December 7, 2018
Border, what border?
Dear reader
Switzerland is a small country with an economy closely linked to international. This is particularly true of the start-up scene, where Swiss start-ups, often co-founded by immigrants, find investors abroad. The best example we reported this week is the artificial intelligence start-up aiCTX, which has persuaded Baidu Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of the Chinese search engine group, to become an investor. Other start-ups have won prizes abroad: Zurich-based game studio Okomotive won the German Developer Award in two categories with its game FAR: Lone Sails, and iWin, the cleantech company that won the first Boldbrain Challenge in canton Ticino, found its first important business partner in Italy.
But investors and support organisations also work cross-border. The St. Gallen venture capital company btov operates in Germany, and the German VC Creathor is strongly active in Switzerland. Together with VI Partners and a group of international business angels, these two have invested in start-up Ledgy, which aims to become the leading online platform for the digital settlement of equity transactions in private companies.
On the other hand, Switzerland also attracts start-ups from abroad. For the first implementation of the DayOne accelerator in Basel, companies from Canada and South Korea were selected in addition to the Swiss start-up Advancience. The digital health companies are participating in a six-month programme and will receive CHF 70,000 if they start operations in the Basel region.
Atomico’s annual report The State of European Tech offers a glimpse from outside Switzerland. It shows that in addition to the well-known strengths, such as the great science and the centres of Zurich and Zug, towns such as St. Gallen are also attracting international attention.
We also reported on Holo one from canton Aargau, which completed a financing round of CHF 1.2 million, Kizy Tracking from Neuchâtel – the company exited with a sale to a German group – and nine promising start-ups from Ticino, which introduced themselves to investors at Venture Day Lugano.
Currently, a series of awards are open for application. Our smart awards list gives an overview.
Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch
News
The new Swiss Venture Capital Report was published on 26 January. It analyses 304 financing rounds closed in 2020 and includes further article such as an interview with Michael Hengartner, President of the ETH Board, and a list of Swiss "soonicorns". 
