This episode was co-produced with EO Zürich. Check out their upcoming event, Entrepreneurs Summit 2025.
Samy Liechti is a co-founder and the former CEO of BLACKSOCKS, the Swiss e-commerce sock company that invented the “sockscription” back in 1999. He holds a BA in Business Administration from HSG and worked for marketing agencies like Leo Burnett, Burson-Marsteller and Wirz before starting BLACKSOCKS in 1999.
It all began when Samy found himself at a tea ceremony, after a business meeting with some Japanese clients, where he had to take off his shoes, and embarrassingly found he was wearing mismatched socks. The solution to the problem of forgetting to replace old socks was, in his mind, an online sock subscription — but it was 1999: if you sold socks, you did it on catalogs or through the phone; e-commerce was still called e-business back then, and vanishingly few people ever bought anything online. To make matters even more difficult, Samy’s co-founder quit after a few months. But none of these deterrents could stop Samy, and 6 months after the official launch of the company, BLACKSOCKS had already 1000 customers. 20 years in, some of their sock models have been sold millions of times.
In 2023 BLACKSOCKS was acquired by Rohner Socks, and Samy left the company.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place next year on May 14th 2025. Click here to purchase your ticket.
Frédéric Loizeau is the co-founder and CRO of Lightium, a Swiss startup enabling the next generation of photonic integrated circuits. He holds a PhD in Microsystems from EPFL and worked as a researcher at Stanford and as a key account manager at Sensirion and Business & Technology Development Manager at CSEM before starting Lightium in 2023.
Lightium provides production-grade TFLN PIC foundry services to customers in the datacom, telecom, AI, Quantum, and aerospace industries. What does this mean? It means they manufacture photonic integrated circuits, which are essential to making the transfer of information faster. This is relevant for fiber optic internet, in the telecom industry, but also quite relevant for space satellites. Lastly, it’s crucial for AI: the recent developments in this field have increased our need not only for computing power (which NVIDIA solved by providing their GPUs to data centers), but also for greater bandwidth — that’s where Lightium’s tech comes in.
They frame their technology as a service, through which people from different industries can design their own photonic integrated circuits that will then be manufactured by the Lightium team. Lightium has had great success since the very beginning: when they were still working on their idea at the CSEM research center and tentatively reaching out to customers asking for letters of recommendation, they got cheques instead. Nowadays their success continues: they recently raised a CHF 7M seed round.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Marko Bjelonic is the co-founder and CEO of Swiss-Mile, a deep tech ETH spin-off connecting AI with the physical world through autonomous machines. He holds a PhD in Robotics from ETH and worked as a researcher at NCCR Robotics, NCCR Digital Fabrication and the Robotic Systems Lab (ETH), before starting Swiss-Mile in 2023.
Marko was born in Yugoslavia and left the country as a child, together with his family, to escape the Yugoslav wars, which started in 1990. Growing up as an immigrant in Germany, he helped his dad recover from job loss by encouraging him to start his own business and helping him with digitization and with the linguistic aspect. This company was eventually sold, giving Marko an advantageous small business experience.
In 2023 he started Swiss-Mile with friends and colleagues he’d known since 2018. Their USP was simple: they were incorporating neural networks on wheeled-legged robots, helping them to navigate complex environments. Their robots can walk, drive, stand upright, open doors, and manipulate packages. Ever since launch, they’ve had a huge amount of success on social media — their videos have gotten a total of 100M views. This, of course, resulted in over 150 companies reaching out to them to inquire about their product, with leads coming in on a daily basis.
With such an innovative and useful product, Marko and his team had trouble picking the best industries to focus on. After much reflection and many feedback loops with their leads, they decided on security and logistics. When it comes to the security industry, Swiss-Mile robots are useful for maintaining critical infrastructure which must be checked 24/7, since this is a boring, repetitive job for which it is harder and harder to find human workers. In the logistics field, the operations which take place inside warehouses are already quite automated, but the transportation of merchandise from warehouses to the outside world is not, because that is a much more complex environment for a robot to navigate — but not too complex for Swiss-Mile robots!
Swiss-Mile has had astounding fundraising success. They raised a $3.5M pre-seed round in 2023, and then a $22M seed round in 2024, co-led by Jeff Bezos and the Chinese fund HongShan.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced with the Female Founders Initiative. The conversation originally took place at the Rise Up Summit 2024.
Answer our quick questionnaire about entrepreneurial skills here.
Lida Ahmadi is the founder of Sproutd, a foodtech venture studio partnering with corporates to tackle current food system challenges. She holds an MA in Accounting and Finance from HSG and co-founded Snäx in 2018 (acquired by FELFEL in 2023) before beginning her new venture in 2024.
Adam Korczak is the co-founder and CEO at Treeless, an ETH Zurich Spin-off developing microorganism-based cellulose materials with the goal to end plastic pollution. He obtained his education in Biomedical/Medical Engineering at ETH and incorporated the company in 2023.
During their chat with Merle, Lida and Adam reflected on the skills which have bolstered their unique founder journeys. The abilities needed to build a successful startup were not always what this pair of founders expected: Lida recalls being surprised and feeling challenged by the need to develop her analytical mind and to gain the habit of making data-based decisions, and Adam remembered how difficult it was at first to have to make such a inordinate amount of phone calls every single day.
Both founders value the technical skills they learned in school, but most of all they appreciate how their education taught them resilience — the ability to cope with stress.
Adam continues to scale Treeless successfully and Lida is currently working on a new project that is still in stealth mode.
Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman (Lida Ahmadi)
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced with Innosuisse.
Cyrill Gyger is the co-founder and CEO of QUMEA, a company that offers digital mobility monitoring for patient safety. Cyrill holds an MSc in Engineering from Berner Fachhochschule BFH and worked for Zühlke Group and Xovis before starting QUMEA in 2019.
QUMEA uses a one-of-a-kind sensor and companion software to continuously monitor the activity and mobility of every patient inside a hospital or care facility, and is able to automatically call for help, depending on the individual needs of each patient. This prevents falls, makes therapy success measurable, improves patient outcomes and noticeably relieves the burden on care. Their radar is capable of sending signals of extremely different wavelengths in very quick succession, which allows them to measure whether the patient is walking about the room, but also whether the patient is even breathing. The fact that their product is a radar, and not computer vision, enables the assurance of data protection.
