January 7, 2022
Fast start to the new year
Dear reader
The new year is barely a week old and it’s already seen another large round of financing. Digital asset bank Sygnum has raised USD 90 million and is now valued at about USD 800 million. The investment is backed by impressive success in operational business: assets under administration grew to more than USD 2 billion in 2021 and gross revenues have increased 10-fold.
Sygnum’s financing round may be particularly spectacular, but the stream of investment news over the festive season and the turn of the year has not stopped. Since 27 December, we have reported on Smart Valor’s public listing plans and a total of nine financings – often companies on an expansion course, including Qualysense with its robots for seed processing and quality inspection, and Amnis, operator of an international payment platform for SMEs.
However, very young companies are also expanding. Biped recently closed a USD 1.1 million seed round and this week tested a prototype of its AI co-pilot for blind and visually impaired people with users at CES 2022 in Las Vegas. Typewise used the attention at CES to launch a desktop version of its tool, which uses text predictions to make computer typing up to three times faster. A total of 15 Swiss start-ups are represented at CES.
The last few days have also been a time to look back over the year. At ETH Zurich, 25 new spin-offs were created in 2021. Entrepreneurship in Switzerland is also looking good across the board. For the first time, says an analysis by the IFJ, more than 50,000 new companies were entered in the commercial register last year.
Venture Kick has already delivered its good news for 2022. The initiative is increasing its budget once again and will support start-ups with CHF 6.1 million over the next 12 months: 89 projects will benefit from this.
Although applications are open for Venture Kick year-round, most competitions are held only once a year. Currently, 12 awards in our directory are running, with the deadlines for Venture Leaders Technology offering a business development trip to the Silicon Valley and Startfeld Diamant expiring on 16 January and 23 January, respectively.
The annual Swiss Venture Capital Report will appear on 27 January. The 80-page magazine with analysis, interview, fund radar and a list of Swiss start-up financing rounds can be pre-ordered in your profile. Your personal copy will be sent out on publication.
Have a good weekend.
Stefan Kyora
Editor in Chief, Startupticker.ch
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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". 
