Lisa Stähli is a board member and Head of Press at Girls in Tech Switzerland, a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating the gender gap in tech. She holds a MSc in Geomatics Engineering from ETH and is currently a Product Engineering Lead at the Esri R&D Center Zurich. Fabienne Lorenz is the co-managing director at Girls in Tech Switzerland, holds a MAS in Marketing Management from ZHAW School of Management and Law, and is currently the Head of Academy at Synpulse.
The Swiss chapter of Girls in Tech was started with the vision of creating a community of like-minded women who could support and encourage one another in Switzerland. It’s part of a larger community of more than 120K people around the world. They provide community, skill workshops and role models to motivate women in their professional journeys.
The conversation in this episode was recorded in April 2023, and was co-produced together with the Female Founders Initiative.
Pascale Vonmont is the director of the Gebert Rüf Stiftung, and Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler is the non-executive vice-president at Swisscom, and a former member of its Group Executive Board.
Gebert Rüf Stiftung is one of the initial partners of the Kick Fund, whose goal it is to invest in Swiss pre-seed and stage technology startups from the Venture Kick pipeline. Venture Kick is part of the Kick Foundation, which is supporting young entrepreneurial talents at Swiss universities. The close collaboration with the Deep Tech Switzerland Foundation (where Roger is also active) secures the financing and support pipeline from startup to scale-up. Roger and Pascale feel that Swiss startup initiatives ought to break down silos and work together, sharing their resources, so as to facilitate the commercialization of Swiss innovation.
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click here to purchase your ticket.
S. Manoj Harasgama is a serial entrepreneur and startup investor. He’s been the founder/MD at Treatwell, Unleash12, a venture capital company and JOIN.com, and is currently working on a stealth ClimateTech venture. He holds an MA in Accounting and Finance from HSG and an M.Sc. in International Management from CEMS (RSM & HSG) and has worked both at the HQ for corporates like Shell and Adidas as well as at well-known scaleups like usgang.ch and Groupon.
Nowadays he’s working on a climate venture that has yet to fully launch, which has developed a technology that is ready for market today and allows gas turbines to run on zero carbon fuels like hydrogen. Were their tech to be applied, a 100 megawatt turbine, today emitting up to 600’000 tons of CO2 every year, would eliminate emissions and emit zero CO2. This is particularly impactful considering that gas emissions make up around ⅓ of all fossil fuel emissions.
Next to being a serial entrepreneur, Manoj also invests in promising early stage startups, and is a guest lecturer on Growth and Entrepreneurship at universities like the ESADE Lull University in Barcelona, the Technical University Munich and the Rotterdam School of Management.
Nicole Colmenares Pulido is the co-founder and Head of Business Development & Finance at Circleg, a Swiss startup providing affordable and high-quality prosthetics to low and middle income countries across the world. Nicole holds a master’s degree in Business and Development Studies from Copenhagen Business School and previously worked for companies like Climate-KIC and PRORSUM AG before starting Circleg in 2021.
Circleg addresses a very pressing problem: over 90% of global amputees don’t have access to quality prosthetic care, since prosthetic manufacturers tend to focus on high income countries to ensure sizable profit margins. Circleg wants to change this, so they’ve created an affordable, circular and high-quality prosthetic which they’ve begun selling within the African continent, with Kenya as their starting market.
Although initially they depended on grant money, the team is now ready for VC funding, and is raising CHF 1.5M to power their African expansion. Part of these funds are being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate: check out our deal flow page to learn more.
Jonas Urwyler is the co-founder and CEO at Capt’n Greenfin, a fishing goods company striving to make fishing sustainable. He holds an MBA from the University of Freiburg and previously worked for companies like VZ VermögensZentrum and TIER Mobility before starting Capt’n Greenfin in 2021. Nico Hauschke is the General Manager of Germany and the EU at Capt’n Greenfin, and holds an MS in Digital Innovation & Business Transformation from the Steinbeis-Hochschule Schools of Next Practices. He worked for companies like RTL Group and Arvato Financial Solutions before joining Capt’n Greenfin in 2023.
It is estimated that 1’300 tons of plastic and another 1’300 tons of lead end up in European lakes every year due to lost fishing bait. If we add to this that the EU is planning on a complete ban of lead products by 2027, and is banning more and more single use plastic items, it becomes clear that in 2021 the timing was right to launch a sustainable fishing bait company. Capt’n Greenfin produces 100% biodegradable, protein-based bait which will not harm the environment if lost. They’re also conscientious about their packaging, and they produce in Europe, so as to avoid the environmental cost of transporting goods across the globe.
They’re currently raising CHF 150K through the Swisspreneur Syndicate as part of their first fundraising round. Click here to learn more about the deal.
Ansuya Ahluwalia is a co-founder of the wellness and inner transformation app Anamii and the CTO and Business Partner of thirty3, which helps companies with innovative product development by building AI-first applications. She holds a MSc in Computer Science from UCLA and previously worked for companies like Amazon Lab126 and Vicara Infotech Group AG before starting Anamii in 2020.
Her parents are both engineers who worked for a period of time in Silicon Valley, which is why Ansuya was born there, even though their family originally hails from India. They then moved back to India where she continued her studies and pursued a bachelor’s degree. Ansuya then decided to do her master’s in Computer Science at UCLA, in California, specializing in Machine Learning. She went on to work for Amazon as a software developer, where she was successful, and promoted quickly, but where career perspectives looked far too predictable and cookie-cutter for her taste. So in 2017 Ansuya moved to Switzerland, taking a job at Vicara Infotech Group AG, where she worked first as Technical Lead and then as CTO.
3 years on, she decided to quit her job and build Anamii, a platform to help people looking for improved mental wellbeing and spiritual growth be matched with the adequate professionals. Ansuya herself has benefited greatly in the past from meditation and yoga, and still does today. Two years later, in 2022, the business had really started seeing some traction, and Ansuya found it really fulfilling to be helping people in such a tangible way, but unfortunately the Swiss government had other plans: thinking that Ansuya had quit her tech job to become a spiritual coach herself, they mailed her a letter informing her that she was no longer working in a field that aligned with her skillset, and that if she did not return to the tech field within 1 year, she would be asked to leave the country. So Ansuya had no choice but to look for a day job, and the right opportunity came from friends over at thirty3. That same year, she joined Swisspreneur as a co-host, after having connected previously with our main host, Silvan. In 2023, Ansuya sold Anamii to HereNow, and remains active there only as a technical advisor.
Nowadays she is the CTO at thirty3, which helps its customers validate their business ideas, build their products/services in a way that leverages all the available open source code online, and integrate AI into their business wherever beneficial.
Alex Ilic is the co-founder and executive director of the ETH AI Center, one of the world's largest hubs for research in artificial intelligence, comprising a faculty of over 102 professors. He also co-founded Dacuda, S2S Ventures, and Talent Kick, and has invested in numerous Swiss startups. Alex holds a PhD in Management, Technology, and Economics from ETH.
During his chat with our host Silvan, Alex discussed the revolutionary impact of ChatGPT (which has allowed lay people to successfully use AI, instead of just coders), how AI companies don’t need to be very large to challenge tech giants like Google, how Swiss startups can best leverage AI and what it still can’t do for them, and how both government regulation and corporate responsibility play a role in eradicating the unethical biases present in AI models today.
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click here to purchase your ticket.
About Seraina Soldner:
Seraina Soldner is the co-founder and former co-director of SINGA Switzerland, an incubator for projects built by people with a refugee or migrant experience, and currently a project manager at Hospital at Home Verein (hospitales). She holds an MA in International Affairs with a focus on International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute and previously worked for Justice Rapid Response in Geneva, the UN Refugee Agency in Malta and the Munich Refugee Council before starting SINGA’s Swiss chapter in 2016.
SINGA is a unique incubator with the purpose to enhance entrepreneurial skills and provide a local network for people with a refugee or migrant experience. They also support them in achieving access to the Swiss labor market by running a variety of start up and mentoring programs. 25% of participants found a business/an association and 100% of participants feel more part of Swiss society after participating. The SINGA programs were made possible by the Migros Pioneer Fund, part of the social commitment of the Migros Group. The first SINGA organization was founded in 2012 in Paris.
The Migros Pioneer Fund is a voluntary development fund of the Migros Group companies. It was founded as the Migros Commitment Development Fund in 2012 and has since been actively scouting and promoting projects with a long-term benefit to society, and financially supporting them for between three and five years.
David Christen is the co-founder and CMO at quitt, a company that takes the effort, paperwork and stress out of employing domestic helpers for private households, and quitt.business, a platform for the registering and billing of startup employees. He studied Physics and Law at UZH but eventually quit to start his entrepreneurial venture in 2010, against the wishes of his parents.
quitt tackles a very pertinent issue: illegal work in Switzerland. It is estimated that 75M people worldwide work as domestic helpers, 80% of which are undeclared. In Switzerland, the numbers don’t look much better: 30-60% of employers don’t register their domestic helper. These workers are paid in cash, receive no insurance, and are not allowed to tell anyone about the work that they do. Cleaning companies then take a cut of 25-35%, whereas quitt charges only 5-8%. As a result, cleaners earn on average a 50% higher salary by working with quitt.
To date, quitt has over 20,000 customers, with around 40,000 employment contracts and a settled payroll of almost CHF 300 million in Switzerland. Starting in 2023, quitt will also offer its services in Germany.
Stefan Kyora is editor-in-chief at startupticker.ch, the leading Swiss news portal for startups, supporters, innovators and investors, and holds a PhD in Philosophy and Business Ethics from the University of Konstanz. Thomas Heimann is a deputy general secretary at SECA, the Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association, and the Head Risk Management & Equity Analyst at HBM Partners AG, a Swiss healthcare investor. The two of them co-authored the 2023 Swiss Venture Capital Report, which you can download for free here.
During their chat with Silvan, they summarized the report’s findings, as well as the conclusions we can draw from them:
Cristian Grossmann is the co-founder and Head Bee at beekeeper, the well-known Swiss frontline operating system. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from ETH and worked for companies like ChromaCon and Accenture before starting beekeeper in 2011.
During his 12 years at beekeeper, Cris has learned many valuable lessons, the most important of which being to stay true to your company values not only when hiring people but also when taking on investors. In his chat with Ansuya he mentions one instance when beekeeper had only 3 weeks worth of runway left and was presented with a very big term sheet from an investor whose values were clearly not aligned with theirs. They almost gave in, which Cris thinks might have destroyed the company, but thankfully persistence and loyalty to the beekeeper values won out and the founders decided to pitch in some personal funds to keep things afloat.
Cris’ motivation to remain at beekeeper after so many years continues to be his engineer’s affinity for solving complex problems and the mission of solving the tech issues of frontline workers, a demographic which has long been neglected despite making up 2B people worldwide. In the next stage of their company, the team plans to focus on achieving a steady, reliable profitability and attaining maximum efficiency.
Samuel Mueller is the co-founder and CEO at Scandit, the leading technology platform for mobile computer vision and augmented reality (AR) solutions for enterprises. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and Temporal Logics from ETH Zurich. Together with Christian Floerkermeier and Christof Roduner, he created Scandit in 2009.
Their goal with Scandit was to create a bridge between real world objects and the digital information available about them. Barcodes were then the natural entry points, especially at a time when phone cameras were just starting to become ubiquitous.
Scandit runs a subscription-based model which allows customers to “go as they grow”, meaning the bigger they get, the more Scandit services they can accrue. It's also a very high margin business, because a lot of the heavy lifting, the computer vision magic, is happening on the user devices, so there’s no distinct cloud need.
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Ana Montalban-Arques is co-founder and CEO of Recolony, a biotech startup developing a bacteria-based oral therapy to treat cancer. She holds a PhD in Medicine from the Medizinische Universität Graz (Austria) and previously worked at hospitals in Spain and Switzerland before starting Recolony in 2022.
In the past few years, scientists have been made aware of the extent to which our gut microbiome influences our health. Considering we’ve been evolving alongside these bacterias for thousands upon thousands of years, it can be safely said that we’ve developed a symbiotic bond: the state of our microbiome influences our immune system and can even cause (or prevent) certain inflammatory diseases.
Recolony’s team took this research one step further when they found a deficiency in a certain type of bacteria in colorectal cancer patients, and hypothesized whether providing patients with the missing bacteria could help treat their disease. Animal tests showed that this specific bacteria can not only prevent tumors but also treat them once they are already in existence, and that it works not only with colorectal cancer but other sorts of cancers as well, regardless of the fact that the bacteria is in the gut and the tumor may be somewhere completely different in the body. This is because the bacteria produces molecules which travel through the bloodstream and activate an immune response to fight the tumors.
Recolony is a spin-off company from the University of Zurich that started as a research project in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University Hospital Zurich. So far the team has received CHF160K in grant money.
Philippe Greinacher is the co-founder and CEO of nonormal, a startup producing sustainable, high-quality coffee for outdoor consumption — that comes in a tube! He holds a BA in Business Administration from the Business School of Lausanne, and has more than 10 years of experience in business development, sales and partnerships working for Ringier, Ogilvy & Mather, Meltwater, PriceHubble in Africa and Europe.
Alexander Häberlin is the co-founder and CMO of nonormal. He holds an MA in Marketing Management/Business Development from the University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland and worked for many years in the design field helping various international companies such as Sennheiser, Meta, Leica or BAT.
nonormal partnered with a food development contractor to create coffee that is sustainable, organic, has great taste, is vegan and Swiss-made, and comes from a tube, allowing all outdoor enthusiasts to get a cup of coffee whenever they feel like it. So far they’ve got 15K pre-orders coming from 10 countries, CHF 100K from angel investors in Switzerland and the US, and commitments from retail distributors based in Switzerland and abroad.
They’re now raising CHF 500K in a convertible note, part of which is being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Click here to learn more about the deal.
Holger Seim is the co-founder and former CEO at Blinkist, the mobile-first microlearning app. He holds a diploma from the Philipp University of Marburg and previously worked for companies like Volkswagen Group China and Deutsche Telekom before starting Blinkist in 2012.
Blinkist was created during the dawn of smartphones to solve a problem experienced not only by its co-founders but by many working professionals: wanting to learn new things, but not having the time to do so. They take long form content (mostly non-fiction books, but also podcast episodes and articles) and distill them into 15 minute reads or listens. Most features are behind a paywall, but there’s also 1 blink of the day that non-paying users can enjoy. Their user base includes both people who are readers and see Blinkist as a supplement, and people whose sole contact with books comes from Blinkist.
In 2023 Blinkist was acquired by the Australian content company Go1. This was a goal the Blinkist team had been pursuing ever since they took on VC money. Nowadays Holger is no longer the CEO of Blinkist but remains active as COO at Go1.
Nicolas Egger is the co-founder of Poinz, a B2B2C platform for SMEs, and of Aepsy, a mental health platform for online or in-person sessions with psychologists. He holds a BASc in General Management from ZHAW. Prior to university, Nicolas played football and worked at Credit Suisse and PAN Asset Management AG.
During his undergraduate studies, Nicolas joined the startup jayboo as a late co-founder and stayed there for 2 years before starting his next venture, Poinz. At Poinz, Nicolas experienced all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship: he bootstrapped the company for 1.5 years, almost saw the company go bankrupt, lost an exit opportunity at the last minute, got funded by the Deindeal mafia founders, scaled his company up, and ended up meeting his future wife there.
After 6.5 years at Poinz, Nicolas felt that he and his co-founder were not sufficiently in agreement regarding the future of the company, and he also had the urge to start a project in the mental health industry, so he left Poinz in 2019 to start Aepsy a year later. His desire to delve deeper into the mental health industry came when a friend of his went through a mental health crisis, and he found that searching online for a psychologist was a nightmare. He knew his friend wasn’t an isolated case: statistics estimate that ⅓ of Swiss people suffer from mental health issues, and that out of those people, ⅔ do not reach out for help. So he created a platform where people can answer a few questions about their needs and be presented with a suitable selection of therapists, with whom they can do intro calls to assess the fit. Aepsy works with certified Swiss psychotherapists with years of practical experience and has a 95% client satisfaction rate.
Murielle Schreck is the co-founder and CEO at qCella, an ETH spin-off impregnating natural fibers with copper and using them to develop heating pads with superior properties compared to commercially available heating wires. She holds a PhD in Materials Science from ETH and started qCella as soon as she obtained her degree in 2021.
qCella mats have the proper electrical resistance across the entire structure so that they heat homogeneously when connected to a power source (e.g.: a battery). The thinness and smoothness of the heating mats allow for more energy-efficient heating by eliminating the need for a heat-losing upholstery layer between mat and human body. The heating mats can also be cut into any shape and size and are easily integrated into the final heated product.
qCella is currently raising a pre-seed round of CHF 600K, part of which through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. They plan on using the funds to help launch their first product. Click here to learn more about the deal.
Sven Erni is the co-founder and CEO at Impact Acoustic, a Swiss provider of high-performance, circular acoustic solutions made from upcycled material. He holds a BSc in International Hotel Management from EHL, Lausanne, and previously worked for companies like PDM International and Pfister Professional AG before starting Impact Acoustic in 2019.
Most acoustic panels nowadays are made out of glass or rock, and so while they are technically circular/recyclable, it requires a lot of energy (and therefore money) to recycle them. Impact Acoustics’ panels, on the other hand, are made 100% out of recycled PET bottles and are themselves recyclable. Their products are lightweight, robust, washable and available in several sizes.
Together with his team, Sven decided to say no to a request for a quotation from the American PepsiCo headquarters for + USD 500K, which would have been their biggest single standing offer to date. They did this out of a conviction that it does not make sense to work with one of the 5 biggest plastic polluters on Earth if their mission is to help fight plastic waste. Similarly, they decided not to work with any of the other 4 big polluters: Coca-Cola, Suntory, Danone, and Nestlé. Their board was not happy, but Sven and his team have stuck to their decision and continue saying no to offers from these companies, even though they estimate that this will lose them 1.2-1.5M in turnover in 2023 alone. They do, however, do business with companies like Amazon, and the rationale behind it is that if they don’t do business with any polluters, they won’t do business at all. Their goal is to one day become obsolete (as there will be no more plastic waste), but they don’t think this will happen anytime soon.
Get tickets to Scaleup Slopes 2024 here.
Thomas Zurbuchen is a professor at ETH Space and the former Head of Science at NASA. He was born in 1968 in the canton of Bern, son of a Free Church preacher who did not want him to attend university to study Astrophysics. Thomas went against his father’s wishes and was consequently kicked out of the house, and the ensuing isolation was the hardest ordeal he ever experienced in his life. In retrospect, Thomas believes this experience inoculated him from fearing future isolation and hardship.
After completing his PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Bern in 1996, Thomas moved to the US to take a job at the University of Michigan, where he founded the Center for Entrepreneurship. Thomas spent 2 decades as a tenured professor there before joining NASA. During his 6 years as an Associate Administrator at NASA, Thomas led the science program and oversaw 37 launches and 55 new missions. In 2022 he left NASA, because he felt like he’d already contributed all his best ideas and wasn’t really growing on a constant basis anymore.
2023 saw Thomas move back to Switzerland and take up a teaching job at ETH, where he leads the space programs and works to grow science and commercial activities in Switzerland and beyond.
Sophie Lamparter is the co-founder of DART Labs, an international fund investing in early stage Swiss climate and health tech startups to accelerate them on the US market. She holds a degree in Communication and Media Studies from ZHAW.
Pascal Koenig is the co-founder, former CEO and current board member at AVA women, a startup manufacturing wearable fertility trackers for women. He studied business in St Gallen and New York and worked at McKinsey for a few years before being invited by one of his university professors to join a startup project — Cardiosave.
Pascal and Sophie have created a fundraising masterclass which is available for free at https://swisspreneur.org/fundraising. During this live session, they summarized the masterclass into a few key takeaways, some of which are jotted down in these shownotes as well.
How do you know if VC money is right for you?
Sophie and Pascal think that if you can afford to go bootstrapped, you should do it. If you only need to raise a small sum of money, go for angel investors. If you want to raise larger amounts, it would make sense to reach out to VC investors, but you should take into consideration that a VC fund’s goal is to have one of their investments return the value of the entire fund. So if you pitch to a CHF 100M fund, know that their goal is to invest in a startup that will return them 100M. Is that the kind of startup that you are willing to build and capable of building?
How do I make my startup more “investable”?
First of all, you need to strengthen the team. If your startup has little to no traction but a great idea, then what funds evaluate is the team’s potential. Secondly, you should attempt to build some traction through things like marketing campaigns, and if you haven’t validated your product/service yet, you should at least validate the tech it’s based on.
How much equity should I give away in my first round?
No more than 25%. Remember, if things go well, you’ll be doing plenty of rounds.
How do I come up with my startup’s valuation?/ How much money should I ask for?
Know that if you ask for CHF 1M, that presupposes your company valuation is CHF 4M. So if you go in asking for CHF 5M and investors don’t think your company is worth CHF 20M, you’re not getting any money.
Should I go for an equity round or a convertible loan?
Convertible loans have the advantage of being fast: you can deploy the money the following day. Pascal and Sophie recommend that if your company is still early stage and/or if you’re raising a small sum, you should go for a convertible loan. For bigger rounds/late stage, go for equity.
What makes a great pitch deck?
Simplicity. It should be crystal clear even for people who don’t work with you/in your industry.
Why do I need to build a long list of 100 investors? Shouldn’t I be selective?
Selectivity happens further down the line. If you just talk to 5 investors, even if they respond enthusiastically, that doesn’t at all mean that they'll invest.
Pascal recommends that you reach out to 100 investors (given that they all invest in your industry/stage), because out of those 100, 50 will do a call. Out of the 50, 20 will go into due diligence. And then once you get your first term sheet from one of them, other term sheets start showing up — that’s the time to be selective!
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Mallory Houston Nieman is the owner and operator of Velocity, Switzerland’s first indoor cycling studio. She holds a BA in English & Psychology from Cornell University and an MBA from Swiss Business School, Kloten, and previously worked for American advertising agencies like Hill Holliday and Digitas before moving to Switzerland in 2011 and starting Velocity in 2015.
At Velocity, every ride is measured via power meters, and the rider’s distance covered, calories burned, and power output (watts) are recorded on their online profile so that they can track their progress towards their personal goals. In Velocity’s Veloburn classes, riders have the option to join the Veloboard leaderboard.
The first challenge Mallory faced when building Velocity was landing the first location (in Zurich): they needed a lot of air, water, and sound proofing, and Mallory’s German was limited at the time, so it was tough to find the right space and convince the landlord to take them in. The second big challenge the team faced was the COVID pandemic, during which they had to close down. To stay afloat, Mallory put the Velocity team on Kurzarbeit, negotiated with landlords, and also benefited from a percentage of revenue loss from the Swiss government. She also made sure to maintain Velocity’s online presence so as to preserve unity and motivation among their community.
Velocity currently has 3 locations: Zurich, Zug and Enge. They’ve chosen to expand on their own instead of franchising because they care deeply about maintaining the soul of Velocity, and also because they’re very careful when choosing locations — all 3 of their studios are within a 4 minute walk of train stations.
Mario Michan is the co-founder and CEO of Daphne Technology, a climate deep tech company reducing air pollution produced by the global shipping industry. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of British Columbia and previously worked as a research scientist at CERN and EPFL before starting Daphne Technologies in 2017.
The company measures, reduces and monetises greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources by developing and scaling innovative technology, enabling their customers to monetise voluntary carbon emission reductions. Shell Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Trafigura, AET and Swisscom have invested in Daphne Technologies, and the company has subsidiaries in Norway and the US.
Michael Waldner is the co-founder and CEO at Pexapark, a provider of energy risk and portfolio management capabilities for renewable energy. He holds a MSc in Industrial Management and Manufacturing Engineering from ETH and previously worked at companies like EGL AG and Axpo Trading AG before starting Pexapark in 2017.
With more than 30GW of renewable PPA transactions supported, Pexapark is the reference for buying, selling and managing renewable energy. What is PPA, you may ask? The acronym stands for Power Purchase Agreement, which is a contractual agreement between energy buyers and sellers. They come together and agree to buy and sell an amount of energy which is or will be generated by a renewable asset. PPAs are usually signed for a long-term period between 10-20 years. Thanks to the low cost of solar technology, solar is now one of the cheapest renewables available. That is what makes solar PPAs popular.
Loris Niederberger is the co-founder of Moodtalk, a software for clarity and structure on how teams work together successfully. He holds an MA in International Management from CEMS and previously worked for companies like swissnex China and Voliro Airborne Robotics before starting Moodtalk in 2021.
It is estimated that 97% of C-levels don't know how the company’s strategy, values, and principles are understood and lived in teams, and 3 out of 4 employees say it's unclear how to collaborate optimally as a team. This lack of clarity naturally leads to dissatisfaction, overload, and disorientation — that’s where Moodtalk comes in! Moodtalk lets you define rules for collaboration and update them frequently, and every defined initiative gets tracked.
Through Moodtalk, you can define some basic rules for working optimally together as a team by answering questions like:
By defining these things early on and sticking to them, you slowly build up ‘psychological safety’ in your team, which is a term for how willing your team members are to speak up whenever they disagree with something, or simply wish to propose an idea. Of course these things can theoretically be achieved without specialized software, but then again, so can sales and accounting, and we don’t tackle those without proper software nowadays. Moodtalk estimates that through their software teams save an average of 12h per month (mostly by cutting out unnecessary meetings!) and reduce fluctuation by more than 20%.
Paulina Grnarova is the co-founder and CEO of DeepJudge, an AI-powered Knowledge Search for legal professionals. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from ETH. Philippe Ganz is the CEO and co-founder of aiEndoscopic, a medtech startup combining artificial intelligence with robotic endoscopy. He holds a MSc in Biomedical Engineering from ETH.
During their chat with Silvan, Philippe and Paulina discussed some of the commons topics of starting your first company, like which values to cultivate in your founder team and how to set up a shareholders agreement that foresees all future possibilities, whether to go for grants or equity rounds as a science-heavy startup, and the guiding principles of building an MVP.
Adrian Melliger is the co-owner and CEO of Designwerk Technologies, an electromobility one-stop-shop. He previously worked for companies like Swissport and Ground Handling Team Holding before joining Designwerk in 2018.
Designwerk was founded back in 2008, after its founders went on a 80-day, all-electric world record circumnavigation with the specially developed Zerotracer cabin motorcycle. Ten years on, the founders invited Adrian to join them as external CEO because they felt a lack of business acumen in their engineer-only founder team.
Designwerk develops and constructs electric trucks, battery systems and chargers. Although their electric vehicles require more energy to produce (and therefore emit more CO2) than diesel vehicles, they make for it on the consumer side, since over their entire lifetime they produce up to 60-90% less CO2. They also often get used in other applications (like solar panels, for example) once their first life runs out (= 15 years), and can be shredded and have 92-96% of their raw materials be recycled.
Designwerk’s turnover increased 11x ever since Adrian joined as CEO, and like any other scaling company, they’ve had to deal with some growing pains: getting the right people on board, adapting the structure and processes, ensuring sufficient cash flow (especially in a capital-intensive business like theirs) and ensuring the availability of materials, especially during challenging times like the COVID pandemic.
In 2021, Volvo Group acquired a stake in Designwerk Group to complement its existing offering in the area of niche products and solutions.
Reto Naef is the founder and former CEO of TOPADUR PHARMA AG, a biopharmaceutical company developing disruptive therapies for aging diseases. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from ETH and an MBA from UZH and previously worked for pharma companies like Sandoz and Novartis before starting TOPADUR in 2015.
TOPADUR develops dual-acting drugs that target the cGMP-Enzyme Regulation System to stimulate microcirculation, enable tissue regeneration, and avoid local oxygen deficiency. Based on this key invention, they’ve built a portfolio of drug candidates to treat aging-related diseases like chronic wounds, skin fibrosis, age-related macular degeneration, colorectal cancer, hair loss and skin aging.
TOPADUR recently participated in the Sparks IPO Academy as part of their journey towards going public. They estimate that an IPO will be possible around early 2025, provided that they successfully bring all the drugs in their portfolio to market. Reto decided to step down from his operative role in 2023.
Vivek Dogra is a venture partner at the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund, the leading investment fund dedicated to growth-stage companies and projects within the European Bioeconomy. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics from PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh (India) and an MBA from INSEAD. He previously worked for companies like Heineken, Red Bull and Nestlé before joining ECBF in 2020.
Arijana Walcott is a co-founder and managing partner at DART Labs, together with former Swisspreneur guest Sophie Lamparter. DART invests in early stage startups from Switzerland and Europe and helps them test and scale their ideas in San Francisco. Arijana holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in General Management from HSO and previously worked as VP Innovation & Technology at Swisscom.
Lukas André is a managing partner at Redstone Digital, a Berlin-based Venture Capital firm that manages multiple corporate and institutional venture funds. He holds a MSc in Finance, Entrepreneurship & Computer Science from the University of Bern and previously co-founded 3 startups before joining the VC world.
Dominique Gruhl is the CEO of Serpentine Ventures, the investment arm of the Swiss Ventures Group and leading Swiss advisor for venture assets. She holds an MA in Applied Economics from HEC Montréal and an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Leeds. Dominique previously worked at A.T. Kearney and the Canadian Embassy in Bern before joining Serpentine Ventures in 2023.
During their chat with Silvan, the four spoke about the difficulties and intricacies of running a venture fund in Europe, exploring topics like how to manage investor relationships so as never to lose an investor’s trust, why deeptech is what sets Europe apart, and how the sustainability sector is shaping up in the current fundraising climate.
Christian Fischer is the co-founder and CEO at Bcomp, a global leader in advanced renewable material solutions. He holds a PhD in Materials Science from EPFL and previously worked at the aluminum products manufacturer Constellium before founding Bcomp in 2011.
The company started as a garage project to create lightweight, high performance skis. The result was bCores™, which were launched and successfully adopted by some of the biggest names in freeride skiing. The founders, material science PhDs from EPFL, used flax fibers to reinforce the balsa cores and improve shear stiffness. Impressed by the excellent mechanical properties of flax fibers, they began thinking of other applications and a potential business case.
Nowadays they additionally produce ampliTex™ and power-Ribs™, whose proprietary natural fiber-based reinforcement technologies reduce environmental impact in a wide range of high-performance applications, from automotive interiors to the highest levels of motorsports, from luxury yachting to sports, infrastructure, aerospace and even space.
Bcomp recently participated in the Sparks IPO Academy.
Jan Luescher is the CEO at ASMALLWORLD, an exclusive travel & lifestyle community. He previously worked as a Principal at Bain & Company and holds a MA in Strategy and International Management from HSG. Fabian Gerber is a Senior Relationship Manager at SIX Swiss Exchange, with a focus on IPOs. He holds a masters in Corporate Finance from HSLU and previously worked for Zürcher Kantonalbank and Credit Suisse.
ASMALLWORLD did a direct listing on the Swiss Stock Exchange in 2018, registering shares at a price of CHF 9.75 per share. During his conversation with Silvan, Jan shared his insights on the process of going public, and Fabian added his perspective as someone with inside knowledge.
So why do companies go public?
Where should you list your company?
What are the requirements for going public in Switzerland?
But wait! Not all that shimmers is gold. What are the disadvantages of going public?
Of course, going public did indeed help ASMALLWORLD in acquiring more capital and gaining trust with potential partners, and the effort required to report publicly twice a year is something which Jan says helps you run your business better overall.
Sarah Harbarth is the co-founder and CEO of kuori, a B2B enterprise providing eco-friendly alternative-plastic granules for fashion, outdoor equipment, tools, and toys. She holds a BA in Industrial Design from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, and was working there as a research assistant when she started kuori in 2021.
The idea for kuori arose out of a need to combat the issue of microplastics, which are non-biodegradable materials that pollute our waterways and end up in our food, while also tackling the problem of food waste. And so Sarah had the idea to upcycle food byproducts, like banana peels and walnut shells, to build plastic alternatives that are 5x more ecological while also preserving elasticity.
Since the start of the project, kuori has closed €2.3M in financing, which allowed them to upscale their production and their team. They are currently raising their next round, looking for 1.5M in dilutive money. Part of this money is being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate.
Markus Witte is the chairman and co-founder of Babbel, the market leading app for language learning, as well as a partner at Wachstumsbegleitung, which offers coaching and consulting for scaling startups. He holds an MA in Cultural Studies from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and previously worked as a university professor in Germany and the US before founding Babbel in 2007.
In his second conversation with our host, Silvan, Markus shared his thoughts on co-founder relationships and managing an early stage startup. Here is a summary of his takeaways:
Marco Rodzynek is the founder and CEO at NOAH Conference, an annual event with an unique line up of digital champions and sustainability market leaders. Marco previously worked at Lehman Brothers, where he was involved in 90+ M&A deals, before starting NOAH Conference and NOAH Advisors in 2009. NOAH Advisors is a European leading corporate finance boutique focused on digital growth and sustainability companies.
The next NOAH Conference is scheduled for the 13-14th of December 2023 in Zurich, hosting 350 digital growth and sustainable companies to meet with over 500 unique investment funds.
Sophie Lamparter is the co-founder of DART Labs, an international fund investing in early stage Swiss climate and health tech startups to accelerate them on the US market. She holds a degree in Communication and Media Studies from ZHAW.
During this episode with us she discussed the current fundraising environment, which is looking very much like an uphill battle not only at the Swiss level but worldwide. There’s less capital available, investors are favoring caution, and companies are doing bridge rounds, because they’re not quite ready for the next round. But Sophie thinks we would do well to remember the time scale at hand: the average fund duration is 10 years, as is the average founder journey — by comparison, a rough 2023 is just a blip in the startup universe. In fact, Sophie argues that now is the smart time to invest, since valuations are down and we know from past startup history that the best companies are forged during crises.
In 2022, the industry which received the most investment in Switzerland was fintech, closely followed by climatetech. Sophie and DART Labs are placing their bets on climatetech in 2023 for several reasons:
DART Labs is currently raising USD 20M, and is still considered an emerging fund. Their investment strategy is health and climatetech early stage Swiss companies looking to enter the US market. Whether you are an investor looking to finance DART, or a startup aiming to be financed by DART, click the link above to head to their website and find out more.
Arijana Walcott is a co-founder and managing partner at DART Labs, together with former Swisspreneur guest Sophie Lamparter. DART invests in early stage startups from Switzerland and Europe and helps them test and scale their ideas in San Francisco. Arijana holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in General Management from HSO and previously worked as VP Innovation & Technology at Swisscom.
At DART Labs, she interacts with dozens of startups on a weekly basis, and during her chat with us she summarized some of the lessons she’s learned so far.
Is your startup VC-backable?
That depends on how fast you’re willing to go. The question in any investor’s mind, when deliberating whether or not to invest, is “Can this investment provide a return for the entirety of the money this fund has invested thus far?” If you’re not willing/able to grow your valuation 3x every 12 to 18 months, VC money is probably not the right choice for you. Growing at this rate is not the right option for every startup necessarily, but it is very much the type of thing VCs want. For instance, at DART Labs, Arijana and Sophie ask startups whether within 5 years they will be able to reach 50M in revenue, or be acquired for 50M.
Should you go for VC money or business angels?
That depends on the stage of your company. If you’re at a pre-seed stage, you’ll probably only be able to convince business angels. At seed stage, your investor pool might look like a mixed bag. From Series A onwards, you’re much more likely to captivate VCs, and may perhaps start relying more on them than on angel money.
How should you best approach a venture capitalist?
Arijana recommends that you structure your fundraising timeline around upcoming milestones which impact your valuation. She also urges you to make sure you have enough runway. 6 months for fundraising and 7 months of runway… is a recipe for disaster.
What are VCs thinking about during the first intro call?
In future calls, you’ll discuss things like the business model, your sales pipeline, etc.
What makes a good pitch deck?
Georg Hirschi is the co-founder and strategy lead at FOUND, a startup bringing the digital consumer revolution to hiring. He holds an MA in Applied Sciences, Commerce & Business Administration from UZH, and previously worked at companies like PeopleScout and Lee Hecht Harrison before starting FOUND in 2022, together with his co-founder Ranjit de Sousa.
Despite the COVID pandemic having turbocharged digitization in companies across the globe, hiring has remained immune to innovation for the past few decades. Employers and job searchers alike are overwhelmingly unhappy with the hiring process, whether that be with or without the services of recruiters.
FOUND turns the tables and has employers pitch opportunities to top talent. AI-based matching and gamified assessments make every interaction worthwhile and keep everyone happy. Of course, FOUND only works with fast growing companies committed to providing a great employee experience, and they only accept top talent onto their platform.
Here’s what sets the FOUND talent community apart:
FOUND’s services are free for talent, and free for employers as well right up until an employment contract is exchanged — then they pay a fixed fee. This way, it’s a 0 risk proposition for both the employer and the employee.
"We want to simultaneously solve the skills gap for employers and get people jobs that they really love."
Anna Grassler is co-CEO at FELFEL, a company changing the way people eat at work. She holds a masters in Management & Social Entrepreneurship from ESCP Business School and previously worked for companies like L’Oréal and Gärtnerei before joining FELFEL in 2022.
Cristian Grossmann is the co-founder and Head Bee at beekeeper, the well-known Swiss frontline operating system. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from ETH and worked for companies like ChromaCon and Accenture before starting beekeeper in 2011.
Sven Jakelj is the co-founder and CEO at feey, an online shop for house plants. He holds an MA in Economics from UZH and previously worked for Deutsche Bank and PROCIVIS before starting feey in 2019.
As both external CEOs and founders, this trio had a lot to say about shaping and trimming your company culture. They agreed that “culture” can best be defined as the shared set of values that is reflected in every interaction each employee has with the company. This means that once you’ve defined your company values, it isn’t enough to create posters stating these and hang them around the office: you’ve got to live them out during hiring, during performance reviews, at lunch time — all the time!
Which is not to say that as your company scales, your values can’t evolve as well. At beekeeper, for instance, their values used to be described by their stakeholders as very “kumbaya”, but as this Swiss company grew, these values adapted to withstand bigger and tougher challenges, and a clear reflection of that change was that their performance reviews became stricter.
Check out Silvan’s conversation with these 3 entrepreneurs to learn more about how to set the right values, how to make sure the culture reflects them, and how to tell the difference between letting your values evolve and letting culture get out of hand.
"All the jobs I’ve had I liked at the beginning, but eventually got bored with." (Sven)
"Don’t hire 'maybes' out of desperation. You will regret it, and you will have lost time." (Anna)
"Our values have stayed constant, but our culture has changed."(Cris)
Nikos Kariotoglou is the co-founder and CEO at Seervision, an industry pioneer in AI-driven camera automation software to enable effective hybrid collaboration in corporate boardrooms or lecture halls. He holds a PhD in Control Engineering from ETH and a M.Eng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London, and worked as a post-doc researcher at ETH’s Automatic Control Laboratory before starting Seervision in 2016.
Seervision is a provider of AI-powered camera automation software to streamline video production workflows. Seervision improved on the existing surveillance-type automated cameras, which were only able to detect objects, by adding the ability to predict the object’s behavior and move based on this prediction. Their initial project was recording lectures at ETH, but nowadays offer their services for a wide range of applications, such as videoconferencing and live presentations. Their software requires robotic cameras to run, so Seervision sells customers the cameras and then a software subscription as well.
In June 2023 Seervision announced they had been acquired by California-based Q-Sys. Nikos remains active in the company.
"The gap between research and practice is 10+. So research can never come too early out of the lab. If you have a hypothesis, go for it."
"You’ve built a product. But you’re not just selling that: you’re selling the service, and tailoring it to the customer."
Sophie Lamparter is the co-founder of DART Labs, an international fund investing in early stage European climate and health tech startups to accelerate them on the US market. She holds a degree in Communication and Media Studies from ZHAW. Daniel Gutenberg is a business angel and entrepreneur, having founded Gutenberg Communication Systems AG at 25 and sold it 5 years later, in 2000. He holds a diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Ecole Technique Supérieure. Christina Vallgren is the co-founder, CEO and President of Terapet SA, a medtech startup based in Geneva. She holds a PhD in Applied Physics.
Coming in with the American perspective, Sophie Lamparter shared that the biggest difference between the Swiss and Silicon Valley ecosystems is culture: in California, every conversation starts with a yes, and you then figure out whether it stays a yes or turns into a no; in Switzerland, conversations start with a no, and then maybe, after the arduous process of building trust, this no can turn into a yes. For startups to thrive, a yes-culture is obviously more beneficial.
Other topics discussed during this episode include the preparation founder teams must make before they raise funds, how to raise money in uncertain times, what the ideal runway is to start fundraising, and what makes a great pitch deck. Listen to the episode to find out what our guests have to say on these topics and check out Swisspreneur’s free fundraising masterclass (which includes Sophie!) to learn more.
"Next year, we’re going to be looking back at 2023 and saying ‘Boy, 2023 was easy!’" (Daniel Gutenberg)
"As a CEO, you have to build momentum around your company all the time." (Sophie Lamparter)
Tanja Koch is a co-founder at Amplo, a no code platform that makes AI easy and accessible to service and operation departments. She holds a MSc in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zürich and previously worked for companies like LEVITRONIX and 9T Labs before starting Amplo in 2021.
When it comes to finding the right co-founders, Tanja has some advice to give:
Amplo raised a CHF 1.6M pre-seed round back in September 2022, in the midst of a complicated fundraising environment. This is Tanja’s advice on pulling a round like that off:
"Ask your existing investors who they know who could invest in your following rounds."
Urs Hölzle is SVP of Engineering at Google, having started there in 1999 as their first Search Engine Mechanic and altogether 8th employee. Prior to Google, he started his own company Animorphic LLC in 1994 following the completion of his PhD in Computer Science at Stanford, and later worked as an Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara and a consultant at Sun Microsystems.
Having watched Google grow from a tiny company to the megalithic enterprise it is today, Urs had a front row seat to the development of its culture, and played an active role in shaping it. Here’s his advice for other scaling ventures:
"Right place, right time is not something you can force."
"I think the #1 reason companies fail is not being mindful enough about scaling well."
"Sometimes the most dangerous thing is to be the smartest person in the room, because it means you stop learning."
Rodrigo Fraga-Silva is the co-founder and CEO at Comphya, a Swiss medical device company and EPFL spin-off with the mission to help patients overcome erectile dysfunction through an innovative neurostimulating implant. He holds a PhD in Pharmacology from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and was previously a Postdoctoral Researcher at EPFL and scientist at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering before starting Comphya in 2017.
The problem Comphya solves is clear: whether because of spinal cord injuries, prostatectomy (the removal of the prostate) or other causes, there is a percentage of men who struggle with erectile dysfunction, and of these men, 30% do not respond to oral drugs like Viagra. Their traditional alternatives are injections or prosthetics, both of which are painful and decrease their quality of life.
This is where Comphya comes in: the team has developed a neurostimulator which can be implanted in the patient’s pelvic floor through a minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, and which responds to a wireless remote control to provide patients with self-controlled stimulation. Comphya is currently at the pilot clinical trial phase, and so far implantations have gone extremely well, with no side effects and with patients going home the next day.
Comphya is currently raising a bridge financing round through the Swisspreneur Syndicate, to fill a ticket of CHF 500K. Check out the Swisspreneur Syndicate’s deal flow page on notion to find out more.
"30% of the men with erectile dysfunction don’t respond to oral stimulants."
Herbert Bay is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and board member. He co-founded the image-recognition platform kooaba, the AR company Shortcut and the mental health tracker Earkick, where he is currently still active. He holds a PhD in Computer Vision from ETH Zurich and is the original author of the SURF algorithm, used for various Computer Vision and AR applications such as object recognition, image registration, classification, 3D reconstruction etc.
Throughout his decades of experience, Herbert has learned from his mistakes as a product builder, and shared some of his takeaways with us. The following points are advice that he finds universal for all entrepreneurs:
Speaking of startup ideas, the ideation stage is full of potential traps:
How can you choose between ideas? Reduce each of them to an MVP and test them. Then check which one has the highest conversion rate.
How do you know if you’ve reached product-market fit? Herbert likes Sean Ellis’ “product-market fit score”: ask your users how they would feel if they could no longer use your product — “not disappointed,” “somewhat disappointed,” “very disappointed.” If 40% or more answer very disappointed, then you’ve reached product-market fit.
When it comes to perfecting your product, Herbert is no fan of user testing (i.e., paying people to test your product), because the payment factor conditions people to be nicer to you than they otherwise would be, and because these people are most likely not regular users of your product. He recommends getting in touch with your actual users through surveys, cold outreach, etc. Set up a call, go into detail!
Any idea that is truly disruptive will have a lot of people against it. Ignore those people and listen to your customers."
Canay Deniz is the co-founder and CEO at Ren, the intelligence tool that alerts you of actionable news about clients, prospects, and key contacts and helps you reach out in a timely and meaningful way. Canay holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Business from ETH, and previously worked at the data intelligence company Teralytics before starting Ren in 2019.
His startup, Ren, which aims to systematize serendipity, was itself born out of a lucky coincidence: a friend of Canay introduced him to his now co-founder, Lionel Hertig, and this encounter led him to take the entrepreneurial plunge.
What is serendipity, you may ask? Generally, it’s defined as a happy coincidence, but for Ren’s purposes the concept (at least when applied to the business world) can be broken down into 3 main elements:
Ren’s goal is to give sales a human face and make it pertinent and beneficial for all parties involved. And it’s not just useful for sales people: the fundamental act of selling is a skill required for many aspects of a company’s operations, like hiring and fundraising. Currently Ren is focused on the English-speaking market, which they feel is big enough (at least for now), and their target customer is a relationship-based senior professional handling big deals in their day to day.
“A random email from a buddy led me to becoming CEO of Ren.”
“Perfect is the enemy of done.”
“We need to be very careful not to confuse traction with being pulled in 5 different directions.”
Roland Brack ist Gründer des Onlinehändlers Brack.ch sowie Gründer und Inhaber der Firmengruppe Competec.
1994 gründete er studienbegleitend die Einzelfirma Brack Consulting. 1997 lancierte Brack unter brack.ch seinen Onlineshop, der sich in den folgenden Jahren zu einer der umsatzstärksten E-Commerce-Plattformen der Schweiz entwickelte. 2007 gründete Roland Brack die Competec-Gruppe, um bestehenden Tochtergesellschaften und künftigen Akquisitionen ein Dach zu geben. Zwischen 2007 und 2018 fungierte Brack als CEO der Competec-Gruppe. Aktuell ist er Präsident des Verwaltungsrats.
Die Förderung des Unternehmertums liegt Roland Brack stark am Herzen. Er betätigt sich seit längerem als Investor, Berater und Verwaltungsrat bei diversen Jungunternehmen. Seit 2019 wirkt er als Investor in der Schweizer Ausgabe von Die Höhle der Löwen mit. Sein Ziel ist es, Unternehmertum einer breiten Öffentlichkeit, insbesondere auch einem jungen Publikum als etwas Erstrebenswertes darzustellen.
Seit 2002 ist Roland Brack ein leidenschaftlicher Offroad-Rallyefahrer. Er erreichte mit seiner langjährigen Beifahrerin Carmen Hrup und seinem Team outofcontrol diverse Podestplätze bei Veranstaltungen in Europa und Nordafrika. 2013 hat das Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen in einer TV-Dokumentation Roland Brack an einer Rally in den Karpaten begleitet.
„Wenn der Kunde zufrieden ist, kommt Umsatz und Wachstum von alleine.“
„Wir waren die ersten in der Branche, welche die Lagerbestände öffentlich gemacht haben. Alle haben gesagt: „Spinnst du eigentlich?“
„Wenn das Glück vor der Türe steht, muss man bereit sein die Türe zu öffnen.“
Adrian Krebs is the co-founder and CEO at Kadoa, a SaaS company providing AI-powered data extraction. He holds a MAS in Information Technology from Berner Fachhochschule BFH and previously built the shopping guide Looria.
Together with his co-founders, Johannes Engler and Tavis Lochhead, he created Kadoa in 2023 to address a pressing issue: the hours upon hours of tedious, manual data extraction work performed by freelancers across the globe. Kadoa’s AI technology lets you build data extraction workflows on autopilot, without fighting scrapers, mappers, or APIs. They launched it this year to take advantage of three converging factors:
After building their product in 8 months and reaching CHF 100K ARR, the Kadoa team has a full sales pipeline. Their only bottleneck is human capital: there’s still only 3 people on the team. That’s why they’re raising CHF 1.5M, part of which through the Swisspreneur Syndicate, for a 24 month runway. With these funds the Kadoa founders intend to achieve product-market fit, acquire 30 new enterprise customers and reach break even. Check out the Swisspreneur Syndicate’s deal flow page on notion to find out more.
"80% of all data is unstructured, and 80-90% of all data worldwide was produced within the last 2 years."
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Tim Beck is the co-founder at BLP Digital, an ETH and HSG spin-off that uses AI to automate ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) processes. He attended both RWTH Aachen University and Georgia Tech. Before starting BLP Digital, he worked as a strategy consultant and specialist in digital business models and automation in the manufacturing industry. He has also successfully founded and managed three other startups, including the augmented reality startup CLIPTHIS.
Tim's entrepreneurial journey was shaped by his family background; his parents were both entrepreneurs, leading to daily exposure to business discussions, and it was a path that felt natural for him to follow. Despite this, he was not pressured to take over the family business and chose engineering and strategy consulting as his path.
BLP Digital, co-founded by Tim and his brother Sven, started with a sound footing because of the deep industry connections and technical expertise that came fromtheir parents being a part of the same industry. They initially focused on product development and engineering, bringing in co-founders with complementary skills to expand their market presence. BPL Digital's core offering revolves around machine learning to automate ERP processes, particularly document sharing between companies. They emphasize customer satisfaction, offering clients proof of concepts with actual data before committing them to services.
BPL Digital maintains control over its growth trajectory as a bootstrapped company, incentivizing employees with shares to foster a sense of ownership. Their ambition is to move from ground zero to an eventual IPO, reflecting an exciting journey ahead for the company. This episode sheds light on Tim Beck's entrepreneurial path, BPL Digital's unique approach to solving industry challenges, and their vision for the future.
“Bringing in 2 more CEOs later made sense for us when we wanted to enter the market, and find people with more valuable skills in this area”
“We consider ourselves a kind of a chat GPT for documents, as our system can read things it has never seen before.”
This episode was sponsored by quitt.business.
Tim Duehrkoop is the co-founder and CEO of Xilva, a cleantech startup building the digital infrastructure for forestry investments with a focus on enabling funding through holistic project assessments. He received a PhD from HSG in Business Administration and attended Stanford for an executive program for growing companies. Once he completed his studies, he joined a startup called Namics, where he worked for 24 years. During this time he witnessed the growth of this small venture into a corporate powerhouse with 500 employees, as well as its successful exit, which left him pondering his next move within the Swiss entrepreneur ecosystem. Driven by a profound passion for addressing climate issues rather than solely pursuing profits, he is set out to make a meaningful impact.
His path converged with a co-founder specializing in forestry, leading them to tackle climate change by addressing market inefficiencies within the Swiss startup network. Their action was motivated by increased feelings of climate grief, and by wanting to actively do something about it. They recognized reforestation as a highly scalable, proven solution for removing CO2 from the atmosphere. During his episode with us, Tim discussed the evolution of the Swiss investment market and the challenges faced by startups within the Swiss startup network seeking funding, particularly in Series A and Series B rounds. Despite the current funding climate presenting difficulties, he has remained optimistic, anticipating improved conditions in the near future for Swiss entrepreneurs.
Startups can play a pivotal role in the climate tech sector, and while acknowledging that startups alone cannot solve the climate crisis, Tim argues that they serve as crucial laboratories for discovering effective solutions within the Swiss entrepreneur landscape. Additionally, he discussed strategies for enhancing startup operations in this space, such as creating favorable tax environments, establishing grant programs, engaging with governmental support and how they target angel investors.
“Startups can do many things but they can’t solve climate change. However they are important elements to find out what works in order to make an impact, and they help to facilitate and further develop new solutions.”
“Green washing is committing to something but then it’s not really helping the environment. Green hushing means you don’t commit to anything and hope nobody notices, and Green waiting is waiting for an initiative to come along but then not spending anything in the meantime.”
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Simon Krähenbühl and Silvia Nadenbousch are the co-founders of ILEVE OPTICS, an eyewear brand which consists of two separate lines: LARS Brillen, a prescription and sunglasses B2B brand sold to opticians across Switzerland, and ILEVE DISTRICT, a cycling eyewear brand sold directly to customers and through selected retail stores. Simon is responsible for Design and Product Development and holds a master's in Innovation, Industrial and Product Design, and Silvia is the Communications and Marketing head, with a master's in Business and Economics.
The idea for ILEVE came from Simon’s personal experience as a glasses wearer: his glasses kept sliding down his nose, so he decided to develop an innovative glass hinge which prevented this from happening. His hinge patent was the first technical development in terms of glasses hinges in decades, and that is why he and his co-founder Silvia don’t feel threatened by the amount of other eyewear brands out there. Most brands, say the co-founders of ILEVE, innovate only in terms of colors and shapes, whereas this Swiss-made brand brings true added value to the wearer.
If eyewear is a market with plenty of competition, it also has a never ending stream of customers: as people age, most develop a need for glasses, and with the pervasive and constant use of mobile devices nowadays, short sightedness is equally on the rise.
ILEVE eyewear is designed, 3D-printed and assembled in Switzerland. Simon and Silvia have found this to be a valuable USP for their brand, since the association with the idea of Swiss-made quality really helps to build trust and convert people into buying customers.
ILEVE is currently raising a CHF 800K seed round, CHF 100K of which is being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. The funds will be used to grow their team, fuel their expansion to Germany and a select number of European cities, and achieve the coveted B Corp certification. Check out the Swisspreneur Syndicate’s deal flow page on notion to find out more.
"We know we can’t save the world with glasses. But we want to take responsibility for the sustainability of our products." Simon Krähenbühl
"Building a sustainable B2C brand with a low budget is definitely a challenge, but at the same time it keeps us creative." Silvia Nadenbousch
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This episode was sponsored by quitt.business.
Daniel Meyer and Marie So are the co-founders and CEO and CSO, respectively, of EGO Movement. EGO Movement was founded in 2015 and provides smart, connected mobility solutions that are stylish, sustainable, and affordable. Daniel has a master's degree from ETH in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and founded his first startup during university. He later spent 8 years in Hong Kong, Vietnam and China in various senior management positions for Swiss multinational DKSH, and his last role was as Vice President of their second largest business in China. Daniel also was the Chairman of the Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce for 2 years and member of several board of directors in China and South East Asia. Marie graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School with a master's degree in Public Administration and International Development, and a bachelor's degree in Economics, Engineering and Management Science from Northwestern University. She also attended the United World College of the Pacific (UWC). She previously co-founded Shokay and Ventures in Development, a non-profit that catalyses the creation of social enterprises in the greater China region. She also previously worked for the United Nations Development Programme, Dubai Development and Investment Authority, Procter & Gamble and Merrill Lynch. Marie is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader as well as an Echoing Green Fellow 2008 and Asia 21 Young Leader 2008.
They are also romantic partners and share their experience of running a business together since 2015, highlighting how their differing skills and personalities complement each other. They blur the line between personal and professional life, constantly brainstorming new ideas and improvements for their brand.
Ego Movement stands out in the market with its fusion of lifestyle and technology in e-bikes, featuring GPS and remote unlocking via an app. Sustainability is at the forefront, as they showcase how e-bike users save 275kg of CO2 equivalents per year, making it an eco-friendly choice. They give insight into their pricing strategy, emphasizing affordability compared to cars and their commitment to a sustainable supply chain. Marie and Daniel sold their majority shares in 2021 to TVS, one of the 5 largest 2-wheeler manufacturers globally, paving the way for rapid growth and international expansion, with a focus on making e-bikes not just a mode of transport but a lifestyle choice.
“We have very different personalities and skills, but they complement each other, as well as a strong trust - that is very special because not every couple can do it.’
“Customer experience is very important for us, so opening a flagship lifestyle store was a step we felt was beneficial for the brand, which not every business considers a risk worth taking.”
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