Startups
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Starting up @La Forge – Discover the Startups!
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The EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute for Technology) is one of the best engineering school in the world. In the last 10 years, I’ve been seing the massive change happening on the entrepreneurial/startup ecosystem there. The EPFL Innovation Park (initially known as the Parc Scientifique, rebranded back in 2010 or so) has expanded massively, from 3…
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The 50 Best-Funded Startups in Switzerland in One Map (and What It Means For The Startup Ecosystem)
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as I’ve launched startupolic.com, I remember that almost nobody was blogging on the Swiss startup scene. Or most were abandoning the effort after a few posts. Fortunately, this has changed! Today I’m pleased to publish a guest post by Tatjana de Kerros-Budkov, who is currently the Startup Builder at Ricolab Innovation Lab (Ricola), Mentor, and 2x…
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Get The Money!
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Startups and money. It’s a secret for nobody that money is scarce when you’re launching your startup. Even if the Swiss Venture Capital Report shows an interesting growth in startup funding over the 3 last years, with almost a doubling of the funds invested in Swiss startups. About CHF 900M were invested in 2016. Which can be…
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Why Switzerland needs the Swiss Investment Fund
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Daniel Poffet, now graduated (congrats, btw!), did a great research in explaining what the European Investment Fund (EIF) is. Basically, the EIF is a public-private partnership founded in 1994 aiming to allow a better access to (venture) capital. It is mainly owned by the European Investment Bank and by the European Union. The activity of…
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Time for a break, no?
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Everyone wants to get things done before the holiday season (so they can free their mind and find a clean desk back from vacations); People tend to be tired, if not exhausted. Therefore, less patient and potentially more aggressive. So June is not that a good month for business. July and August? Even worse, or…
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The Importance of Startup Board Members
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What do often lack young (or less young) entrepreneurs in the first phases of their startup journey? Industry experience and an extended network! You may have a great idea. Or have deep technical knowledge. Your vision (and product) seems right and clever. You’ve met potential customers, who love the service you will be offering. Mistake…
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The Waking Up of FinTech in Switzerland
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advantage is definitely over. And that they are now forced to innovate, if they want to continue to compete with financial hotspots like New York, London or Singapore. To demonstrate the economic importance of the Swiss financial center in the country, here are 3 key numbers (source: SwissBanking): 105’000+ jobs 6’136 billions in assets under…
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"Am I Wrong?" A question that you probably ask yourself (more or less often) as an entrepreneur!
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[/x_audio_embed] Some entrepreneurs will tell you that they never have any doubts on what they are doing. In my humble opinion, if you never question yourself, you may be over-confident or living outside of the reality. I’m not telling that you should express your doubts publicly, not at all. Startup life is made of…
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Western Switzerland startup scene is lively – discover 8 ICT startups
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ICT Investors Day in Western Switzerland (happening on May 12th in Lausanne), we will have 8 startups (duly selected by a jury committee comprising Deep Parekh, Patrick Barbey, Philipp Steinberger, Pierre Bordry and Alexandre Peyraud) competing with an elevator pitch of 90 seconds to win a seat in the final, that is, presenting their concept longer.…
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Entrepreneurs… Beware!
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Coteries. As everything in life, what is paying is to be proactive. You are contacting investors to present them your investment opportunity. Sometimes, you have people contacting you (after a press coverage or so – yes, it happens even in Switzerland!). But I’ve also experienced some really, really strange things 2 weeks ago. I got…