21 ICT startups to meet on June, 18th

Lausanne is pretty well known for its Swiss Federal Institute for Technology (EPFL). And more and more for its tech startups, which find a welcoming home at Scientific Park. There are also big names of the industry to find there (Samsung, Nokia, Logitech, to name a few).

On June, 18th, Lausanne will welcome for the second time a one day-event gathering selected tech startups from the Alpine region (from southern France to South Germany) and investors from around the world. The Alpine Venture Forum (formerly known as the Swiss Venture Forum) will happen at Starling Hotel, a few meter away from Lake Geneva (in matter of fact: the official name of the lake is “Lac Léman”).

49 startups from Life Sciences, to clean tech and Information technology, will present throughout the day. Here are the 20 software startups:

  1. 3BaysOver: B2B networking platform and online marketplace where the global travel industry can easily collaborate and connect.
  2. adt advanced display technology: sunlight readable and zero-power display
  3. alinto: B2B electronic communication packages (email, etc.) based on the cloud
  4. aptarism: augmented reality service to put people in a 3D virtual environment (even to pitch on stage!)
  5. bMooble: software platform to easily build mobile applications connecting various systems or objects
  6. Bridget:smart communication platform to manage and measure physical-digital activities
  7. CircleMe: semantic-based platform to gather your interests and recommend new ones
  8. Citiviz: urban intelligence computing and geo-visualization ecosystems for monitoring and decision making
  9. Cuboyo: 3D printable objects martketplace
  10. Disignum: platform to develop 3D modelisation of urban areas
  11. Domo-Safety: domestic/medical safety solution for old people staying at home
  12. experientia: labs to create people-centered products
  13. hicare research: Design Support Systems and Corporate Performance Management (CPM) applications
  14. ImmerHire: forward-facing 3D recruiting solution
  15. Kireego: all-in-one solution for independent merchants allowing to effectively select partners
  16. Pandora Underwater Equipment: cruise control diving solution
  17. skiioo: universal card and loyalty solution for skiers and snowboarders to book your skipass and track your miles
  18. startupto: on-demand car sharing platform (Goocar)
  19. TP Energy: personal beauty assistant (MyCosmel)
  20. Vence Innovation: smart robotic eye to integrate in 3rd-party robots
  21. Crisalix: 3D plastic surgery simulator

These 20 startups will be pitching throughout the day and one company will get an award. See you there!

A new opportunity to pitch your startup in Lausanne!

In Switzerland, many people think you have (too) many opportunities to pitch your startup. A recurring comment I’ve been hearing for a while is that there are not enough valuable/promising startups… I can only disagree to this!

If the condition for a valuable startup is to be enrolled in CTI Startup program or beeing a spin-off from ETHZ or EPFL, yes, it’s probably right. But in Switzerland, too much emphasis is put on startups coming from academia (that could be the topic of another post!). My opinion is that you neither need to be from a technology institute nor part of the CTI Startup program to be successful, at least when you’re moving in the web and mobile space. Here, you mostly don’t need patents to protect your innovations. What make the difference for web and mobile startup is EXECUTION capability!

But back to the point… a new startup/investor event will take place on Monday 13th of May in Lausanne: ICT Investors Day. Already run successfully 8 times in Zürich (I’ve blogged about the June event last year), the pitching opportunity is different from all other ones:

  1. It is exclusively dedicated to ICT (in a large sense - electronics is OK), which means you have a qualified audience (people who understand the area).
  2. Participation is free of charge for startups (in comparison with some angels clubs - which do it wrong in my opinion, but that’s again another topic).
  3. 8 startups will be selected for a 90-seconds pitch at the event. And the audience vote for the 4 they would like to see pitching longer (10 minutes). Yes, it could be frustrating for a founder, as you’re not sure to pitch your whole concept. I’ve experienced it. But anyway, it’s fun to try. Not getting enough votes doesn’t mean your company is not interesting, but only that the audience desires to see other startups.

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Around 50 people are expected to the first ICT Investors Day of Western Switzerland, kindly hosted by one of the most active ICT investor of the region: Debiopharm Group. Yes, it looks strange that a pharmaceutical company invests in ICT startups, even not related to health care! Privately owned, Debiopharm has a strong commitment to support innovative entrepreneurs, and doesn’t work as a traditional VC. The ideal investor?

So, entrepreneurs: what are you waiting for? Fill the simple registration form before 21st 25th of April… and see you there!

And investors: register as soon as possible to experience this new kind of event! I’m pretty sure they will be amazing startups…

It’s time to plan your trip… to Berlin!

We are already only 28 days away from NEXT BERLIN 2013… which is special for me, as it was the first conference I attended as a blogger, last year!

Next is one of the leading European tech conferences, and probably the biggest in Germany. The conference’s main theme is, as you’ve already guessed with it’s name, “what’s next?”. Many technology and business trends will be discussed there. As well as there are some similarities with LiftConference (which is more about disrupting innovations), the main point of Next Berlin is: START-UP!

