2023 FINALISTS
Congratulations to the 61 finalists of this year's competition!
Find out more about their startups below.
Business Track
NPO Track
FINANCE & INSURANCE
Ascentys ESG
Finance & Insurance
Ascentys automates the ESG assessment and reporting of companies, turning what is typically a complex, frustrating exercise into an effortless experience. Ascentys' SaaS based, automated ESG assessment and reporting allows for the smooth delivery of a clear, practical, actionable ESG assessment report outlining what customers do well and what they should improve. Simple, fast, accurate and cost-efficient.
Everon
Finance & Insurance
Everon democratizes access to Swiss Private Banking by building an ecosystem to provide affluent individuals worldwide with professional financial services at scale. How? Through a mobile app with a fully digital onboarding, an awarded portfolio management engine and an API infrastructure for business partners.
Frigg
Finance & Insurance
Frigg builds software to upgrade sustainable finance and streamline the financing workflow from origination, securitization and financing to post-financing follow-up. Their target market consists of small to mid-sized renewable energy developers who struggle with manual, costly, and time-consuming financing processes. Frigg builds on awarded government-grants and strategic partnerships with renewable energy stakeholders to achieve its goals.
grape health
Finance & Insurance
Grape is the first Swiss fully digital employee insurance that invests in employees' physical and mental health. Grape provides a faster service and a more accurate pricing for customers based on new data points and machine-learning techniques. This allows Grape to invest into what matters most - the health of employees. Grape pays for prevention services for its clients and makes their teams healthier.
iAccess Partners AG
Finance & Insurance
iAccess Partners gives qualified investors access to top-tier Private Equity funds on a fully digital basis starting with low minimal investment amounts. The investment opportunities, which are accessible through iAccess Partners and a specific CH-ISIN (bankable product), are multi-billion, top-tier, flagship Private Equity funds.
Mavuno Technologies
Finance & Insurance
Mavuno is an Agri & FinTech startup empowering African smallholder farmers with satellite imagery and machine learning. Mavuno allows for sustainable farming practice, access to organic farm inputs and financing to drastically increase harvest yields. In 5 years, Mavuno aims to become an established pan-African platform with at least 1 million registered smallholder farmers as beneficiaries.
Sway Finance SA
Finance & Insurance
Sway is a banking platform focusing on banking aggregation and invoice management. It enable clients to operate and monitor their liquidities, payments and invoices efficiently, thanks to artificial intelligence, giving real-time, money-saving and money-making recommendations.
The INGAGE Institute
Finance & Insurance
The INGAGE INSTITUTE offers digital innovative solutions for insurance companies to effectively train their learners, employees and clients. Here, they focus on tools to increase customer value and to reduce customer acquisition costs. Their goal is to become the leading training company specialised in insurance within 5-7 years.
HEALTH & NUTRITION
arcoris bio AG
Health & Nutrition
Arcoris bio's mission is to empower personalized medicine with multiplex biomarker technologies at various steps along the bench to bedside pipeline. One technology is MUSE, an IP-protected, high-sensitivity, universal biomarker imaging nanotechnology built on groundbreaking advances at Caltech and USC.
breathe
Health & Nutrition
breathe wants to improve emergency care for patients in low-resource settings by providing a Swiss-quality portable ventilator at low costs. The ventilator is easy to use, robust, battery-powered, and up to 5 times less expensive than competing devices in low- and middle-income countries. breathe further provides medical and technical training to build local capacity and ensure a long-lasting positive impact.
Cultivated Biosciences
Health & Nutrition
Cultivated Biosciences delivers the creaminess flexitarians needs to switch to sustainable foods. Using a creamy fat obtained from the fermentation of non-genetically modified yeast, Cultivated Biosciences aims to disrupt the $916B dairy market by providing an alternative to dairy.
Curiva
Health & Nutrition
Curiva is commercializing a non-invasive wearable diagnostics patch for gynecologic malignancy detection - diaPatchTM. Curiva’s flagship product allows doctors, healthcare professionals and patients to accurately test for high-risk biomarkers that forecast the onset of cervical cancer.
Lighthouse Tech Sagl
Health & Nutrition
Lighthouse Tech makes a fashion eyewear frame that is a wearable device enabling safe mobility for blind and severely vision impaired people. Hazards in proximity of the user are communicated via L/R haptic vibration. Discreet, fashionable looks and highly intuivite feedback help fight social stigma and inspire confidence, areas where other smart mobility solutions consistently underperform.
metaLead
Health & Nutrition
metaLead develops cutting-edge treatments against toxic metal poisoning, starting with the most dangerous metal: lead (Pb). Its innovative technology aims to provide safe and highly effective treatment for millions affected by lead poisoning, by selectively capturing toxicants and not essential metals in patients.
ICT
ICT
Bearmind
Bearmind is an EPFL spin-off developing helmet-worn sensors and software for brain injury prevention and cognitive performance monitoring in sports. The technology allows for real-time head impact data, which is translated into a personalized risk assessment, supporting team staff in brain injury prevention and cognitive performance monitoring.
