November 3, 2023
Money from Switzerland
Dear reader
Memo Therapeutics’ first drug candidate is in the second of three phases of clinical trials. Production of the active ingredient is now being ramped up for the next, larger phase and with a view to market entry. The funds for this and the completion of the phase 2 study will be provided by a financing round of CHF 25 million. Onena, on the other hand, is still in the early stages of drug development with currently two cancer candidates in the pipeline: the Basel-based start-up has now raised CHF 3.7 million.
The success of start-ups in the biotech sector is not surprising, as it offers the best conditions for the creation of successful companies with first-class research, talent, support organisations, service providers and, unlike the ICT sector, large international corporations. However, for a long time only a few Swiss investors were active, but this is increasingly changing, as the two financing rounds show. Pureos Bioventures acted as lead investor for Memo Therapeutics and other Swiss investors included Swisscanto, GF Group, Verve and Redalpine. At Onena, the money has come from Basel-based Aventeca Partners and Zürcher Kantonalbank.
Things are also going well at the very beginning of the start-up life cycle. Palto Therapeutics, which combines expertise in nanotechnology and drug development to develop more effective drugs against cancer and rare diseases, has received CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick.
Skycell, which offers particularly light and secure refrigerated containers for transporting medicines, completed the largest financing round: it has raised USD 57 million at a valuation of USD 600 million. In this case, the lender is the British investment bank M&G. Despite the encouraging trend in Switzerland, it is still not uncommon for foreign investors to be involved in very large rounds. Growth financing of the size of that of BioVersys can now be financed by Swiss VCs, but if the sums become larger start-ups usually have to look abroad.
The investors in the CHF 5.8 million round at Spacetek Technology also came from Switzerland: Swisscom Ventures and the Spectrum Moonshot Fund. And mobileup has secured an investment commitment from Roland Brack as part of the first episode of Die Höhle der Löwen.
Fortunately, large Swiss companies also appear as customers. SBB is having the windows of 40 intercity trains treated with a technology from Lausanne start-up Nu Glass to improve mobile phone reception, so that in future trains will not need special reception technology.
Next week, Startfeld and SICTIC Investors Day will take place in St. Gallen and the BioAlps Networking Day will be held in Geneva. I would also like to draw attention to the deadline for the Swiss Developer Survey organised by the swiss made software association – and don’t miss the deadlines for the IMD Startup Competition and the Tenity Pre-Seed Incubator for fintech companies.
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". 
