October 31, 2014
New business ideas gush forth from the start-up community
Dear Reader
Yesterday, the four Startups Awards 2014 were awarded, with a total value of CHF 200,000. The awards are given exclusively to business plans. More than 150 projects applied alone for the prize of the founders platform, startups.ch. This shows that in this country there is no shortage of clever business ideas. But ideas are not worth much if they are not implemented. And when it comes to implementation, many founders and investors in this country seem reluctant to act and lack a think-big-mentality. “In Switzerland, there is a lack of expansion focus in firms and not enough courageous investors to ensure the necessary funds are available,” says Thomas Flatt, president of the industry association swiss ICT, in an interview with startupticker.ch.
Yet, there are plenty of ambitious start-ups in the IT industry. They can be found, among others, at the awards ceremony of the Swiss ICT Awards next Wednesday in Lucerne or, the day after, at the Mobicamp in Bern.
Networking is also the aim at the Basel edition of the LIFT conference – a collaboration with i-net . The mission of the conference is to connect innovators from life sciences and information technology.
Starting next week, Venture Ideas will be taking place in universities again. The events aim to raise awareness of entrepreneurship among academics. Venture Ideas is part of CTI Entrepreneurship’s training programme.
For establishment itself, SECO, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, flicked the digital switch 10 years ago with StartBiz.ch. To date, 34,000 start-ups have passed, in whole or in part, through this platform.
Have a good weekend.
Claus Niedermann
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". 
