June 13, 2014
The ball rolls round
Dear Reader
A response from the politicians: thanks to strong pressure from business, the National Council referred a motion on Thursday that should mitigate the negative consequences of the mass immigration initiative. It asks for the association of Switzerland to the educational and research programmes of the EU at the earliest opportunity.
Good news from the world of VCs: the Geneva-based Index Ventures has finished strongly and collected €400 million for a new fund. The money should be channelled into projects in the areas of mobile consumer, enterprise, networks and financial services.
In earlier times, a World Cup boosted the sale of televisions. Today, even software manufacturers benefit from the effect of the mega event: Layzapp, Zattoo, Flaschenpost and Doodle have launched new services.
A number of Swiss start-ups are already celebrating: the Zurich-based Evrythng has won The Europas Award for young high-tech companies and Grove Boats was awarded the Energy Globe 2014. Two more young companies have received the CTI Start-up Label: Arisgen and KeyLemon.
The football is being played primarily in the evening and at night. During the day, life goes on. In the coming weeks, the application deadlines for three competitions expire: the ICT Award on 15 June, the Zurich Climate Award on 16 June and 18 June for the ‘Games’ category in the Startup Battles. The deadline for registration for a CTI-sponsored booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has a little longer to run, until 30 June.
An awards ceremony is also scheduled for this week: the W.A. de Vigier Foundation awards its young entrepreneur prizes on Wednesday. On Monday, the Investors Forum in St. Gallen takes place. My colleague Stefan Kyora will be present at both events.
Have a great weekend.
Jost Dubacher
Managing Editor, startupticker.ch