AI, Efficiency and Creativity: 220 hackers created 54 projects at SwissHacks 2025

The event kicked off on Friday evening and ran non-stop through to Sunday's award ceremony. Following a 50% surge in applications compared to the previous year, 220 selected hackers from 70 nationalities took on high-impact challenges from Julius Baer, Raiffeisen, Arch Re, Ripple and Innosuisse together with Startupticker.ch.

The Startupticker challenge dealt with the question of how to make the Startupticker database more accessible. Currently, this database is only used for reports and articles. To increase transparency in the start-up ecosystem, users should be able to perform simple analyses themselves on the Startupticker website. In addition, the teams were also asked to develop solutions for AI-supported analyses.

A total of ten teams devoted themselves to the task set by Innosuisse and Startupticker from Friday evening onwards. In an intensive exchange with the Startupticker editorial team and Maria Anselmi, Head of Start-ups and Next-Generation Innovators Division at Innosuisse, the teams worked on their solutions until Sunday lunchtime.

On Sunday afternoon, Team Innobyte was chosen as the winner of the Innosuisse – Startupticker.ch Challenge. They developed a solution that combines the possibility of simple analyses with tailored graphics output with an AI-supported semantic analysis in which users can ask questions in natural language and receive data-based answers in natural language.

The Startupticker team will continue to work with the Innobyte team to implement the solution in a timely manner. In addition, two further ideas are being pursued: building an ontology of the Startupticker database and the possibility of analysing the information contained in articles on the Startupticker website.

Maria Anselmi (far left) and Stefan Kyora (far right) with Team Innobyte

At the SwissHacks Award Ceremony, the five winners and five runners-up of the different challenges were given the opportunity to present themselves to the audience. The team 3plus1 was chosen as the winner of the Swiss Hacks Award and the Audience Award. They had developed a solution for smart document validation during the onboarding process in private banking as their contribution to the Julius Baer challenge.

The journey of the winners now continues on 5-7 May at the Point Zero Forum and at the SwissHacks 2025 Side Event on May 6th, where they’ll take the stage to showcase their hard work to a global fintech audience. In addition to amazing tech prizes, the winners also get the chance to join an exclusive Swiss Parliament House tour led by the Member of Parliament Gerhard Andrey as well as to visit the Swiss National Bank.

A comprehensive review of the event has been published on the FIND website.

(Press release / Stefan Kyora)