September 3, 2021
Time to grow
Dear reader
More than 200,000 people have already made use of the app-based diet and lifestyle coaching from Swiss start-up Oviva. And the potential is enormous: in Europe alone, 300 million people would benefit from a change in diet. To cover a further part of this market, Oviva has closed a financing round of USD 80 million that will not only enable it to grow organically, but also fund acquisitions.
The conditions for rapid growth have seldom been so good, and Swiss start-ups know how to take advantage of these opportunities. This applies in particular to the winners of the awards at the Swiss Economic Forum: Planted and Carvolution have already made a name for themselves among the general public, GuestReady is globally active and successful with 20 offices, and T3 Pharmaceuticals is in the process of preparing clinical tests.
Coat-X is expanding to Japan and has found a local partner that is not only supporting its entry into the Asian market, but has also acquired a stake in the Neuchâtel company. in contrast, Scailyte has founded a subsidiary in the US: the company, which was recently awarded the Innosuisse certificate, is on the verge of a market breakthrough with its precision diagnostic applications for oncology and women’s health.
The 10 winners of the Venture Leaders Technology programme have secured support for their expansion into the US and the search for American investors. The 10 finalists of the Swisscom Startup Challenge, which come from the field of cybersecurity, were also announced this week; the public vote for the Startup Challenge runs until 16 September.
Voting for the Audience Award of the Venture competition is open until 13 September. The 15 start-ups that will fight to win the Startup Battles on Digital Day 2021 were also announced, and 11 start-ups will present themselves to investors on the next Venture Day on 15 September in Zurich.
Next week, the awards ceremony for the Top 100 Swiss Startup Awards will take place on Wednesday – the event will be broadcast live and registration for the live stream is still open. You can meet me and my colleague Ritah Nyakato next week also at Swiss Biotech Day and ETH Industry Day.
Tonight, the SRF television programme Arena will discuss the 99% initiative. We have covered the topic with a background report and an interview with National Councillor Andri Silberschmidt. The initiative would place a heavy tax burden on company sales and thus also on start-up exits. However, the money from exits is significant for the start-up scene, as it allows investors to make further investments and founders to pursue new projects. In this respect, exits are rightly considered good news for the entire ecosystem, the latest example being Swiss deeptech start-up Vay, which has been taken over by US company Nautilus.
Have a sunny 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". 
