#venturelab

[searightinvestinggiving]

VentureLab - About Us

[lanreobey]

#Latepost I was with some brains yesterdey at Canada global impact challenge at city hall....it goes to show how important it is for us to use our brain power to better not only ourselves but the people around us.....plus the 750k is a nice little incentive that went to the winners(it was a tie)....so much info....I actually feel smarter todey from the experience....salute to the finalist, judges keynote speakers and #CanadaGIC plus #VentureLab .....pls pls pls people....if you got ideas to help the globe....apply to pitch ur idea....you just never know. @nikolasfuturist @micheleromanow @singularityu #DataIsTheNewOil #KnowYourTalentKnowYourCustomer #WeWin #1206Studio

[swisscgny]

Swiss Startup Talk Presents Michela Puddu

Swiss Startup Talk is a video interview series presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York featuring the ten members of the Swiss National Startup Team that participated in a program put together by swissnex Boston New York Outpost for the Venture Leaders, and presented at the 2016 Northside Innovation Festival in Brooklyn.

For this edition in the series, we are pleased to introduce Michela Puddu, Co-Founder and CEO at Swiss startup Haelixa.

Haelixa is a startup born at ETH Zurich, where Michela and her team have worked on developing the appropriate technology since 2012. The startup is currently located in the innovation and entrepreneurship labs (ieLab) of ETH Zurich Hönggerberg campus. Haelixa provides intelligent DNA-based tracing solutions allowing fluid/item tracking and parameter monitoring (temperature, light, pH, oxidants) to support the energy industry (underground exploration and monitoring), and to ensure product authentication and quality control as well as liability management.

Check out our video of Michela below on her experiences at the Northside Innovation Festival:

You can also check out Michela’s video with swissnexBoston here:

The Venture Leaders – the members of the Swiss National Startup Team – have a clear-cut goal. They envision themselves as global players and want to take the first step toward their global expansion. These business development programs, co-organized with venturelab, are specifically structured to help them achieve this goal. To learn more about the program, visit the venturelab website. 

[creativemorningsliege]

Pour venir écouter Damien Van Achter d'éducation, nous vous invitons à vous joindre à nous au VentureLab !

[swissnexboston]

20 Swiss-based entrepreneurs selected for 2014 Swiss National Startup Team

Swiss innovations, like chairless chairs (noonee), a high-flying wind power generator (TwingTec AG) and robots that go where no human can (Gimball), are on their way to global expansion.

Today, venturelab announces the names of the 20 young, promising entrepreneurs selected to join the Swiss National Startup Team. Selected out of 120 contenders, the 2014 Swiss National Startup Team will participate in the venture leaders program this June, flying to Boston and for the first time to New York. The venture leaders program offers global potential Swiss startups with a 10-day business development training based in the US.   Impact on a Global Scale The venture leaders program is a cornerstone behind the success of numerous Swiss startups over the past 13 years. In total, 253 venture leaders alumni raised CHF 525 million and created more than 3,500 qualified jobs. More than 50 venture leaders alumni were listed among Switzerland’s 2013 TOP 100 Startup Ranking, with 9 in the TOP 10. Above all, they are growing global businesses and making the world a better place. With their innovations, the venture leaders alumni address global challenges like fighting inflammatory diseases and cancer (Covagen), revolutionizing the drug development (InSphero) or helping amputees in low-income areas walk again (SwissLeg). 20 Swiss startups ready to take over the U.S. market This year’s team encompasses a large array of high-tech startups with activities ranging from recovering paraplegic patients’ locomotion to an insect-inspired micro-drone. “venture leaders has been an instrumental program to identify and promote some of the most promising startups in Switzerland. The team of 20 talented individual entrepreneurs active in all innovative fields ranging from biotech to IT is a unique display and promotion for the numerous high potential startups created every year in Switzerland. I am very much looking forward to be not only in Boston but also in New York this year, bringing a new dimension to this incredible program,” said Jordi Montserrat, Managing Director for venturelab western Switzerland.   This year’s trip and business development program, which are worth the equivalent of CHF 10,000 per participant, were made possible thanks to the support from PSE Parc scientifique, the EPFL Lausanne, Canton de Vaud, Switzerland Global Enterprise, ETH Zürich and CTI. IMMOMIG and Preclin Biosystems, both members of the Swiss national startup team in 2007 and 2008, will also be supporting the initiative, setting a valued precedent of former alumni giving back to the Swiss startup community. The long-time partners swissnex Boston and “Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year program” have also renewed their support. venture leaders winners 2014:   Keith Gunura, noonee® – Mechatronics (www.noonee.ch) noonee® provides a wearable technology which enables factory workers to relax their muscles and sit down during work - without the need for a chair. The device is worn on the legs and allows the user freedom sit as well as walk or run.   Eric Tremblay, Composyt Light Labs– Electronics (www.composyt.com) Composyt Light Labs is developing wearable display technology for see-through augmented reality in unobtrusive conventional eyewear.   Ata Tuna Ciftlik, Lunaphore– MedTech (www.lunaphore.com) Lunaphore has developed an innovative tumor analysis and classification platform with the potential to be a disruptive alternative to classical immunohistochemistry.   Andreas Guggenbuehl, Selfnation– Internet (www.selfnation.ch) Selfnation offers mass customized, perfectly fitting jeans with online 3D visualization technologies and highly automated production processes.   Luc Gervais, One Drop Diagnostics Sàrl – Medtech (www.onedropdiagnostics.com) One Drop Diagnostics has developed a mobile medical diagnostics device that could revolutionize medicine by providing laboratory quality diagnostics at the patient’s side, at the doctor’s office or at home.   Gregory Barbezat, Skiioo SA – Software (www.skiioo.com) Skiioo offers easy access to partnered ski resorts with a single keycard that calculates the best rates based on your skiing habits. It collects RFID, GSM data to create a dynamic pricing system and connect ski resort to resellers to be the next GDS.   James Chiang, Eturnity – Cleantech (www.eturnity.ch) Eturnity has developed an intelligent tool that allows homeowners to tailor a unique solar power plant design to their specific daily consumption profile.   Alejandro Ojeda Gonzalez-Posada, Printed Technologies – Materials (no website) Printed Technologies is developing high security keys/locks that cannot be illegally duplicated.   Daniel Lawniczak, Sanovation AG – Software(www.sanovation.com) Sanovation AG has developed the app CatchMyPain which allows chronic pain patients to visualize their pain and to learn from similar patients around the world.   Vincent Delattre, G-Therapeutics – Medtech (no website) G-Therapeutics is developing an implantable stimulation system and a robot-assisted training program to rehabilitate individuals with spinal cord injury. Patrick Thévoz, Gimball –Robotics (www.gimball.co) Gimball is an insect-inspired micro-drone which can collide on obstacles and continue its flight undisturbed. It opens new horizons for robots in search and rescue, industrial inspection, law enforcement, entertainment and communication. Corey Houle, TwingTec AG – Cleantech (www.twingtec.ch) TwingTec can generate mechanical energy by flying controlled cycles with tethered wings (or Twings) and transforms it into electrical energy with a ground based generator.   Sébastien Flury, Coteries Sàrl – Mobile (www.coteries.com) The Rolex of mobile apps for musicians creates value for both the artist and the fan by driving fan engagement, ownership of the community and new revenue streams for the artists.       Robert Meissner, OncoEffective – Biotech (no website) It is currently not possible to know ahead of chemotherapy which treatment is the best for a specific cancer patient without trial and error. OncoEffective removes uncertainty and provides a quick treatment recommendation.   Vincent Forster, Versantis – Biotech (www.versantis.ch) Versantis is developing versatile antidotes, capable of removing diverse toxic agents from the organism and save patients from metabolic, medicine and drug overdoses.   Justin Picard, Scantrust SA – Software (www.scantrust.com) ScanTrust’s mission is to combat counterfeiting. The startup sells to brand owners a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution which empowers consumers to verify the authenticity of a product, by scanning it with their smartphone.   Boris Danev, 3db Access AG – Electronics (www.3db-technologies.com) 3db provides a proximity verification technology for next generation keyless access systems. The technology allows establishing a secure proof of distance to the centimeter between two wireless devices for ultimately secure and convenient access to assets.   Mattias Ivarsson,Inositec – Biotech (no website) Inositec will pursue the preclinical and early clinical development of a novel non-antibiotic treatment against Clostridium difficile infection. Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of potentially deadly gastro-intestinal infections caused by antibiotic treatment in healthcare settings.   Borislava Palanchova, audiolize GmbH – Internet (www.audiolize.net) audiolize.net is a marketplace for audio versions of online articles, read aloud and recorded by a network of contributors. It offers higher comfort and mobility to newspaper readers, travellers and an additional revenue source to the online newspapers. Arthur Queval, Qloudlab SA – Medtech (www.qloudlab.com) Qloudlab is the inventor and patent holder of the world’s first touchscreen-based biosensor with is able to turn smartphones into a medical device for blood diagnostics testing.

Additional Links

More about the venture leaders program!

[swissnexboston]

seif Awards for Social Entrepreneurship in Zurich

(swissnex, July 3, 2013) The seif Awards for Social Entrepreneurship are awarded to projects that approach social challenges with an innovative business model. In the 2013 edition, four categories were awarded with each CHF 10’000: Social Entrepreneurship, Green Innovation, Integration and Educational Innovation. swissnex Director Felix Moesner attended the awards ceremony and was very excited to see venture leader 2013 alumni SwissLeg receive the award for Social Entrepreneurship. SwissLeg, a company that provides affordable prosthetic legs to amputees in the developing world, was also awarded the Venture Kick phase III in the same week.

Want to discover more about SwissLeg and their amazing work? Check out our SwissLeg company profile for the 2013 venture leaders program!

[swissnexboston]

20 entrepreneurs + 10 days = venture leaders 2013

This June a selection of 20 Swiss entrepreneurs had the chance to fly over the pond and come to Boston for a 10-days accelerated bootcamp co-organized by swissnex Boston and venturelab. The 20 entrepreneurs were carefully selected from a pool of 100+ candidates by a panel of startup experts. Around 3/4th of the finalists were connected in one-way or the other to one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne). We call the 20 entrepreneurs our venture leaders; current and future global players that together compose a rocking team - the Swiss national Startup Team. From Biotech to IT, the venture leaders are active in a broad range of fields (for an exhaustive list of the visiting startup companies, click here).

During the intense business development bootcamp in Boston the venture leaders presented their projects to a wide array of investors and industry experts. The bootcamp was composed of several modules; from trainings on entrepreneurship at Babson College, networking events and workshops with leading professors of local Universities (MIT, WPI and others), to more sector specific execution workshops, under the mentorship of local serial entrepreneurs and experts. Highlights included a reception at the Swiss residence hosted by director Felix Moesner, visits to major venture capitalist fund in the greater Boston area and a pitching competition against the local startups in front an audience of over 300 made up from the active community in the Boston/Cambridge startup scene.

Before leaving Switzerland, not all venture leaders believed a global reach was attainable for their startups; but during the 10 days bootcamp, all of them discovered the benefits in a diverse network. They have matured in leadership, refined their business plans and attained access to an invaluable international network.  They have become the future global players of the Swiss startup scene. 

Venture Leaders helped me develop new insight about the challenges of entrepreneurship. Discussing with experienced entrepreneurs and with the other team members significantly widened my horizons and gave me plenty of new ideas.

Lorenzo Keller, 2013 venture leader

The venture leaders program is now closing out its 13th edition. Startups like InSphero, GetYourGuide, Qvanteq and Aleva Neurotherapeutics all benefitted from the program and have since secured major contracts with strategic partners and investors as well as greatly expanded their customer’s base.

Babson College

The venture leaders profited from a three-day, intensive program at Babson College, a world leading business school specialized in management and entrepreneurship located just 20 minutes outside Boston. At Babson, in 2002, John Gosha with 20 other undergrad students launched IdeaPaint, the startup company eliminating the need for blackboards - making paint as a dry erasable surface and revolutionizing classrooms around the world. The company has now 35 employees and annual sales of 20 m. USD.

Through case studies and the longstanding experience of Prof. Les Charm and Prof. Ed Marram, the venture leaders approached topics such as team building, decision-making processes, strategy and leadership.

Expert Session and Execution Workshops

The 20 entrepreneurs were categorized into 4 subgroups by industry - Life Sciences, Mobile, ICT and Device’s spaces. For each of these sectors, swissnex Boston put together a panel of experts with different backgrounds. They listened to the presentations of the venture leaders and gave targeted feedback. The expert sessions took place at the Cambridge Innovation Center, a mecca for startups where more than 400 companies have set up operations in the building just next to the MIT campus. The possibilities generated by the concentration and proximity to such a number of other businesses are endless for a startup willing to grow and find new opportunities.

Tremendous diversity, great entrepreneurial talents and also the fact that we kept it lively and interactive, we were able to give feedbacks very quickly and I think it will help people in the future.

- Dan Hullah , venture leaders 'Expert'

One expert per group moderated the execution workshops and mentored the startup companies in a series of sessions, which took place on on different days during the entire bootcamp. On an individual basis, the mentors dissected the business plans of the venture leaders and helped them draft executable roadmaps.     

Workshops

With a wide array of topics of interest to all the venture leaders, swissnex Boston organized a diverse set of workshops in collaborative sessions together with Boston partners. This year, MIT Sloan Professors provided the venture leaders with a workshop on Negotiation (with a case study on a VC-startup deal negotiation) and a workshop on Communication with a focus on the US way of communicating; Launch in US offered a session on the challenges and rewards for European startup companies to enter the US market; Switzerland Global Enterprise, one of the venture leaders program sponsors, invited Jan Lichtenberg, CEO of inSphero AG, for a video conference to give the venture leaders insights on the biggest challenges the company faced in internationalizing the business; Ernst and Young, another sponsor and supporter of the program, organized a workshop on tax and entry in the US Market at their wonderful office located on the top floor of the Hancock Tower. Additionally, Jerry Schaufeld, Professor of entrepreneurship at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an active investor, animated a discussion around leadership. Last but not least, partners of the Choate Hall & Stewart LLP practice, a major law practice in Boston, offered to the venture leaders a legal workshop, addressing corporate law, IP and contract law issues.

Company visits

Company visits were an integral part of the program and aimed at providing a broader understanding of how the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Boston is nurtured with innovation. Key people from successful Boston/Cambridge companies were invited to give their insights. The venture leaders visit the following companies as part of the 2013 bootcamp:

Genzyme: Genzyme is a Boston biotech success story. Genzyme focuses on rare diseases; it is a fully owned subsidiary of Sanofi, acquired by the French group in 2011. In 2010, Genzyme was the world’s third-largest biotechnology company, employing more than 11,000 people around the world. The venture leaders visited the building designed by Benisch and then interacted with a senior executive involved in the innovation life cycle of the company.

Helbling: Helbling is a Swiss micro-technology company, which dedicated several years to setting up operations in the US. The managing director in Boston gave a talk on the different mindset that he encountered here in the US when he first came from Switzerland and on how that mindset impacted his business.

Pixability: Pixability is a YouTube-certified marketing and advertising company that works with brands, e-commerce firms, agencies and innovative organizations to drive business and awareness with online video and YouTube. Pixability’s CEO Bettina Hein talked about her company and passion for entrepreneurship.

Lyric Semiconductor (Analog Device): Lyric has introduced a fundamentally new kind of microchip that is based on probabilities rather than binary logic. Designed from the ground up with the help of funding from the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency, it replaces conventional logic gates, whose inputs and outputs are 1s and 0s, with gates whose inputs and outputs can be any value in between. The company was acquired by Analog Devices (NASDAQ: ADI) in 2011. The Swiss entrepreneurs met one of the co-founder, a semiconductor veteran, who explained about his numerous entrepreneurial experiences.

Parexel:  Parexel is one of the world largest Contract Research Organizations (CROs). Parexel employs over 14,000 people and is present in over 50 countries. The company provides services during all phases of the development of a drug, from planning to commercialization. Parexel’s co-founder and current CEO, together with his management team, welcomed the Venture Leaders to the headquarters in Waltham, MA, and shared with them a life of passion and achievements, from the inception of Parexel to the growth to one of the world leading CROs.

Meeting with VC

In addition to informal meetings with Angels, successful entrepreneurs and investors, swissnex Boston organized visits of two major Boston-based VC funds.

Flybridge capital partners is a fund founded in 2001 by a team of experienced investors and entrepreneurs with a focus on seed and early-stage technology investing. The fund has currently 560 million USD under management. It specializes in consumer technologies and IT and has done investments in companies such as 10Gen, which developed MongoDB - a high-performance, open-source, schema-free non-relational database. One of the general partners and co-founder of the fund gave his own perspective on where the VC community is going and challenged the pitches of the venture leaders.

Flagship ventures was the second fund, we had the chance to have involved with the program. A partner provided the venture leaders with insights into the VC world, but from a different perspective. The fund is actually specialized in early stage ventures for disruptive opportunities in the healthcare and sustainability market. He challenged the venture leaders and gave them insights on what the industry is looking for at the moment. 

Events

Around the program, we organized targeted networking events, which facilitated the interactions between the venture leaders and the local players. In the first week, we had two reception events, one at swissnex Boston with local entrepreneurs and one at the Swiss residence in Lexington, MA, where our consul Felix Moesner received around 100 guests from the local innovation economy. This last event allowed informal exchanges around a tasty and juicy Swiss style BBQ.

With such a diverse venture leaders group, we organized an international lunch, in which we invited general consuls and scientific attaches of the different representations present in Boston. We showcased the venture leaders program and the innovation initiatives that Switzerland has undertaken. The event proved a success and now many consulates are now following up with us for best practice exchanges.

The last event was held at the end of the program. We organized a global pitch competition together with our partner organization MassChallenge, the world’s largest startup accelerator. Throughout the bootcamp, the venture leaders perfected their business pitches; the last challenge of the program was to compete against a selection of local startups and convince an audience and a jury made up by Swiss and American startup experts that their business was the one to support. The rules were simple - one minute and one slide per pitch. The audience could vote through an SMS-based polling system, while the jury had to go through a number of selection criteria to select the winners. In the end, two winners were selected. The audience chose  SmartCardia, an EPFL spinoff allowing continuous, real-time ECG monitoring and diagnosis. The Jury chose Cocoon biotech, a startup company from Massachusetts General Hospital that proposes a treatment for osteoarthritis. 

The event was organized at MassChallenge and the prizes were generously sponsored by Swiss International Airlines, Lindt and Nespresso

venture leaders 2014

Want to be part of the next venture leaders edition?? Check out program information and details on www.venture-leaders.ch now!

Sponsors

[sebastienflury]

Where to get the skills you need for your startup journey

It is (or it should be) common sense that the team is what matters the most in a startup. And its ability to execute. Because if you have a rockstars team which fails to work together, well... It doesn't bring the venture anywhere!

You can be extremely competent in sales or in UX or in software development. But starting is a business is often tricky. You have suddenly many things to learn on the go, alongside working on your product. And no time. Yes, no time. The scarcest resource for startup entrepreneurs is T-I-M-E (well, money comes second and is really close, of course). As an entrepreneur, you only have "priority 1 tasks"... and everything seems urgent. Scaring? But so exciting, too!

How do you get the skills you need as quickly as possible? Yeah, you can read blogs and or other documentation. Sure. You can also ask a friend who did it. OK (but he needs to have time). Or maybe can you invest a bit of time and money to boost your skills with smart mentors?

Switzerland has a good reputation in education. And has also strong entrepreneur training programs. During 8 years, venturelab provided an excellent training program, which was managed by two of the smartest guys on Swiss startup scene (Beat Schillig and Jordi Montserrat - help'ed by their killer team). The Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI - the federal agency of Switzerland) has decided in 2012 to split the national training program into regional programs, supervised by CTI... As well as the academic entrepreneurial programs (venture ideas and venture challenge) are still managed by venturelab, the formerly called Venture Plan program has stopped in 2012. Thanks to the energy of Jordi and Beat, the VentureLeaders initiative (business trip to Boston for 20 Swiss startups) has been saved and is always alive with the help of some foundations.

I'm not a fanatic of centralization, but the choice of splitting a national program in 3 regions is, well, strange. Did venturelab gained to much power or influence on Switzerland tech startup scene? Such a national program had at least 2 amazing advantages regarding to a decentralized  initiative:

training is similar throughout Switzerland (hey, wake up, we are competing globally, we don't need adapted training for Swiss Germans or Romands);

networking. The venturelab people know each entrepreneur. And can connect you easily throughout Switzerland (OK, it's not so big but it still helps)

Venturelab decided not to follow this political decision of splitting the training program. And even didn't bid for the mandate. It can be hard to understand, but it isn't: if you don't believe in something, you have remain true to yourself and have the guts to say "NO". Respect.

But enough of history, where can you get the skills you need as an entrepreneur, now?

Well, you have 3 consortia dividing Switzerland in 3 regions: Zürich and Eastern Switzerland (+Ticino), Mitteland (Basel to Bern) and Western Switzerland, which is called startuptraining. I don't know personally the guys running the 2 first regions, but the ones for Western Switzerland are really great. They've divided their offering in two 5-days modules:

business creation: you're in the early days of your venture, you need help to structure your venture and your strategy. The first session happened successfully in March and there will be 6 additional workshops this year. There is a few places available for May and June sessions, so don't wait too long to register!

business development: you have a business (not only just an idea/concept/prototype) and you are selling. You need some insights on how to run and scale your company. There will be 2 sessions this year (September + November).

Trainers are experienced professionals, entrepreneurs and active investors covering all aspects of the startup journey. Even if you've attended some entrepreneurial courses before, it makes sense to participate. The training takes is a workshop, where you'll get honest and constructive feedback on your project. It's always good to have a neutral view on your project and you'd better get it before pitching everyone the wrong way... or with a ridiculous or naive idea! 

Both workshops cost CHF 300.- each, but are still highly affordable for a 5-days qualitative training. CTI is sponsoring the workshop, otherwise it would cost around 10 times more.

Last conditions to attend the workshop are to have an innovative idea, technology oriented (no, you don't need any patent, don't worry!). And you must apply (not every application is accepted), so care about how you describe your idea and yourself!

Enjoy! And be ready to conquer the world!