December 11, 2015
On the way up
Dear reader
On Thursday evening, the final of the UBS Future of Finance Challenge took place in Zurich. The big bank had been looking for promising fintech start-ups around the world for five months. Eight Swiss start-ups had qualified for the semi-finals and two have now been awarded: Embotech was chosen as one of eight start-ups for an accelerator programme and Biowatch won the ‘Employee vote’ at the awards ceremony.
The winner of the first prize is a compnay from London. The performance at the UBS competition is a good indicator of the level of Swiss start-ups. There are meanwhile many interesting start-ups and they can compete with the best – but there is still room to move up.
It is true, however, that Swiss founders are not afraid to exchange information and compare themselves with competitors from other countries, and several events in Switzerland allow this. In January, the international game festival Ludicious takes place in Zurich. Details about the programme and the awards have now been made known. The organisers of the St. Gallen Start Summit in March are aiming for 1,500 participants from dozens of countries.
The fact that the event takes place in St. Gallen is typical of the diverse Swiss start-up scene. A new analysis from the Startup Monitor team, which will be published exclusively on startupticker, concludes that Switzerland is not only a start-up hotspot.
Accordingly, the top news this week comes from different regions. Apart from Zurich and St. Gallen, this week we reported on the Prix Neode in Neuchâtel, where three start-up projects in medtech were awarded. And the financing round of Geneva-based IT start-up Fans Nation is also worth mentioning.
Meanwhile, we have begun work on the Swiss Venture Capital Report, which will be presented at the startupticker brunches in Zurich on 26 January and in Lausanne on 27 January. You can now pre-order the report and sign up for the brunch. For both, just log in to startupticker.ch and then click on the relevant checkboxes in your profile.
Exciting events are taking place next week. In Zurich, eight selected start-ups will introduce themselves to investors at Swiss Venture Day, with Angel Day taking place beforehand in the morning.
The registration period for the Swiss Export Award 2016 expires on 31 December. You will find other major awards for which you can sign up now on our ‘Call to Action’ tag.
Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Managing Editor, Startupticker
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". 