ICT
Egonym
Egonym is a deep tech company with strong R&D focus on visual privacy protection. It's technology is based on an end-to-end pipeline that detaches the original identity from an image and alters a person's appearance so that it is unrecognisable (thus protecting your pixel!). At the same time, the user can share their original face with people they trust, since the pipeline is also reversible.
ICT
EMPATH
EMPATH provides a plug&play over-the-air test solution for wireless systems to ensure safety and performance of devices, allowing for production line testing. It proposes a new solution which can characterize a wireless system by retrieving its 3D radiation pattern in a single-shot measurement.
ICT
procured.
procured. is a platform where companies can access software service providers in an easy and time efficient manner using a strategic procurement approach. procured.'s unique selling point is its use of procurement best practices combined with state-of-the-art AI which will benefit mostly SME's and big corporations in need of external IT services.
ICT
Refluenced
Refluenced is a data and AI-driven online platform that connects influencers with brands - efficient, measurable and performance-based. It not only wants to revolutionize influencer marketing, but also offer an all-in-one solution that supports and simplifies content creation, planning and controlling across all social media channels.
ICT
Stacksync
Stacksync is a real-time and bidirectional data synchronization tool between customer relationship management (CRM) systems and databases. Edits made to data in Salesforce will instantly be updated in Postgres, and vice-versa. To set up a synchronization, users simply have to connect the two chosen apps in one click and select the tables they want to sync., that’s it!
ICT
Stream Ocean
Stream Ocean is developing underwater cameras equipped with an AI-powered analytics engine to provide real-time biodiversity data and videos to marine projects. Stream Ocean's software-as-a-service revenue model provides target clients with a subscription service to get cameras installed in their conservation projects. With a monthly fee, users can access the online dashboard for data updates and videos.
ICT
Veintree SA
VEINTREE® enables digital identification through the forgery-proof, non-nominative, biometrically-inspired creation of unique codes. Using the hand as a unique signature, specific for each digital transaction, VEINTREE provides associated files with a quantum attacks-resistant encryption.
INDUSTRIALS & ENGINEERING
Industrials & Engineering
4QT
4QT builds electric powertrains for heavy equipment with the Swiss proprietary technology ParisHybrid™. This technology enables customers to lower the emissions and fuel consumption of their fleet by 35-100% and win more tenders. 4QT's target markets include green construction, green maritime and green transportation.
Industrials & Engineering
apheros AG
apheros provides cost-effective cooling materials for mid- to large-sized companies that focus on sustainable production as part of their value generation. The innovative and high-quality cleantech materials of this ETH spinoff are obtained through a novel metal foaming process that produces a microstructure optimized for efficient cooling.
Industrials & Engineering
Biosimo AG
Biosimo AG brings low-cost bio-based chemicals to the market, reducing CO2 emissions and leading the transition to a fossil-free chemical industry. Biosimo's chemicals are a “drop-in” solution to existing processes, immediately reducing the carbon footprint of everyday products. The secret here is its catalytic process, which can be easily scaled, allowing for a cost-competitive green product.
Industrials & Engineering
Perovskia Solar AG
Perovskia Solar is a cleantech startup that provides digitally printed perovskite solar cells. Their versatile printing technology allows for the creation of customized solar cells that seamlessly integrate into electronic devices & sensors and offers breakthrough performance at disruptive costs – perovskite materials enable cells to operate in low-light conditions.
Industrials & Engineering
Qaptis
Qaptis' mission is to mitigate the carbon emissions in transportation by providing an inexpensive, fast-to-deploy CO2 capture solution for vehicles. The capture kit is attached to the truck exhaust pipe and the heat from the exhaust is then used to capture the CO2 molecules. The captured CO2 is sold and used in a variety of sectors – from greenhouses to concrete producers.
Industrials & Engineering
Rematter AG
Rematter provides circular, low carbon and price competitive earth-timber floor slabs to replace unsustainable reinforced concrete and poor-performing/costly timber alternatives. Rematter's strong team has 40+ years of work experience in construction, robotics, engineering and finance.
Industrials & Engineering
Solaxer
Solaxer delivers innovative receivers for concentrating solar collectors and enables the decarbonization of the industrial sector through solar process heat. By targeting the emerging market of Solar Heat for Industrial Processes, Solaxer is aligned with the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals and strives to become the leading supplier of high-performance receivers for solar heat powered industrial processes.
Industrials & Engineering
Voltiris
Voltiris' solar modules allows greenhouse growers to gain energy independence. The modules allow for double-land use of greenhouses’ surface to generate electricity without impacting the growth of the crops placed underneath. This results in 3 benefits for growers: energy independence, profitability and sustainability.
RETAIL & CONSUMER SERVICES
1,2,3 kiD
Retail & Consumer Services
1,2,3 kiD is a platform that simplifies parents' lives by allowing them to quickly find the most relevant educational resources to support their children. Its ambition is to offer the first platform with selective aggregation, that is needs-based and targets kids aged 2 and above.
