This episode was co-produced with CONDA.ch. If you want to invest in CONDA.ch with preferential conditions, contact them at investor@conda.ch.
Pedro Schmidt is the founder and CEO of KaEx, the world’s first sports-recovery drink to significantly reduce the stress hormone. He holds a MSc in Management, Technology and Economics from ETH Zürich, and previously worked for companies like Siemens Management Consulting, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Teva Pharmaceuticals before founding KaEx in 2016.
Linus Gabrielsson is the managing director at CONDA.ch, the leading platform providing Swiss startups access to crowd investment capital as well as community building and campaigning opportunities. He holds a MSc in Technology Management from ETH and previously worked for companies like IBM Business Consulting Services, PwC and HSBC Private Bank before founding CONDA.ch in 2021.
KaEx was the result of many years of research for Pedro, whose undergraduate education is in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He originally branded it as a hangover remedy, and that’s how it began to be sold in pharmacies and at Coop supermarkets. At some point, Pedro and his team started getting messages from people who swore on the benefits of drinking KaEx post-workout. Pedro ignored these messages at first, since as a resource-constrained founder he couldn’t afford to split his focus — but then pro-athletes started contacting him as well, asking if drinking KaEx could be considered doping (which it couldn’t). This made Pedro and his team seriously question whether they should pivot their product’s branding and focus. They eventually did do so, and nowadays KaEx is known primarily as a sports drink, though it is of course also useful for hangovers or after a particularly stressful day.
In 2021, CONDA.ch was already one of the most successful crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany. Rather than try to compete with them, Linus and his co-founder Christian Klumpe decided to strike a franchising deal with their DACH counterparts in order to bring CONDA to Switzerland. As a crowdfunding platform, they focus on startups, SMEs and real estate, and allow users to invest as little as CHF 100. CONDA.ch always runs a 2 week pre-round with preferential conditions open only to VIP investors: that way, when the deal goes public, it never starts at 0, which helps it gain momentum.
KaEx has crowdfunded on CONDA.ch several times.
Check out the LinkedIn event for our livestream with Aurelio Perucca on May 22nd.
Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual is the co-founder and CEO at TOLREMO Therapeutics, a biotech startup on a mission to prevent non-genetic cancer drug resistance. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Translational Biomedicine from ETH and worked there as a Postdoctoral Researcher before starting TOLREMO in 2017 together with Wilhelm Krek, who has since tragically passed away.
There is no shortage of cancer therapies in biotech and medtech, and one common problem that they face is drug resistance: even if a certain therapy is at first successful in reducing the tumor’s size, patients sometimes develop a resistance to it, whether it be genetic or non-genetic, and the therapy stops working. To use a tech metaphor, genetic drug resistance is akin to a hardware problem, whereas non-genetic drug resistance is more similar to a software malfunction. Since non-genetic resistance is much more dynamic, it’s harder to measure and combat — this is what Stefanie and her fellow researchers have been studying for the past few years. They discovered a pivotal mechanism that governs critical transcriptional resistance pathways, i.e., that stops cancer drug resistance as it emerges without interfering with cancer-unrelated pathways.
TOLREMO recently completed its Series A financing, bringing their total amount raised to USD 39M. Their ultimate goal is to prove the efficacy of their treatment and join forces with a larger pharma company.
Click here to apply to join our 2024 Lausanne Scaleup Cruise.
Eric Laudet is the founder and CEO of Holistiq, a startup offering an organic and personalized approach to healthcare which aims to solve health issues at their root, instead of just treating symptoms. Eric holds a master’s degree in Business Management from HEC Paris, and previously co-founded Batmaid and was active for 6 years as its CFO before starting Holistiq in 2022.
Holistiq’s approach combines different healing systems to create natural therapies that are tailored to the needs of patients and backed by research, lab tests and data science. They operate a digital platform and urban health centers with a team of complementary medicine therapists, life & health coaches, nutritionists, and functional medicine doctors, to support the healing of chronically-ill patients and help others find optimal health.
During his chat with us, Eric placed Holistiq’s offering between that of regular doctors, which are in his opinion currently better suited to treat acute disorders than chronic disorders, and the offering of longevity startups, which often only help people with the prevention of disease, not with treating existing diseases. He also criticized longevity startups for sometimes tracking biomarkers which do not move the (health) needle, merely for publicity’s sake. Eric added that Holistiq’s offering is partly covered by health insurance, and is meant for the masses, not just for the wealthy few.
