August 30, 2013
Technology pioneers show the way
Dear reader
Technology changes our lives, but what does the near future hold? An indication of what might happen is given by founders of young companies every year at the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers circle. Technology Pioneers from previous years include Google (2001) and Twitter (2010), and from Switzerland biotech company Molecular Partners and Biocartis, for example, have both managed to join the exclusive circle. Another pioneer is ETH spin-off Flisom, with its flexible, pliable and lightweight thin-film solar modules. In terms of efficiency, Flisom has held the world record since the beginning of 2013. Flisom will be displaying its products at the Swiss Energy and Climate Summit (SwissECS) on 11 and 12 September at Bundesplatz, Bern.
The Technology Pioneers for 2014 were made public this week, and Koemi, founded in 2010, is among them. The Valais company is a spin-off of the Idiap Research Institute in Martigny and markets a cloud software for speech recognition, which automatically transfers the spoken word from audio and video recordings to text.
In Bern this week the Commission for Technology and Innovation CTI awarded the CTI Medtech Award 2013 at the annual Medtech Event. The winners are CAScination and the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Bern; together they have developed a navigation system for liver surgery that allows surgeons to accurately identify and destroy scattered tumours. Incidentally, the CTI Medtech initiative was launched 16 years ago and since then has supported 490 projects with more than CHF160 million. Business partners are frequently start-ups such as CAScination.
The CTI’s next important occasion is CEO Day on 23 October. More than 300 CEOs from young companies have already signed up.
In less than a week, investor association CTI Invest meets at Swiss Venture Day in Zurich. Eleven start-ups will present their projects to investors from home and abroad.
Geneva biotech company ObsEva has closed a financing round of CHF32 million. ObsEva was co-founded in November 2012 by Ernest Loumaye, a specialist in female reproductive medicine with 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Loumaye was previously co-founder and CEO of PregLem SA, a successful biopharmaceutical company acquired by Gedeon Richter in 2010.
Good news for technology start-ups that want to enter the US market: following Boston and San Francisco, swissnex has founded, together with the CTI, an offshoot of the CTI US Market Entry Camp in New York. Another such camp was opened a few weeks ago in Shanghai. The camps’ services can be found out directly from swissnex and CTI Startup. swissnex will presents its services from 23 September at a roadshow that will take in the universities of Zurich, Basel, Bern, Lausanne and Geneva.
Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association SECA’s presentation of the TOP 100 STARTUPS of Switzerland 2013 will take place on 18 September at the Härterei in Zurich. By the way, a day earlier, on 17 September, the Startupfair, the first Swiss trade fair for young entrepreneurs, will be held in the Maag Event Hall, which also includes the Härterei.
Have an enjoyable weekend.
Claus Niedermann
Editor in Chief startupticker.ch