Theme of the 2013 edition is “Here be dragons”, a phrase used to denote dangerous or unexplored territories, like in the medieval practice (where people put sea serpents and other mythological creatures in uncharted areas of maps). The digital map for the future will be discussed, that is, topics and developments that will impact digital business in the next 36 months.

This year, the conference will be happening at Berliner Congress Center (located on famous Alexanderplatz). Great location in the heart of Berlin, but… last year location was in an old train station, which was… particularly inspiring!

The first day of the conference will welcome the main key notes (and the official party…). On the second day, you’ll be able to follow the startup competition… This year, 3 Swiss startups are needing your votes to be selected:

  • Biel-based hot or not for brands cooa.la
  • Geneva-based collaborative web platform Faveeo
  • Zürich-based music licensing Rightclearing

This day will be completed by workshops…

Last year, the conference happened during Berlin web week, which is unfortunately no more the case. Please let me know (in the comments) if you can recommend other startups events during this week… yeah, because if you go to Berlin, try to make the most out of it!

Next has asked again the crowd to nominate the Top100 of European digital influencers… which will be disclosed soon.

As usual… I’ve thought to people desiring to attend the conference and I’ve been able to get a 10% discount for you (just click the link, the discount is automatically calculated).

And so suddenly, your startup is “on the map”

This is a guest post from Christophe, CEO and co-founder of the the e-commerce startup Kireego.

A couple of weeks ago, we participated to the London WebSummit, where our little venture was nominated amongst the 25 Startup Award finalists.

The news came quite as a nice surprise in January, while we had still our hands full and heads down trying to finish some last tweaks before our Beta Release.

We were (literally) in our bunker/cave bootstrapping – ok, we admit a little bit of seed - our project since many months. Of course, we were pulling our heads up from time to time to check with our targeted audience (independent merchants) if what we were doing and our concept made sense to them.

“Kireego’s been selected for the finals at the London WebSummit!”.

Well, it seems that out of hundreds of other applicants from all over Europe, they thought our Startup/Concept/Service/Idea was worth a shot.

And so suddenly, we were on the map!

We will certainly remember that moment as an important milestone, because we realized how this could be used to shift gears and attract media attention, locally and internationally.

We had suddenly an angle to get through to journalists and bloggers.

But the challenge was, how does a startup leverage that news, with no PR nor any existing network of media contacts.

So we started the old fashion way and looked for emails on newspaper articles, through forums, with the help of some friends, or just by spending hours analyzing tweeter accounts to see who might bring a potential spark for some online exposure.

A great example is how we just boldly got in touch with a few “twitter influencers” we didn’t know before (you might know one of them if you read that blog!). Sébastien tweeted about us, got retweeted by several people which triggered interest by a couple of journalists who got in contact with us. That happened in a 6 hours period and ended up with a couple of online news article! Followed then by newspaper articles and even Radio and TV interviews.

So we must admit having milked that as much as possible… and on the other hand, we prepared for the event with the intention of meeting as many interesting people as possible.

The event itself was extremely interesting for us, and although we did not go through the last final stages of the Final, we had an amazing opportunity to sit down with some VCs or startup scouts that we would have had a real hard time getting in touch with otherwise – such as Index Venture, Redstone, Octopus, Ventech, and many more.

Time will tell how all the conversations we are having with them now will end up, but we will certainly remember this London adventure as a pivotal moment in our history:

A moment when you can proudly feel that you may be going the right direction.

Don’t miss Start Summit 2013!

We often hear people complaining there are no big startup events in Switzerland (except Lift Conference, but which is not so directly startup centric).

But how many of you (especially in Western Switzerland) know Start Summit, happening next week in St.Gallen? I know it’s a bit far away from Geneva (just kidding… if you’re a startup entrepreneur and St.Gallen is the end of the world for you… please stop your journey now, you don’t have the global ambition your project deserves).

Organized by the local team of the global student association START, the event expects welcoming more than 350 startup-minded guys from all over Switzerland (and also from Germany & Austria). They’ve managed to convince startup rockstars like Klaus Hommels (investor in Spotify, Skype, Facebook, etc.), Christophe Maire (serial entrepreneur currently managing txtr - as a regular reader of startupolic, you can remember having read about him!) or Lukasz Gadowsky (co-founder of Team Europe). Impressive!

As well as HSG alumni network is known for its wide reach (and what are doing guys from HEC Lausanne in the meantime?), you can give a big credit to the organizers (stop a second and… applause!) to find and convince all these prominent entrepreneurs and investors to speak on 22-23rd of March. 

Start Summit will be populated by aspiring entrepreneurs or future startup employees (students), startups who will be able to pitch their company and share their BP to potential investors… and investors, of course!

Registration fee is cheap: CHF 60.- for students, CHF 100.- for startups for a 2-days event - and you can even have a free accommodation provided by HSG students (hey guys, why not having a look on StartupStay and do it via this platform for the next events?)! And a bit more expensive for investors.

Start Summit is even organizing free bus from Zürich, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, etc… And why not from Lausanne, Neuchâtel? But anyway, there is no need for this, as it much more simple to jump in a train to go! 

Deadline to apply to Start Summit is today… you still have a few hours, so don’t miss the opportunity and apply right NOW!

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