Despite being in operation for only 2 years, Holistiq already has impressive traction: CHF 400K in revenue (with a 50% gross margin), 1000 paying patients, and both offline and online offerings. They are currently raising a seed round of CHF 3M, CHF 250K of which they’ve already raised from business angels, and CHF 250K which they expect to raise through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. The remaining CHF 2.5M will be raised from healthtech VCs. Click here to learn more about the deal.
Pascal Bieri is the co-founder of Planted, a startup creating healthy plant-based meat alternatives. He holds an MA in Informations-, Media- and Technology Management from the University of St Gallen, and previously worked in companies like SweetWorks Confections and DeepTech Capital AG before starting Planted in 2019. He also co-founded the Green Liberal Party in Lucerne when he was 21, but the slowness of politics soon dissuaded him from getting further involved.
So what’s wrong with livestock farming?
From a cold, technocratic point of view, not taking into account the environment, animal well-being or workers’ rights, current livestock farming practices were great for the meat industry, since they allowed it to achieve a fantastic production ration, super efficient supply chains, pay almost no taxes and deliver very low margins to everyone involved. Meat became cheap and accessible to almost everyone. However, this came at the cost of…
Planted makes meat alternatives mainly out of pea protein, which can be grown locally and gives great taste. In 100 g of planted.chicken Nature, for example, there is 23.7 g of protein, which is about the same amount as found in conventional chicken meat. planted.chicken Nature consists of no more than four natural ingredients and a healthy portion of vitamin B12. What scares Pascal in the meat alternative market is not companies trying to produce equally healthy and tasty alternatives, but the companies making unhealthy products that taste terribly, which deter people from ever trying out a vegan product again.
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click here to purchase your ticket.
Adrian Riedo is the founder and owner of RNX, short for Riedo Networks, a provider and distributor of energy monitoring and control solutions which began back in 2005. Matthias Kaech is a Senior IP Trainer at the Institute for Intellectual Property.
Matthias and Adrian have a few IP recommendations for startup founders:
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Anina Lutz is the co-founder and CEO of Calingo Insurance AG, a digital insurance company. She holds a MSc in Business & Economics from the University of Basel and previously worked at Helvetia before starting Calingo in 2020.
As a digital insurance company, Calingo offers personalized insurance coverage at the point of sale in a hassle-free and digital way, for your home, your pets or your business. Their home insurance offer is 25% cheaper than market average, since they do not charge high commissions and have easy, low cost operations. Their pet insurance comes at a higher price at first, but since the premiums remain constant regardless of the pet’s age, the lifetime value ends up cheaper than other pet insurances.
They’ve partnered up with insurance companies like SwissRe to have them as risk carriers. Thus far they’ve decided not to delve into health insurance, since it is a rather saturated market. Instead they plan to use next year's series A funds (provided that the round closes successfully) to set up a system of vet video calls and bring their services to Germany.
Click here to apply to join our Founders Dinner in Bern on May 30th.
Denis Widler is the co-founder and Head of Business Relations at Flappie, a startup building an AI-powered cat door with integrated prey detection. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Innovation from HSG. Oliver Widler is Denis’ twin brother and the co-founder and Head of Technology at Flappie. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from ETH.
Denis and Oliver started Flappie together in 2022 motivated by their personal experience growing up with furry friends who would bring “gifts” home. This got them thinking about a product that could prevent such unpleasant surprises, and with his engineering background Oliver devised a cat door which immediately recognizes when your cat tries to bring presents (e.g., mice, birds) into the house. Once recognized, the cat door locks automatically, and the cat (including the prey) stays outside until it returns with no prey.
The Widler brothers think the time is ripe for their product, considering that ⅓ of households globally have cats and that 81% of Gen Z live with cats. It seems they’ve been proven right: their product has been featured in over 200 media outlets since inception.
They’re currently raising CHF 1M in funds, 500K of which they already have in soft commitments, and 50K of which are being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our deal flow page to learn more.
Click here to apply to join our Founders Dinner in Bern on May 30th.
This episode was co-produced by the Female Founders Initiative and recorded at the Female Future Festival.
Melanie Kovacs is an award-winning entrepreneur, business coach, TEDxspeaker, and startup trainer, dedicated to supporting people to find and not lose joy on their entrepreneurial journeys. Through her podcast “The Joypreneur” she encourages entrepreneurs to do their thing, thereby making a positive impact.
Previously, she created the Joy Accelerator program, a 12-week course for women aspiring to build sustainable businesses without burning out. Prior to this, she founded Switzerland's first coding bootcamp, Master21 Academy. Melanie studied International Management, Human-Computer Interaction Design and Creative Leadership.
During her chat with our new host, Merle, Melanie shared some of the insights that she provides her coachees, ranging from identifying the critical voices in your head, to exploring your fear of failure, to adequately valuing your time, resources and intuition.
For more information about Melanie and her work, visit her website.
Click here to enjoy three months of NordPass Business for free using the code "swisspreneur".
Diego Seitz is the co-founder and former CEO at GotCourts, a social network for racket sports players and marketplace for booking courts and coaches. He holds a MSc in International Management from CEMS as well as a MSc in Strategic Management from the university of St. Gallen and previously worked at companies like Namics and Accenture before joining GotCourts as a late co-founder in 2017.
Founded in 2013, GotCourts was the first platform to provide everything a player needs in a single marketplace. Finding a partner or a coach, booking a court nearby or competing for a place in their leaderboards and tracking your progress, GotCourts is your "virtual global club". For court facilities and clubs they offer a capable club management system and a platform to engage with the community. This means they receive revenue not only from the SaaS subscription but also from the racket sports players themselves.
Coming into the fitness industry with an innovative approach, the GotCourts team often found that they had to educate potential SaaS customers on the benefits of online demos and how to set up a video call, so as to drive down acquisition costs. Their internationalization process began in Germany, where they at first bet on the traditional route of ads, email marketing, cold calling, and simply offering the product in euros, only to later find out that the German federations were the true door into the market, and that a freemium model for the app was much more suitable for their German users. Nowadays GotCourts is the racket sports app in the DACH region.
GotCourts was acquired in 2021 by Spanish competitor Playtomic for an undisclosed amount. Diego remained on board as the regional manager of Central Europe. Currently he is also working on a new venture, alfred.ch, which provides legal and strategic consulting services to early stage ventures, entrepreneurs and investors.
Gianluca Cesari is a co-founder and the CBDO of Sevensense Robotics, a robotics ETH spin-off which empowers mobile robots to move into public and dynamic spaces, supporting humans in the execution of dirty, dangerous and dull tasks. Gianluca holds a master’s degree in Robotics, Systems and Control from ETH Zurich and afterwards continued as Robotics Engineer at the university’s Autonomous Systems Lab, before officially founding Sevensense in 2018.
In Gianluca’s opinion, Sevensense’s biggest challenge was finding the right focus, which is a challenge universal to all tech startups: they develop great tech, but what needs to be sold is a product, not a technology — so what use should their tech be put to? The solution to this conundrum is to start talking to customers. Eventually Sevensense landed upon two verticals: automated material handling, and automated cleaning.
They were acquired by ABB in 2024 for an undisclosed amount.
This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click here to purchase your ticket.
Adrien Treccani is the founder and CEO of Metaco, an enterprise technology company whose mission is to enable financial and non-financial institutions to securely build their digital asset operations. He holds a PhD in Finance from the SFI (Swiss Finance Institute) and previously worked for companies like Gottex Brokers Alternative and Swissquote before starting Metaco in 2015.
Metaco’s founding date turned out to be much too early: back in 2015, very few people were thinking of tokenizing everything, like Adrien thought would happen — but still the team managed to pull their startup through, perhaps at least in part due to Adrien hiring very senior people early on. The most important of these hires was a CCO, to complement Adrien’s engineering mind. Nowadays Metaco provides software to banks and other financial institutions which enables them to manage their clients digital (crypto) assets at very large scales.
In 2023 Metaco was acquired by Ripple, a leading enterprise crypto company, for US$250M. Adrien remains at Metaco as founder and CEO.
Francois Smuts is the co-founder and managing director of BioNexus, a healthcare company focused on creating cutting edge wearable diagnostics. He holds a Global Masters of Public Health from Imperial College London and was a Medical Affairs Manager for companies like Merck Pty, Abbott and Mirum Pharmaceuticals before founding BioNexus in 2023.
Daniel Gutierrez is a customer and supporter of BioNexus. He holds a PhD in Cardiac Physiology from the University of Bern and currently works as Head of Site Network Engagement at Clinerion.
BioNexus is committed to developing diagnostics which tackle women’s health issues by monitoring hormones in live time. According to a recent McKinsey study, there is a 1 trillion dollar gap in the women’s health sector, so the time for technologies like theirs is definitely upon us. Francois also derives motivation from his personal experience of witnessing his mother struggle with menopause and be told by doctors that she ought to conform to her loss of quality of life.
They are developing a wearable patch with microneedles that measures your hormones continuously, which would be helpful not only for menopausal women but also for couples struggling to conceive.
BioNexus is raising CHF 900K to boost their product development, part of which through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our deal flow page to learn more.
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.
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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.
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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!
Get tickets to Scaleup Slopes 2024 here.
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."