QUMEA sells mostly to public hospitals in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. Their usual first point of contact are nurses, who are also the product’s users. QUMEA’s very clear ROI is what gets them the attention of these institutions, but they still have to bear with rather long sale cycles (due to the nature of public sector constraints, and to the amount of stakeholders within each hospital), and they almost always have to go through a pilot phase with their prospective customers first.
Cyrill is a strong believer in aligning co-founder incentives with the success of their company, which is why all 4 co-founders have invested their own money to buy shares from QUMEA. Other employees have also done so. This way, everyone rows in the same direction and gives it their all, because if the company tanks, it’s their money that’s gone forever, too.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Sergio P. Ermotti, Group CEO der UBS, ist eine der prägendsten Persönlichkeiten der globalen Finanzwelt. Geboren und aufgewachsen im Tessin, träumte er zunächst von einer Karriere als Fussballprofi, bevor er im Banking seine wahre Leidenschaft fand. Seine beeindruckende Laufbahn führte ihn von der lokalen Corner Bank über Stationen in London und New York bis an die Spitze der UBS. Besonders bekannt ist Ermotti für seine Führungsrolle bei der Integration der Credit Suisse, ein Meilenstein, der ihn sowohl beruflich als auch persönlich herausgefordert hat. Mit klarer Vision und unermüdlichem Einsatz steht er für Leadership, Nachhaltigkeit und soziale Verantwortung – Werte, die er in der globalen Finanzbranche eindrucksvoll vorlebt.
Das Titelbild wurde von www.smartportrait.io bearbeitet.
This episode was co-produced with smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Florim Cuculi is a Swiss cardiologist and chief of the cardiology department at Luzerner Kantonsspital. He was born in the Republic of North Macedonia in 1976 and moved to Switzerland when he was 14. He initially had a difficult time in Switzerland, having no friends and speaking no German, but eventually worked his way to fluency and was moved from Realschule to Sekundarschule by an observant teacher, who realized his potential.
In 2019 Florim established the Cardio Center Luzern, a new cardiology practice in the city center of Lucerne. He is also active on social media, where he often gives health advice.
During his chat with Silvan, he discussed his rules for good leadership:
SMZH: tailor-made .holistic. for you.
smzh is an independent financial services provider who is assisting both private and corporate clients with individual advice in the areas of finance & investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate and tax & law. Through a 360° Check-Up, smzh ensures that you receive customized and comprehensive financial planning according to your initial situation and with a view to achieving your wishes and goals, as well as being accompanied by our experts during implementation.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Nikolai Schröder is the co-founder and COO of FINN, a German car subscription startup. He holds a MSc in Industrial Engineering from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and previously worked as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group before starting FINN in 2019.
FINN offers a car subscription which includes everything: the vehicle, insurance and maintenance. With traditional car purchases, you receive the financing (if you require a loan) from one person, insure the car with another person, send it to be repaired by a third person, etc., whereas with FINN you pay the same amount each month and can safely budget for it. FINN is aiming to become profitable by the end of 2024.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced with the Female Founders Initiative.
Leonie Flückiger is a co-founder of Adresta, a company which creates digital certificates for luxury watches. She holds a MSc in Micro- and Nanosystems from ETH and previously worked for ETH Juniors and BCG before starting Adresta in 2019.
Adresta is a Swiss tech company redefining the ownership experience by creating digital certificates or NFTs for physical products purchased and owned by end consumers. The Adresta ecosystem embeds an end2end digital watch insurance process, enabling owners to get insurance for their watch in under 90 seconds. The NFT proves the product's authenticity and represents a tamperproof, scarce, and tradable asset.
The company was acquired in Autumn 2022 by Bucherer, one of the world's largest retailers of luxury watches and jewelry. While the Adresta CEO, Mathew Chittazhathu, stayed on, Leonie preferred to take a new consulting job at McKinsey.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced with the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation.
Joanne Sieber is the CEO of the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation, which acts as a catalyst for the Swiss innovation ecosystem. She holds an MA in International Management from HSG. Prior to joining the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation in 2023, Joanne worked in a number of industries, from microcredit to consultancies, and even ran her own sandstone business.
The Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation is financed in part by their founding partners, UBS and Swisscom, and in part by their corporate partners, like SwissRe, Rolex and SIX. Their mission is to help Switzerland successfully commercialize Swiss innovation, through growth financing (covered by their Venture Hub Switzerland, which collaborates with Swiss pension funds) and by working to change the regulatory framework surrounding these questions. They want to make Switzerland the number 1 deeptech nation worldwide, and have committed themselves to help raise CHF 50B in VC capital for Swiss startups and to help create 100K jobs in Switzerland within the next 10 years.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced by smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Pascal Jenny is the former managing director and current president at Arosa Tourismus. He holds a BA in business administration from UZH and worked in Swiss sports television before founding Arosa Tourismus in 2008. He’s also the founder of tfy-consult, a company offering sustainability checks for other businesses, and is active as a board member at smzh.
Pascal’s connection to the Arosa region is long-standing: he vacationed there every single Summer until he was 25, and his great-great-grandfather used to be a priest there, as well. As a young person, he always enjoyed Arosa, but found its tourism industry lacking in certain respects, which motivated him to create a business which not only functioned as a hotel but also hosted events and offered experiences, and, most importantly, which measured its results and iterated accordingly.
Sustainability is a very important topic for Pascal, not only ecologically but also socially and economically. Arosa’s investors are aware that they’re unlikely to get back their investment, but still they offer their money because they want to build something beautiful. And when it comes to the relationship between Pascal’s business and the local Arosa population, clear and constant communication is key — and it served Pascal and his team well both when they came up with the idea to create a bear sanctuary, and when they thought of doing a gay ski week. Arosa Tourismus very intentionally does not invest much on social media marketing in order to avoid swaths of mass tourism coming their way.
Pascal stepped down from his managing director role in 2020 and is nowadays involved solely as president.
SMZH: tailor-made .holistic. for you.
smzh is an independent financial services provider who is assisting both private and corporate clients with individual advice in the areas of finance & investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate and tax & law. Through a 360° Check-Up, smzh ensures that you receive customized and comprehensive financial planning according to your initial situation and with a view to achieving your wishes and goals, as well as being accompanied by our experts during implementation.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was sponsored by smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Samir Ounzain is the co-founder and CEO of HAYA Therapeutics, a precision medicines company targeting the regulatory genome for cardiovascular diseases, fibrosis and cancer. He holds a PhD from the University of Leicester and was previously a researcher at Imperial College London, University College London and CHUV Lausanne University Hospital before starting HAYA in 2019, together with his co-founder Daniel Blessing.
Early on in his academic career Samir studied the so-called “dark genome” (also known as the “regulatory genome”), which at the time of discovery (2001) was considered “junk DNA”, i.e. the 98% of our DNA that apparently did not make or in any way affect our genes. More recent scientific research has discovered that this regulatory genome is key to understanding how our genes interact with our environment, and can therefore be useful in targeting environment-caused diseases like heart failure and cancer.
HAYA’s lead therapeutic candidate is HTX-001, an antisense oligonucleotide targeting Wisper, which is a tissue and cell-specific cardiac lncRNA known to play a role in heart failure. The company is also developing a pipeline of lncRNA-targeting candidates for the cell-specific treatment of diseases in other tissues, including the lungs and the microenvironment of solid tumor cancers. The added benefit of their drugs is that by targeting the “dark” 98%, instead of the 2%, they result in zero side effects: conventional drugs help patients treat their diseases but they also produce secondary unwanted effects because the proteins that they are targeting (in our 2%) are also responsible for other functions — this same issue does not exist when it comes to drugs which interact with the dark genome.
They have raised a total of $25M in funding backed by a strong consortium of investors, including Broadview Ventures, Apollo Health Ventures, 4SeeVentures, BioInnovator, Bernina Bioinvest, Humboldt and Schroder Adveq.
This cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place next year on May 14th 2025. Click here to purchase your ticket.
Pascal Weber is the co-founder and CEO of Manukai, an ETH spin-off automating repetitive programming tasks by leveraging available production data. He holds a PhD in Computational Science and Engineering from ETH and worked at Harvard and the ETH AI Center before starting Manukai in 2023.
The Manukai name comes from the agglutination of “manu”, short for “manufacturing”, and “kaizen”, a Japanese term often used to refer to the principle of continuous improvement in manufacturing. Manukai’s goal is to take each and every task that a polymechanic may be responsible for and automate them, while still requiring confirmation from the technician — think of it like AI playing autocomplete, and you telling it “yes” or “no”. This technology will help improve quality in these processes and increase their speed. It will also free the polymechanic to spend more of his or her time doing creative work, instead of repetitive, manual drudgery.
This cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io
This episode was sponsored by NordPass. Use code “swisspreneur” at checkout to get 30% off Business and Teams plans.
Nicole Kleger is the co-founder and CTO at sallea, a biotech startup enabling the cultivation of high-value, textured whole cuts of (lab) meat and fish. She holds a PhD in Materials Science from ETH and has been a Sports Instructor at Akademischer Sportverband Zürich since 2015. She started sallea in 2022.
sallea’s propriety scaffolds enable the cultivation of whole cuts of meat and fish, as opposed to the thin layers currently being produced. This in turn will enable the sale and consumption of these products in a non-processed way: we’ll be able to eat a lean fillet of lab meat, instead of eating lab meat sausage or ground lab meat. Furthermore, sallea’s scaffolding platform allows each of their customers to pre-define the texture, nutritional value, taste, and other key attributes of the end product.
They are currently raising CHF 2.2M in external funds.
This cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io
This episode was co-produced with smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Gzim Hasani is the CEO of and a partner at smzh, an independent financial advisory company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. He holds a MSc in Banking and Finance and started his career working for Credit Suisse and Julius Baer, before venturing into entrepreneurship. In 2018, Hasani left the bank and founded Impegno & Partners, before then taking over smzh in 2019.
smzh’s goal is to join all types of financial advisory in one, thereby truly putting the customer in the driving seat, by allowing him or her to make holistic decisions. They offer advice in the areas of finance and investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate, and tax and law. smzh’s vision is to offer the best possible advice to all clients.
Check out our FREE go-to-market masterclass with Ankita Mehta and Soumya Dash.
Jürg Jost is the founder, former CEO and current CTO of the semiconductor manufacturer Spacetek Technology. He holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Berner Fachhochschule BFH. Prior to starting Spacetek, Jürg worked as Head of Electrical Engineering Space Research & Planetary Sciences at the University of Bern.
Spacetek designs and builds time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF-MS), bringing space technology to Earth. Their focus is semiconductor manufacturing and the issues of process engineers, end-users (foundries) and OEMs (wafer fab equipment). In 2023, Spacetek closed its seed financing round with Swisscom Ventures and the Moonshot Fund (from Spectrum Value Management), and they also accelerated their commercial developments with leading semiconductor manufacturers.
Check out our FREE go-to-market masterclass.
Gaëlle Andreatta is the co-founder and CTO of apheros, a startup manufacturing metal foams for thermal, catalysis, and battery applications. She holds a PhD in Physics from Pierre and Marie Curie University and an MBA from ETH/HSG. Gaëlle worked for companies like Oxford Nanopore Technologies and CSEM before co-founding apheros in 2023.
apheros’ novel metal foams offer unprecedented properties due to their extremely high surface area and low density. The best way Gaëlle has of explaining how metal gets turned into a foam to people with little scientific background is through the metaphor of making meringue. apheros makes metal foams in a way that is “similar” to how you would froth your egg white. They foam their metal, shape it, and then use very high temperatures to set the shape. Their metal foam is useful for cooling down certain materials (in a similar way to how liquid cooling works), for kickstarting certain chemical reactions, and for ensuring the current collectors in lithium ion batteries work optimally.
apheros is currently working closely with between 60 to 70 customers, and in talks with a dozen more. Their team is 2/3s women, which Gaëlle attributes not to any conscious decision on their part but to the fact that both co-founders are women, which probably encourages female applicants to apply.
This episode was co-produced with smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Stefan Schärer is the co-founder and former CEO of the proptech startup Houzy. Stefan previously founded the software company Fairgate and the real estate project management company Neubau Portal, and was briefly the CEO of Moneyhouse AG, before founding Houzy in 2017.
Houzy offers services like property search, mortgage comparison, a renovation costs check and energy efficiency optimization. In the beginning they chose not to overspend on complex marketing tools and instead worked hard to optimize their SEO, which gradually became easier as they drew more users to the platform. Stefan credits Houzy’s great marketing and product teams, as well as their smart money investors, with the success of the company.
In 2022 UBS and Baloise acquired a joint majority stake in Houzy, and one year later Stefan stepped down from his CEO role. Nowadays he’s the President of the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation.
