January 31, 2014
A week full of events
Dear reader
The energy of the Swiss start-up scene can be seen by the numerous events happening every week. The coming week is particularly intense: the local event for IBM Global Entrepreneur Week takes place on 4 February in Zurich, and in Geneva start-ups from around the world will pitch at the Seedstars World Final Event. This is followed by the startupticker brunch in Zurich, the Lift Conference in Geneva, which includes venture night, and on Saturday the StartupCamp Switzerland in Basel.
The startupticker team will participate in the Lift Conference, and of course at the startupticker brunch we will introduce the second Swiss Venture Capital Report with SECA. Currently, we are working on the final version of the overview of all venture capital rounds of financing and we can tell you that we have some surprising results in store. The report will be published on startupticker.ch next Thursday afternoon.
A company that has hit the headlines over the past year with a large Series A financing round is GetYourGuide. This week it was announced that the team led by Johannes Reck has attracted more investors: Kees Koolen, former CEO of Booking.com, Fritz Demopoulos, founder and former CEO of Qunar.com, and Sunstone Capital have invested $4.5 million.
Medtech company Augurix, the young Zurich-based IT company 42matters and the investor platform investiere all received capital this week.
Swiss start-ups have not only attracted investors, but also customers – and worldwide too. For example, medtech company VirtaMed increased its sales by 65% last year, and Geneva firm SonarSource already has 200 clients, including global companies such as Cisco and Deutsche Bank.
Have a relaxing weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch