EPFL and PSE sponsor the venture leaders 2013

Introducing the Swiss national Start-up team for 2013

A gateway to the global market for talented Swiss entrepreneurs. Venturelab today announces the names of the 20 young promising entrepreneurs selected to join the Swiss National Startup team. This year again, the initiative has attracted a record number of applicants. More than 130 contenders have strived to be awarded the chance to join the team of startups that will be flown to Boston next June. The venture leaders program aims at promoting Swiss start-ups with a global potential by offering selectees a 10 day long U.S based business development program

A ramp towards potential financing
The venture leaders program – the highlight of venturelab, the national start-up training program – has been one of the keystones behind the success of numerous Swiss startups in the past 12 years. This has been verified again by last year’s national team which had 6 companies -out of the 20 selected- close funding rounds for a total amount of CHF 20 million within 6 months after the Boston journey. Other success stories include Staff-finder or the medtech start-up credentis AG which have both been in the news recently for their successful closures of financing rounds. Furthermore, 57 venture leaders alumnis have made it the TOP 100 Swiss startups classification in 2012. Over the years, this list has come to include many renowned start-ups such as Doodle, Poken, Dacuda or HouseTrip - all of which participated in the Swiss national start-up team in the early stages of their development.

Helping start-ups with high potential go global
This year’s team encompasses once again a large array of high-tech start-ups with activities ranging from cancer therapeutics to online automated software quality insurance. Jordi Montserrat, venturelab’s western Switzerland managing director explains: «venture leaders goes far beyond celebrating the beauty of entrepreneurship or giving out awards. It is one of the key tools in the ongoing promotion of Swiss innovation at the national and international level which ultimately allows for new jobs to be created thus encouraging economic prosperity. On the entrepreneurial level, the venture leaders program is highly focused on providing team members with the right training and with tailored networking and financing opportunities: these are the three pillars that enable Swiss start-ups to reach the global market».

A programm with national support
The trip and business development program which are worth the equivalent of CHF 10000 per participant were made possible this year thanks to the support received from new partners including PSE Parc scientifique, the EPF Lausanne, ETH Zürich and OSEC. IMMOMIG, a member of the Swiss national start-up team in 2007, will also be supporting the initiative setting a valued precedent in former alumnus giving back to the start-up community. The long-time partners swissnex Boston and “Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year program” have also renewed their support.

A kick-off event where all members of the national start-up team will meet as a group for the first time is scheduled in Lausanne on April 30th 2013.

The 2013 venture leaders winners:
Robin Wirz, Terria - ICT (www.terria.com)
Terria Mobile is a specialized Swiss provider of mobile solutions offering an innovative software solution for the development, deployment and management of apps across multiple mobile platforms.

Philipp Bolliger, Koubachi- ICT (http://www.koubachi.com) Koubachi has developed a Wi-Fi Plant Sensor which measures soil moisture, temperature, and light intensity inside and outside the household. Using scientific care models, Koubachi determines the exact needs of your plant.

Srinivasan Murali, SmartCardia- Micro/Nano Technology (www.smartcardia.com)
SmartCardia has developed an ultra-small portable device that can be worn by potential heart patients, using standard ECG electrodes. The device continuously records and transmits the ECG data to a smart phone and from there to a hospital center or directly to the doctor.

Mathias Haussman, UEPAA®- ICT (www.uepaa.ch)
Uepaa turns the smartphone of more than 25 million outdoor users (European alps) into an alpine tracking, alerting and rescue device by using a disruptive wireless phone to phone to phone (mesh-) communication technology. To be launched in summer 2013 and in close collaboration with Rega, Mammut, Swisscom and other partners.

Felix Holzner, SwissLitho- Micro/Nano Technology (www.swisslitho.com)
SwissLitho markets a unique nano-manufacturing tool: The NanoFrazor. Researchers and nanotechnology manufacturers can apply this affordable and easy-to-use machine to create the smallest nano-structures to this time.

Carlo Ruiz Preciado, Flatev AG- Electronics/Mechanics (www.flatev.com)
Flatev is bringing to the market a new fully automatic machine and its corresponding dough-capsules, which enable anyone to make a wide variety of fresh tortillas and other flatbreads without any experience or know-how.

Alexis Dufresne, Faveeo- ICT (www.faveeo.com)
Faveeo is an online time saving information filtering tool. Faveeo finds, filters and recommends relevant and reliable information from the web and social media.
Paulo Goncalves, SwissLeg Sagl - Medtech (www.swissleg.com)
SwissLeg provides affordable advanced mobility to amputees worldwide using an innovative prosthetic design. It combines a simple manufacturing process with low-cost and readily available materials.

David Din, Bluetector AG - Cleantech (www.bluetector.com)
Bluetector AG is a cleantech company that offers a sustainable and energy producing solution for the treatment of wastewater and sludge.
Peter Fröhlich, AgriCircle AG - ICT (www.agricircle.com)
AgriCircle is the new online grouping platform for farmers which allows them to share information about products and mutualize their orders to access agricultural products at a competitive cost.

Mark Forster, Adello GROUP AG - ICT (www.adello.ch)
Adello is the first mobile advertising agency in Switzerland. Adello has recently been expanding abroad and organizes regular events to reflect on the latest market trends.
Cristian Zamfir, iQA- Automated Software Testing Service, ICT (no website)
iQA has developed a fully automated software quality testing system including a range of security, reliability, and safety audit services in a pay-as-you-go cloud computing setting.

Lorenzo Keller, Shoelace Wireless- ICT (www.shoelacewireless.com)
Shoelace Wireless specializes in collaborative networking technologies between smartphone users in close proximity. The technology’s facilitates video streaming sharing and collaborative viewing between groups of smartphones.

Appu Shaji, Insight- ICT (www.sight.io)
Insight provides automatically suggests the best composition for a photograph. The tool will be available as a mobile app and as a programming interface.

Marie-Christine Fluet, ReHaptix GmbH- Medtech (no website)
ReHaptix GmbH have developed a robotic assessment tool equipped with position and force sensors to rapidly and objectively evaluate arm and hand motor functions after a stroke with a precision and repeatability that nor humans nor current tests can achieve.

Fabian Nater, upicto GmbH- ICT (www.upicto.com)
Upicto’s product, snaplife, facilitates the way people capture, edit and share their personal video recordings by automatically selecting the best snapshots in the video.

Gael Hedou, Relief Therapeutics- Biotech (no website)
Relief Therapeutic will be created to ensure the clinical testing of a new treatment restoring nerves repair that has been altered in Diabetic Neuropathy.

Yann Cotte, NanoLive- Biotech (no website)
Nanolive is a disruptive world exclusive technology that enables to discover the inside of a living cell in 3D. The product which uses solely harmeless lights is capable of monitoring the physiological reaction to substances/stimuli for real time feedback.

Gael Farine, Quantitative Energy- Micro/Nano Technology (no website)
Quantitative Energy has developed a miniaturized gas quality sensor that is small and cost-effective enough to be integrated to gas appliances increasing safety and reducing emissions.

Lehal Rajwinder, Cancer Therapy– Biotech (no website)
Despite advances in our understanding of cancer biology, there remain unmet medical therapeutic needs in the field. Cancer Therapy is developing novel targeted therapeutics that can be applied as individualized anti-cancer medicine.

Additional Links
Ten years venture leaders: the jubilee brochure
The up-to-date profiles of previous venture leaders
The Swiss national startup teams (original teams)