SMZH: tailor-made .holistic. for you.
smzh is an independent financial services provider who is assisting both private and corporate clients with individual advice in the areas of finance & investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate and tax & law. Through a 360° Check-Up, smzh ensures that you receive customized and comprehensive financial planning according to your initial situation and with a view to achieving your wishes and goals, as well as being accompanied by our experts during implementation.
The cover portrait was edited bywww.smartportrait.io.
Fabio Ronga is the co-founder and CEO of beqom, a cloud-based compensation management solution. He holds a master's degree in Business Information Systems from HEC Lausanne and previously worked at Hyperion (bought by Oracle) and Outlooksoft (bought by SAP) before starting beqom in 2008.
Together with his co-founders (including Tanya Jansen and Stephan Pohl, who are still active in the company), Fabio built beqom to solve HR problems he himself had encountered earlier in his career. Serendipitously enough, someone Fabio used to know from Hyperion was on the board of a French company who had built the exact tech that Fabio and his co-founders needed, but was using it for different purposes. beqom was born out of a partnership with that company. Later on, when beqom was coming into its own, it merged with this French company.
beqom started out with Swiss headquarters and maintains them to this day. Fabio thinks this helped them be global-minded about their product building from day one: since Switzerland is such a linguistically and culturally fragmented country, Swiss founders cannot rely on their domestic market to keep them in business, like US companies can.
In 2022 beqom received a strategic investment of USD 300M from Sumeru Equity Partners. A few years prior, beqom had received another investment from Goldman Sachs, in exchange of which they promised a favorable exit scenario — this was their motivation for the 2022 Sumeru investment.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Check out our FREE go-to-market masterclass with Ankita Mehta and Soumya Dash.
Priyanka Dutta Passecker is the co-founder and CEO of Healiva, a biotech startup using advanced cell therapy to treat acute and chronic wounds. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Trinity College Dublin and worked for companies like UCB Pharma, Axol Bioscience Ltd and Bioseutica before starting Healiva in 2020.
2-3% of the elderly suffer from painful venous/arterial leg ulcers and nearly 25% of diabetics may develop diabetic foot ulcers in their lifetimes. This burden is borne by healthcare systems, which spend 2% of their budgets on wound management. Worst of all, about 60% of chronic wounds remain unhealed. That’s why Healiva is such a game changer: they use 3 non-virus-based enzymes from codfish pancreas, which, due to their provenance, are quite stable at room temperature, and therefore can be stored in a liquid form and used as a spray. They’re currently getting ready for pre-clinical studies to prove the safety and efficacy of their product.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced with smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Andreas Krümmel is the former CEO at Generali Switzerland and a current board member at SMZH, an independent partner in all matters related to finance, insurance, real estate, tax and law, for both private and corporate clients. He holds an MBA from HSG and spent 20 years working in insurance, for companies like Winterthur Group, AXA and Generali.
During his chat with Silvan, Andreas discussed his key leadership principles (which boil down to simplifying things to the maximum, and listening before deciding), reminisced over Switzerland’s slow digitization process from the 80s until now, and reflected on the role insurtech startups are playing in today’s landscape.
SMZH: tailor-made .holistic. for you.
smzh is an independent financial services provider who is assisting both private and corporate clients with individual advice in the areas of finance & investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate and tax & law. Through a 360° Check-Up, smzh ensures that you receive customized and comprehensive financial planning according to your initial situation and with a view to achieving your wishes and goals, as well as being accompanied by our experts during implementation.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was sponsored by NordPass. Use code “swisspreneur” at checkout to get 30% off Business and Teams plans.
Alessandro Ofner is the co-founder and co-CEO of Microcaps, a startup developing breakthrough technology to naturally encapsulate ingredients and fragrances into visually appealing micro-capsules. He holds a PhD from ETH and started his company in 2018, as soon as he finished his postgraduate studies.
Microcaps’ use cases range from nutrition (natural encapsulation of nutrition products to protect ingredients and improve performance), to cosmetics (encapsulation solutions for ethanol-free perfume and serum products) and pharmaceuticals (a patented approach to sustained release with oral and injectable application). To protect their product, they’ve successfully applied for 11 different patents, which makes it so that their partners don’t have to worry about copycats.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced with the Female Founders Initiative.
Regula Buob is the founder of SoftTec, a consultancy that offers services related to both technical and soft skills. She is also a coach for early stage startups and scale-ups. Regula holds a master’s degree in Special Education and another one in Career Counseling. She founded SoftTec in 2009.
Regula went into the education field because it was a way to convince her somewhat conservative father to allow her to study at university — in this field, she could reliably make money. Her background in education is what sets her apart as a startup coach. During her chat with our co-host Merle, Regula discussed why Switzerland supports its startups well in terms of education but not in terms of funding, why she thinks we should invest 1-2% of Switzerland’s pension fund into Swiss startups, and why there is an urgent need to change the Swiss “failure culture”.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was sponsored by smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Tobias Reichmuth and Marc P. Bernegger are two serial entrepreneurs and startup investors who together have built Maximon, an incubator for impactful, science-based and scalable companies providing healthy aging and rejuvenation solutions. Tobias holds a PhD in Business Administration from EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht, and Marc holds a master’s degree in Law from UZH.
Tobias’ interest in the longevity topic was first sparked back in 2016, when he was studying at the Singularity University, in California, and heard the process of aging referred to as a sickness — which, given the right tools and science, could be combatted. In 2021 he started Maximon together with his friend, Marc.
Maximon builds companies along the longevity value-chain, from enablers such as science-based supplements, genetic improvements, and personalized treatments, to necessities such as life-long learning, healthspan-insurances for centennials, to sustainable asset management solutions replacing today’s pensions and co-living for active and healthy seniors. Marc and Tobias also host a longevity conference, called Longevity Investors, which addresses the investor community and brings together science and capital.
Maximon holds substantial shares in all of their ventures. This way there is no need for hidden fees, and the incentives of both Maximon and the founders are aligned: their common goal is to increase the value of company shares as much as possible. Founders also receive funding up to Series A, as well as hands-on operational support from Marc and Tobias.
Marc and Tobias have invested CHF 10M of their own money into the Maximon fund, and they don’t pay themselves salaries. It’s the long term upside that interests them.
SMZH: tailor-made .holistic. for you.smzh is an independent financial services provider who is assisting both private and corporate clients with individual advice in the areas of finance & investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate and tax & law. Through a 360° Check-Up, smzh ensures that you receive customized and comprehensive financial planning according to your initial situation and with a view to achieving your wishes and goals, as well as being accompanied by our experts during implementation.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
This episode was co-produced by smzh, your independent go-to partner in all matters relating to finance.
