtech company AOT has also attracted investment: Tübingen growth investor SHS is participating through one of its funds.
Finally, some important dates: you can sign up for the venture leaders programme until 1 March; in addition, several interesting events will take place in the first week of March throughout Switzerland, including the awards ceremony of the Business Creation Competition in Bern.
Have a creative weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch