26.01.2023 11:50 Morgane Ghilardi
On January 25, 2022's Venture Leaders came together at the startup space in Zurich for a special event celebrating Swiss innovation, collaboration, and growth. The Swiss National Startup Team's graduation ceremony marked another year of successful global investor and business development roadshows.
Every year, Venturelab organizes the Venture Leader programs, each of which serves a specific sector of technological innovation: Mobile, Medtech, Biotech, Technology, Cleantech, and Fintech. Venturelab's expert panel selects ten promising startups, which can apply for one of the programs. The entrepreneurs behind the startups get to take part in an investor roadshow in sector-relevant hubs.
The experience helps the innovators expand their network, connect with investors and industry experts, and accelerate the growth of their ventures. It's also a way to showcase the quality and significance of innovation continually emerging from the Swiss startup ecosystem on the international stage.
Venturelab brought last year's Venture Leader teams together for a Graduation Ceremony to celebrate the entrepreneurs and their achievements, as well as the sponsors that make it possible for these startups to profit from the programs and the roadshow. The ceremony consisted of a short retrospective on each program, followed by a few words from a representative of each team, highlighting what the roadshow meant for their startup and what they gained from the experience.
The program in retrospective: "I think the atmosphere was very impressive"
LORIOT CEO Julian Studer was the first to take the stage on behalf of the Venture Leaders Mobile team, which went to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. "It was extremely people-driven, which I really enjoyed," Studer said.
"Of course, the trip started with a lot of excitement thanks to the sailing race," he added, referring to the annual Venturelab Trophy sailing match that kicks off the roadshow every year. He also highlighted the successes of teammates following the roadshow in Barcelona: Adresta was acquired by Bucherer Group and Imverse raised USD 4.8 million in a pre-Series A round.
Marcos Monteiro, CEO of Veezoo, spoke about the Venture Leader Technology team's trip to Silicon Valley in April. "We were pitching so much to so many different types of audiences, and went to all the places where any tech startup would want to be at least once," Monteiro said. "One of the most interesting parts of the trip was connecting with other entrepreneurs from the field and seeing how they tackle certain problems."
Several startups from the Venture Leaders Technology team celebrated funding successes since the trip: SONIX (formerly TYXIT) successfully closed a CHF 2 million seed round; xFarm secured EUR 17 million in a Series B funding round; and LatticeFlow raised USD 12 million in Series A funding.
ArcoScreen CEO Margaux Duchamp shared her experiences on behalf of the Venture Leaders Medtech, who went to Boston. "It was insightful to meet other innovators who have other ways of pitching, of doing science, of raising funds," Duchamp said. "The key message is that we learned from each other. We also learned how the startup ecosystem in Boston works." ArcoScreen and fellow Venture Leader Bearmind were both awarded a Tech Seed loan from the Foundation for Technological Innovation (FIT) later last year.
The Venture Leaders Biotech team also went to Boston and was represented by Priyanka Dutta-Passecker, CEO of Healiva. She highlighted the value of the experience for a biotech startup looking to enter the US market, from learning about processes at the FDA to the difference in fundraising practices. "You need to know how fundraising is different in the US. The specialized fund experts helped us figure out how to pitch for the US market," she said.
Dutta-Passecker highlighted the Pitchfest Cruise, which convened over 100 biotech investors, business partners, and startups. "The Pitchfest Cruise was quite interesting because we were competing with US startups," she said. "The two winners were Swiss, though, so we were quite fortunate." Dutta-Passecker herself and Carlo Bertozzi of InCephalo took first prize in the pitch competition. Dutta-Passecker also underlined how much the founders support each other: "Connecting with the other entrepreneurs brings us closer together; we can help each other with challenges and problems."
Etienne Jeofroy, CEO of FenX, represented the Venture Leaders Cleantech and noted that the experience in Munich in October was very encouraging: "The cleantech world is having some momentum as we could see on the trip; VCs were really interested." Like many of the other Venture Leaders, he also emphasized the optimistic spirit of the experience. "I think the atmosphere was very impressive," he said, "We strongly encourage any startup to join this program." Team member CompPair recently announced that they had also received support from FIT.
The Venture Leaders Fintech, which went to London in late November, were represented by Aktionariat CEO Nicola Plain, who underlined how much all the team members were able to learn from the VCs, angel investors, and industry experts they were introduced to in London.
"We made countless valuable connections at the Swiss Embassy event," Plain said. "The visit to Revolut's offices was extremely insightful. I can't remember the last time I learned so much in half an hour." Plain added that the trip was particularly valuable for his startup: "Aktionariat is still in touch with a lot of the people we met on the trip, as we are preparing market entry in the UK."
Swiss innovation on the global stage
The ceremony was closed by Jordi Montserrat, co-managing director of Venturelab. "Leadership means representing Swiss innovation in the world, and that is what the Venture Leaders program promotes," he said in a closing statement. "We also want to foster the connections established between the founders but also with the partners who support us. We are also happy that we have Venture Leader alumni who now support this program. I think this says a lot about the strength of this ecosystem."
The Venture Leaders were given a diploma to mark their participation in the program and their place among the most promising innovators to emerge from the Swiss startup ecosystem—a fact underlined by the many Venture Leaders that were among the TOP 100 Swiss Startups of 2022.
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