Cirkel Supply Co.
Retail & Consumer Services
Cirkel Supply specializes in outdoor apparel rental for skiers and snowboarders in Switzerland. The circular rental option is consumer and environmentally friendly. Cirkel Supply's services will include resale, repair services, summer rental and B2B circular solutions, and could expand into other alpine markets.
Clever Forever Education AG
Retail & Consumer Services
CatnClever (CnC) is a math and literacy app for preschoolers that uses AI to create interactive games. The innovative CnC app provides children with the skills they need for a headstart in school. The company shares the UN sustainability goals of quality education and reduced inequality, and will always be available for free to children in need.
MoreThanDigital
Retail & Consumer Services
MTD is building a digital ecosystem and community for the business world, to support companies and individuals with highly scalable solutions for economic development and education. MTD's goal is to make complex topics understandable and to offer users immediate value.
NOW Care
Retail & Consumer Services
NOW Care is rethinking personal care, by developing the first, Swiss made, powdered formula that turns into a full bottle of liquid, foaming soap. NOW Care's consumer-friendly, effective and water-saving soap contains local plants and prebiotics - allowing for a conscious soap consumption.
Viatu
Retail & Consumer Services
Viatu makes sustainable travel accessible by building the first platform that enables everyone to book a connected trip within minutes, all in one place. The strategy is to guide travellers on their impact and to promote sustainable tourism partners in curated destinations.
VYN GmbH
Retail & Consumer Services
VYN is a new Swiss sneaker brand that challenges the existing footwear landscape by producing the world’s first self-renewable shoe. The "proof of concept" self-renewable sneaker is a pioneer product for more sustainability as it prevents seasonal overproduction. With the appropriate funding, VYN will achieve its goal of creating a sustainable circular footwear system.
Zizania SA
Retail & Consumer Services
ZiZAN!A revolutionizes the cosmetic world by using upcycled organic ingredients, reducing the amount of waste in production and creating new products with high added value. ZiZAN!A is a cooperative project by Tulipan, a passionate producer of organic seeds, and Anneleen, a cosmetologist pharmacist.
NPO Track
Adaire Academy
NPO Track
Adaire Academy enables dormant, un- and under-employed, yet qualified, African adults to pursue rewarding technology careers in remote teams by filling increasing demand for qualified technologists in Switzerland. We have partnered with EPFL Extension School to deploy their online curricula, have developed a revolving fund to finance adult education and designed in support mechanisms to remove any barrier faced by qualified participants.
bitmark Association
NPO Track
bitmark is the world's only open-source content-first data standard for creating interactive digital learning content. Its innovation is to describe educational content in a new way. By not only reducing the time, cost and effort required to digitize educational materials, the bitmark standard is poised to become a game-changer in the e-learning world.
Development Workshop Switzerland
NPO Track
Development Workshop Switzerland has implemented a social housing initiative to address the housing crisis in Southern Africa, Housing for All. By planning and developing residential land with property title at the lowest possible cost, they provide access to housing to those that otherwise end up in slums and informal settlements.
EuroTube Foundation
NPO Track
EuroTube is a non-profit research organisation working to accelerate the development of hyperloop as a sustainable high-speed transport technology. Its innovation for sustainable mass transit infrastructure will have a significant impact on climate emissions at a global level.
Expedition Future
NPO Track
Expedition Future is a think and do tank for political innovation that brings together politics, administration, business, science, and society and supports them in jointly addressing the pressing issues of our time. In their workshops, they create the concrete foundations for collaboratively developed political solutions that are capable of gaining majority support.
H100 Impact by HEMLATA
NPO Track
H100 Impact by HEMLATA is empowering young women from India’s lower socio-economic strata, through quality education, to step out of their cycles of inter-generational poverty, and achieve gender equality.
H100 Alumni are employed and contributing to society as taxpayers, establishing proof of concept.
Levo
NPO Track
Levo empowers startups and SMEs to grow into responsible businesses by providing them with the tools to easily assess, monitor, and continuously improve their sustainability and impact. Levo's goal is to set the standard by introducing a new certification tailored to startups' and SMEs' needs.
Living Museum Foundation
NPO Track
Living Museum Foundation created a model for sustainable, entrepreneurial growth of a mental health recovery program, balancing artistic freedom with business proficiency and good governance and turning a vulnerability into an inclusive force for good.
Openversum
NPO Track
Openversum empowers local entrepreneurs in Colombia and Ecuador to provide safe drinking water to underserved communities by training them to locally manufacutre and distribute household-level drinking water filters, consequently creating employment for thousands of entrepreneurs and reaching the people in most need.
Project Canopy
NPO Track
Project Canopy is a non-profit that helps local forest communities and other stakeholders in the Congo Basin prevent deforestation and manage their lands more effectively. They're building a remote sensing platform to provide them with reliable deforestation data and analytics of Africa's rainforest. The platform will help environmental organizations make better decisions, and create investment opportunities.