Aurelia Frick is an advisory and board member and the former Foreign Minister of Liechtenstein. She’s got a PhD in Law, but her journey took some unexpected turns. After working in a big law firm in Zurich, she quickly realized that the life of a lawyer wasn’t for her. She felt isolated and bored, missing the chance to interact with people and make a real difference. So she leaped into politics, where she could actually see the impact of her work.
She spent 10 years in the government, tackling everything from foreign affairs to culture, and learned a lot about navigating complex environments. Now, she’s on the executive board at SMZH, a company helping people with finance, insurance, real estate, and more. She’s passionate about supporting startups, pushing for better education, and finding new ways to solve old problems. For Aurelia, it’s all about doing what matters and making a real impact, whether it’s in the boardroom or the classroom.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
SMZH: tailor-made .holistic. for you.
smzh is an independent financial services provider who is assisting both private and corporate clients with individual advice in the areas of finance & investments, pensions, mortgages, insurance, real estate and tax & law. Through a 360° Check-Up, smzh ensures that you receive customized and comprehensive financial planning according to your initial situation and with a view to achieving your wishes and goals, as well as being accompanied by our experts during implementation.
Benni Huggel ist Gründer und Head of Sales bei der Athlete's Network, einer Organisation, die Athleten beim Übergang in ihre Nachsportkarriere unterstützt. Der ehemalige Profifussballer spielte für den FC Basel und die Schweizer Nationalmannschaft, für die er über 40 Länderspiele absolvierte. Nach seinem Rücktritt gründete er die Athlete's Network, um Sportler dabei zu unterstützen, ihre Fähigkeiten und Erfahrungen in die Arbeitswelt einzubringen.
Die Idee für das Athlete’s Network kam Beni auf einer Autofahrt im November 2019. Am nächsten Tag schrieb er einen LinkedIn Post darüber und erhielt nicht nur enormen Zuspruch, sondern fand auch seine späteren Mitgründer über diesen Weg.
Das Athlete’s Network unterstützt ehemalige Spitzensportler:innen und -sportler beim Einstieg in die Arbeitswelt nach der Sportkarriere. Mit über 2500 Athletinnen und Athleten und über 100 Partnerfirmen funktioniert das Athlete’s Netzwerk wie eine two-sided Plattform, bei der die Partnerfirmen explizit nach Spitzensportlern, weil sie davon überzogen sind, dass diese Fähigkeiten mitbringen, die man nur im Spitzensport lernt. Das sogenannte Athlete’s Mindset - Disziplin, Fokus, Ausdauer, Resilienz - ist für diese Firmen Grund genug, um über fehlende Arbeitserfahrung hinwegzusehen.
Das Titelbild wurde von www.smartportrait.io bearbeitet.
This episode was co-produced/sponsored by NordPass. Use code “swisspreneur” at checkout to get 30% off Business and Teams plans.
Karolis Arbaciauskas is the Head of Product & Business Development at NordPass, a password management solution and part of Nord Security, the world’s leading cybersecurity company. He holds an MA in Economics from The Berlin School of Economics and Law and previously worked for companies like L'Oréal, Nordea and Danske Bank before joining NordPass in 2020.
During his chat with Silvan, Karolis tried to dispel the myth that cybersecurity concerns are a milestone which ought only be available to developed scaleups — he thinks being safe online should be something which startups tackle from day one. He also provided insight into the main causes of data breaches, spoke about how cybersecurity and the dark web are connected and introduced the concept of Ransomware as a Service, which basically consists of more skilled hackers building and selling software that less skilled hackers can use to hack their victims.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Samantha Anderson is the co-founder and CEO at DePoly, a cleantech startup recycling hard-to-recycle plastic. She’s originally from Canada and holds a PhD in Carbon Capture and Storage from EPFL (her studies being the reason she moved to Switzerland). Sam worked as a researcher for some years before starting DePoly in 2019.
DePoly tackles a very pressing issue: out of all plastics produced, 90% are not recycled, but instead get incinerated (resulting in atmospheric pollution), or end up in the ocean (which is how we get microplastics in our food), or simply become litter (and take 500 years to decompose). Only “easy to recycle” plastic items such as bottles or clean packaging are actually recycled.
DePoly’s cutting-edge recycling process converts plastics into high-quality raw materials without compromising their quality. Not only is it energy-efficient, but it also has the remarkable ability to handle even the most challenging streams of PET plastic and textiles, including mixed, dirty post-consumer and post-industrial waste that are traditionally considered unrecyclable.
This cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io
Silvan Leibacher is the co-founder and CEO of Eggfield, a startup replacing eggs in the food industry through plant-based and clean label ingredients. He holds a BSc in Business Management from ZHAW, and previously co-founded the bakery Leibacher Biber-Manufaktur AG in 2010 with his siblings, before starting Eggfield in 2020.
During his time at his family bakery, Silvan realized the impact that the use of animal products has on CO2 emissions. While there were well-known alternatives to dairy products, this was not the case for eggs, which motivated Silvan to search for a solution. He found it in History: back in WW2, soldiers were already using aquafaba (which is the water used for boiling chickpeas) as an egg substitute.
Together with his food engineer co-founder, Silvan decided to build Eggfield, a company selling clean label egg alternatives based on aquafaba to other companies, which then use them to bake cakes or create sauces. They are not (at least for the moment) interested in going B2C or selling alternatives to scrambled or boiled eggs.
Eggfield is currently fundraising through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out their deal to learn more.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Johannes Tiefenthaler is the co-founder and co-CEO of neustark, a cleantech startup deploying carbon dioxide removal technology. He holds a PhD from ETH and started neustark back in 2019.
neustark’s ambition is to remove one million tons of CO2 by 2030. After three years in business, neustark has 10 operational CO2 storage plants, and a dedicated team of over 50 professionals driving this mission forward. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C implies reaching net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 according to the IPCC, and next to substantially reducing emissions, this target will only be possible by globally deploying carbon removal (CDR) solutions at the scale of billions of tons of CO2.
They have received a Gold Standard certification for their CDR methodology and have raised a total of $20K in funding over 3 rounds, with Innosuisse and Technology Fund being their most recent investors.
The cover portrait was edited by www.smartportrait.io.
Christian Hirt is the co-founder and CEO of AtlasVR, a startup harnessing the power of virtual reality for vocational training. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from ETH and previously worked for Rheinmetal Air Defence and the Swiss Armed Forces before starting Atlas VR in 2022.
AtlasVR provides a solution to complement and substitute industrial vocational training, while eliminating many challenges faced by traditional training. They achieve this by harnessing the potential of virtual reality technology, which allows trainees to learn and practice industrial tasks such as operating complex production machines in an interactive virtual environment.
AtlasVR has planned to raise a total of CHF 900K in 2024, of which CHF 200K have already been closed. They hope to close the remaining CHF 700K until the end of October, and will be doing so partially through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Click here to learn more about the deal.
Francisco Fernandez is the founder and former CEO of Avaloq, a front-to-back software provider for financial institutions around the world. He holds a MSc in Computer Science from ETH, and was CEO at Avaloq until 2017, chairman from 2018 to 2021, and has been a board member since 2021.
Avaloq develops software that can be deployed flexibly through cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) or on-premises, and they also offer Banking Operations outsourcing through their Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) model. They have 160+ clients in 35 countries and currently employ over 2500 people. In October 2020, Avaloq was acquired by NEC Corporation for $2.2B.
This episode was co-produced by the Female Founders Initiative.
Greta Preatoni is the co-founder and CEO of Mynerva, a startup developing a groundbreaking device for the treatment of neuropathy. She holds a PhD in Neuroengineering from ETH and started Mynerva in 2023, as soon as she finished her studies.
Neuropathy in general is a condition which causes both loss of sensation in the nerves and, paradoxically, chronic pain. It can be caused by diabetes, chemotherapy and even by COVID. Most of Mynerva’s patients are diabetics, who before accessing their solution were forced to rely on opioids with severe side effects. Despite relieving pain, the drugs also increased the likelihood of falls (from lack of sensation in the patient’s foot soles).
The Mynerva team created Leia, a peerless non-invasive device with a sensorized insole that captures the information from the foot-ground interaction and translates it into electrical impulses delivered on the skin. The optimally designed electrode placement and shape, together with AI-based algorithms, are able to directly target the nerves and reduce neuropathic pain. All health-related parameters are collected by the sensorized insole and a wearable bracelet to drive data-driven individualized therapies.
At present, Mynerva is actively focusing on obtaining the necessary certifications for their medical device.
James Rilett is the CPTO at Open Mineral, a startup offering metal commodity trade solutions enabled by a commercial and market intelligence platform. He holds a BA in International History from The London School of Economics and Political Science and previously worked as a consultant and derivatives trader before joining Open Mineral in 2022.
Open Mineral advances the trade of base metal raw materials and secondary products using technology and analytics. They are based in Switzerland but operate worldwide, and have so far raised CHF 40M in funds. They mainly trade in copper, zinc, lead and gold, which are crucial for the current energy transition. They also take care only to work with reputable providers who follow the strictest ESG guidelines, so as to avoid things like arsenic poisoning for the people involved in the transportation of these metals.
Aurelio Perucca is the co-founder and CEO of Splint Invest, an alternative investment platform. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Bern and previously worked for companies like Stryker and PwC before starting Splint Invest in 2021.
Splint Invest’s mission is to make it possible for all private investors to invest in alternative assets, (almost) regardless of personal wealth. Alternative investments are all investments that are not in stocks, bonds or ETFs, i.e. investments in highly illiquid assets like real estate, crypto, collectibles and luxury items like paintings, cars and wine.
Since alternative investments have a low correlation to the global economy (meaning they perform well in recession phases, as well as during economic booms), they are a good choice to diversify your portfolio and make it more resilient. You should, however, be very careful about which alternative assets you invest in, as there is low transparency in the market. Splint Invest can help you there by doing all the due diligence work for you.
Click here to apply to join our Founders Slack.
Jessica Farda is the co-founder and CEO of noriware, a cleantech startup producing sustainable packaging materials based on seaweed. She holds a BA in International Affairs from HSG and founded her company in 2021, straight out of university.
The noriwear idea came during a trip to Mexico, where Jessica for the first time found herself thinking more deeply about seaweed and its possible applications. Later on her research led her to discover plenty of interesting facts about this marine plant, such as that there are over 12’000 species of seaweed, that seaweed are divided into reds, greens and browns (which grow in different parts of the planet), and that some types of seaweed grow 1 meter per day without any need for freshwater, fertilizer or land. Further research then led Jessica to discover that polysaccharides can be extracted from seaweed, with which plastic granules can be made.
At first, it was difficult to be taken seriously in the biotech/cleantech world, considering her background was in business and international affairs — but Jessica persisted, speaking to research paper authors, ETH professors and just about anyone she could find, until she was serendipitously connected to a polymers engineer, Stefan, who later became her co-founder.
Nowadays noriwear produces norifilm, a flexible packaging material that can be used for dry goods of any kind. It offers the texture and stability of a conventional plastic film, but differs in its durability and footprint on the environment. It also becomes entirely transparent when placed on an object, and after usage decomposes like a fruit, leaving no residual waste. While the noriwear team plans to expand their technology to other applications in the packaging industry, their focus now is on reducing the waste generated by plastic cups and packaging films.
Kevin Baxpehler is the managing partner at Remagine Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on media related technology investments in Israeli startups. Diego Braguglia is the managing partner at VI Partners AG, a Swiss venture capital firm focused on healthcare and technology ventures. Harald Nieder is a general partner at Redalpine Venture Partners AG, a sector-agnostic Swiss venture capital firm. Mike Hobmeier is the CIO at Verve Ventures, a network and technology-driven venture capital firm headquartered in Switzerland.
During their chat with Silvan, these four VCs discussed how startups can know if they’re ready to raise VC money, what motivates investors to bet on companies before they have a proven track record, as well as the sectors for which Switzerland is famous, and where Swiss innovation truly comes from.
Click here to apply to join our Founders Slack.
Tillmann Lang is the co-founder and CEO of Inyova Impact Investing, an investment platform that enables you to achieve your financial goals by investing your savings in a way that is 100% consistent with your values and lifestyle. He holds a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Heidelberg and founded the Sustainability in Business Lab at ETH Zurich and Clean Peak Solutions before starting Inyova in 2017.
Although not a perfect system, capitalism is, in Tillmann’s opinion, the best economic system there is, in terms of correctly and efficiently allocating resources. But the free market is, of course, not enough — social progress has been achieved through regulations.
At Inyova, he helps people make sure their money is going into causes they believe in, not helping to fuel unethical businesses. Customers can completely personalize their investment portfolio up to the single stock level, or they can simply choose to blacklist a number of companies, or they can leave it up to Inyova. Inyova is fully regulated in Switzerland and Germany.
Click here to apply to join our Founders Slack.
Enzo Wälchli is the CCO at Anybotics, a company providing autonomous robotic inspection solutions, and LinkedIn’s #1 Swiss voice in robotics. He holds an MA in Accounting and Finance from HSG and previously worked at Sulzer and Hilti Schweiz before joining Anybotics in 2021.
Enzo has 70K+ followers on LinkedIn, where he posts cool robotics content and also shares some insights into Anybotics’ journey. He’s firmly convinced that every salesperson should be using LinkedIn to connect with prospects. This doesn’t mean that you need to go around shooting connection requests and sending cold messages — on the contrary, if you post interesting content consistently, prospects will come to you, which is of course a much better starting point for a sales discussion.
Enzo thinks making it big on LinkedIn is relatively simple. Considering that the vast majority of LinkedIn users don’t post anything but merely consume content, if you start posting, you’re already one step ahead. And then you just need to keep posting, consistently, every day. It doesn’t matter if at first you post low quality content, because any piece of online content gets forgotten after a week anyhow: it only matters that you stay consistent and improve over time. If you can find a niche topic like robotics, all the better.
Enzo also recommends striking a balance between highly viral content (like cool robot videos) and actually meaningful content (such as his behind-the-scenes perspective on Anybotics). A viral post might have incredible stats, but it probably won’t get people to follow you, whereas consistent meaningful content will.
This episode was sponsored by NordPass. Use code “swisspreneur” at checkout to get 30% off Business and Teams plans.
Marcel Salathé is a professor at EPFL, startup founder and investor, as well as a digital epidemiologist. He holds a PhD in Biology and Environmental Sciences from ETH, and has taught at Stanford and Penn State. He is the founder of the EPFL Extension School and AIcrowd, an AI challenge platform at EPFL.
When founding the EPFL Extension School, Marcel’s goal was to fulfill EPFL’s mandate of not only educating its students but the Swiss population at large — he believes the current educational system, which restricts education to childhood and adolescence, is outdated, and that Swiss people need to be learning continuously, especially considering the rapid acceleration of technological development. Self-learning has played a big role in Marcel’s career, who originally studied Biology but has since branched out to machine learning and generative AI.
During his chat with Silvan, he further argues that although Switzerland has done a great job in connecting innovation centers (such as universities) with the private sector, it’s done terribly at channeling this innovation towards the public sector as well, which is why this sphere seems to be 20 years behind the curve. Marcel thinks there must be a structural push towards this, just as there was a concerted political effort before to connect universities with the private sector. He is strongly against the recent budget cuts for education and innovation, because he considers this to be the “magic sauce” of Switzerland’s prosperity.
Thomas Crawford is the co-founder and CEO of Bind, a startup providing AI-powered insurance targeting. He holds a BA in Geography and Economics from Durham University and previously worked for Zurich Insurance before joining Bind as a late co-founder in 2024.
Daniel Delouya is the co-founder and COO of Bind. He previously co-founded two companies, the social discovery app Blume and the smart home automation platform G13, before starting Bind in 2022.
Bind makes it easy for businesses to better understand and target customers with relevant insurance products at scale. Their proprietary AI technology is wrapped in a simple-to-use API that businesses can implement with ease. They strategically leverage Switzerland's central location to facilitate seamless access to global markets.
Bind is currently raising CHF 1.5M, part of which is being done through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our dealflow page to learn more about the deal.
Viktor Calabro is the founder and former CEO of Coople, Europe's largest digital staffing platform. He previously worked for companies like Trivadis AG and Erlebniskultur GmbH before starting Coople in 2009.
Coople matches flexible workers to short- and long-term assignments in various roles in office, retail, logistics, hospitality, events and hotel. They increase their clients’ revenue by adjusting their team in real-time to match fluctuating demand, and reduce their client’s costs by outsourcing admin and payroll.
One challenge that Viktor had to face during his time at Coople was finding out that they had scaled too early, before actually achieving true product-market fit, and seeing themselves being spread too thin. This, paired with the fact that Victor had been going all-in for Coople for almost a decade and no longer had the energy to meet the needs of his role, made him step down as CEO role in 2018. Nowadays, his focus is on coaching, training, and investing, as well as on spending quality time with his family and friends.
Sean Wassermann is the CTO at Kidemis, a Swiss feedtech company that applies mycelium-based fermentation to upcycle low-value side streams into high value protein for various industries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts and was previously CTO at companies like Cibdol and Aquanta before starting Kidemis in 2022.
Constantin Marakhov is the CEO at Kidemis. He holds an MBA from the University of Oregon and a PhD in Finance from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and previously worked as a business school professor and as head of business development at the WEF before starting Kidemis in 2022. He is also the CEO and founder of Hempfy, a Swiss cannabis startup.
Kidemis' solution is to use mycoprotein as a partial or complete replacement for fishmeal in aquafeed. Mycoprotein is a sustainable alternative to fishmeal and fish oil because it is produced from renewable resources. The fungi that are used to produce mycoprotein can be grown on a variety of substrates, including agricultural sidestreams. This means that mycoprotein will be produced without putting a strain on global fish stocks or the environment. In addition, mycelium’s immune-stimulating properties could decrease the usage of antibiotics.
Kidemis is currently raising a CHF 1.5M seed round, 30% of which have already been committed. Part of these funds are being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate — click here to find out more.
This episode was sponsored by NordPass. Use code “swisspreneur” at checkout to get 30% off Business and Teams plans.
Yves Béhar is a venture designer, the founder of the fuseproject, co-founder of TELO, August, and Canopy, and Chief Creative Officer at Jawbone, August Home, and TELO. He holds a BSc in Industrial Design from the ArtCenter College of Design (in Pasadena, California) and worked in consulting for many years before starting fuseproject in 1999.
fuseproject was born out of a wish to create an integral version of design: not just designing something within the boundaries of the industrial design discipline, but actually thinking about branding and about creating an experience as well.
Yves is a big believer in working tirelessly at your dream even if you don’t show impressive amounts of native talent. He recalls that from his friends at ArtCenter, he was the worst draftsman, but his idea for what he wanted to do with design and his tireless work carried him far regardless. Yves thinks suffering is part of the creative process, and that it is worth pushing through, because pain is temporary, but “suck” is forever.
Out of his wish to work long-term with resource-strained startups came the concept of “venture designing”: instead of charging startups like a consultant, he co-founds their ventures. Throughout the years he’s worked with 90+ startups. He believes this is the most mutually beneficial form of collaboration, since excellent design is usually the product of long term work and coexistence.
This episode was co-produced by the Female Founders Initiative.
Myriam Lingg is the co-founder and CEO of macu4, a startup creating empowering ortho-prosthetics for the forearm and hand. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and previously worked for the European Center of Pharmaceutical Medicine and the think tank W.I.R.E before starting macu4 in 2020.
macu4 prosthetics are lightweight, breathable, affordable and individually tailored to the needs of people with a missing or limited grip function of the hand, thanks to their innovative modular design. macu4 is a for-profit venture, but is highly committed to manufacturing affordable prosthetics through their smart design and 3D printing technology.
Fajer Mushtaq is the co-founder and CEO at Oxyle, a cleantech startup with a game-changing water remediation technology. She holds a PhD in Micro- and Nanotechnology for Environmental Remediation from ETH and previously worked there as a BRIDGE Proof-of-Concept Fellow, before starting Oxyle in 2020.
When we usually think of water pollution, we think of things like cigarette butts, plastic bags, or perhaps even bacteria or viruses. But what most of us fail to consider are micropollutants (like hormones, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, industrial waste, etc…), so called not because they’re found in small amounts, but because a small amount is enough to have a carcinogenic effect, or cause infertility or birth defects. 1 nanogram per liter (which is the equivalent of 1 drop in 20 Olympic-sized pools) is concentration enough to cause humans and their ecosystems harm. What’s more, these micro-pollutants are bioaccumulative (meaning if you keep drinking them, they keep increasing in concentration in your blood), and stay in bodies of water for decades on end unless treated appropriately.
That’s where the ETH spin-off Oxyle comes in. Oxyle works at the last stage of water treatment to remove these micro-pollutants through their innovative nanotechnology. They do so in a sustainable, scalable manner by getting in touch with big companies looking to remediate the harm they’ve caused and prevent any more harm from being done. This is equally as important in Switzerland as it is in other places: the water Swiss people drink has 17x the amount of carcinogenic pesticides that is safe to consume.
Fajer strongly believes that fighting climate change is done not only through innovative startups like Oxyle, but also through regulation. We need to hold polluters responsible, and nowadays, due to the growing sophistication of water analysis techniques, we definitely can. This way we can both remediate the harm that’s already been done, and stop future pollution at its source.
This episode was co-produced with Switzerland Global Enterprise. Click here to learn more about the Swisstech pavilion at CES 2025, mentioned at the start of the episode.
Céline Udriot is the COO at Largo.ai, a startup providing next-generation storytelling tools for the audiovisual industry using artificial intelligence. She holds an MBA from Vatel Switzerland and worked in the hospitality industry before joining Largo.ai in 2022.
Karine Jeanmonod-Wittmer is a trade commissioner in charge of Startup Ecosystems & Partnerships at the Swiss Business Hub USA, which represents Switzerland Global Enterprise in the US. She holds a master's degree in Economics & International Relations from the Geneva Graduate Institute, and had been working in the US for 14 years before joining Swiss Business Hub in 2018.
During their chat with Silvan, Céline and Karine discussed entering the US market as a Swiss startup, both from a founder’s perspective and from SBH’s perspective. Among other topics, they elaborated on why the US’ size, affluence and political stability make it the most attractive market for startups still today, and mentioned some of the challenges of breaking into this new market as a Swiss startup, namely networking “cliques”, unexpectedly high expenses, and cultural differences regarding the level of ambition.
Liliane Ableitner is the co-founder and CEO of Exnaton, a software provider for energy communities, allowing neighbors to trade renewable energy amongst each other. Before starting Exnaton, Liliane was a Doctoral Researcher at the Bits of Energy Lab at ETH Zurich.
She met her two co-founders, Arne Meeuw and Anselma Würner, during her work on the research project “Quartierstrom“, funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. The project resonated well with all stakeholders involved and the three PhD students decided to spin it out into an independent company in 2019. In December 2020, they won the Investor’s Choice award at Energy Startup Days, which helped the company to gain exposure amongst relevant stakeholders.
Contrary to some of their competitors, Exnaton doesn’t sell their software to end consumers. Rather, they cooperate with local utility companies and allow them to white label their solution and distribute it to their customers. Exnaton is greatly benefiting from the liberalization of European energy markets because it has been driving competition for innovative products between utility companies. They are hoping to further benefit from an opening of the Swiss market, which has traditionally been very protected.
Matthias Heuberger is the founder and CEO of BreezeLabs, a startup developing a new way to track sports performance. He holds an MA in International Affairs from HSG and previously worked for Zurich Insurance Company and CSS Versicherung before starting BreezeLabs in 2022.
By using the built-in microphone in your headphones to record the audio signal during your runs, BreezeLabs delivers breathing rate tracking without any additional hardware. Their sophisticated AI models are capable of groundbreaking precision and accuracy in detecting breathing signals, which enables you to match your training plan precisely with the state of your body, thereby maximizing training efficiency and bringing you closer to achieving your ultimate performance goals.
They’re currently raising a maximum of CHF 500K through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our dealflow page to learn more about the deal.
Diese Folge war ursprünglich ein Live-Gespräch, das bei einer Veranstaltung des Sport and Business Network im Oktober 2023 aufgezeichnet wurde. Die Episode wird gesponsert von Properti.
Ben Küffer ist der Mitgründer der Schweizer Uhrenmarke NORQAIN. Zuvor arbeitete er fast 12 Jahre lang als Brand Manager bei Breitling. Der junge Visionär hatte die Idee, eine neue Uhrenmarke zu gründen, als er feststellte, dass es in der Branche an erschwinglichen und qualitativ hochwertigen Zeitmessern mangelte. Im Jahr 2018 gründete er NORQAIN und stellte ein bemerkenswertes Team zusammen. Ted Schneider, ein Mitglied der Familie, die fast 40 Jahre lang Breitling besass, und die Schweizer Eishockey-Legende und Stanley-Cup-Sieger Mark Streit stiessen als Mitgründer und Mitglieder des Verwaltungsrats dazu.
Mark Streit ist ein ehemaliger Schweizer Eishockeyspieler und Mitbegründer von NORQAIN. Der Verteidiger spielte insgesamt 820 Spiele für die Montréal Canadiens, die New York Islanders, die Philadelphia Flyers und die Pittsburgh Penguins in der National Hockey League und gewann 2017 mit den Penguins den Stanley Cup.
