Renowned Swiss companies are concluding over 30 deals with start-ups to enable new innovation in Switzerland.
Examples of solutions: from automating document classification and legal and financial documents translations through AI models, to maximizing the safe operational life of crucial energy infrastructure; from extending the shelf life of selected fruit and vegetable products to methods to enable earlier and faster diagnosis of patients with rare diseases.
Significant attention to fintech and insurtech as well as to circularity and sustainability continues this year. The Climate Positive Mission featured projects aimed at innovative solutions, such as converting treated wood waste into sustainable bio-based resources.
Zurich, 4th December 2024 – What are the Swiss concerned about right now? In the annual SRG survey ‘How's Switzerland?’, the main focus was on financial worries, such as rising health insurance premiums and retirement provisions, as well as a faster pace at work.
Climate change and reducing domestic emissions also played a role. In recent years, start-ups in particular have developed solutions and innovations that everyone is familiar with today, such as Planted, Neustark, New Roots, Kern Tec and AAAcell.
Kickstart Innovation, recognized as one of the top 25 innovation platforms worldwide by CB Insights, is actively addressing these pressing challenges. Through its recent 9th Closing Ceremony, Kickstart announced over 30 impactful deals in Switzerland, after an 11-week program in collaboration with prominent companies, organizations, cities, foundations, and universities.
Since its foundation in 2016, it has supported over 490 start-ups and facilitated over 340 deals in the form of pilots and commercial projects. Kickstart startups have raised more than CHF 2.8 billion in investments for innovations since the inception of the program, of which over CHF 245M this year only.
“The range of deals is broadening, encompassing an increasing variety of sectors, from core business to cutting-edge innovations driven by AI and sustainability, from core business to new innovations powered by AI and sustainability. For example, the finance and insurance sector requires technology-driven solutions in order to continue to meet the high individual requirements of the customer base,” explains Katka Letzing, CEO and co-founder of Kickstart Innovation.
The core idea of the Kickstart programme is to harness the innovation potential of start-ups and foster collaboration with established companies to address increasingly complex market conditions. This year’s solutions are diverse, spanning from carbon-neutral materials to advanced AI applications that drive efficiency and transformation across industries, demonstrating that breaking down silos and uniting expertise leads to the best results through innovation and partnership. In total, more than 30 business deals were concluded in the areas of Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail, New Work & Learning, Health & Wellbeing, Smart Cities, Climate Positive Mission and Intrapreneurship.
More than 30 promising commercial deals have been agreed with the renowned companies AXA, Coop, Swisscom, la Mobilière PostFinance, Sanitas, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Vaud and MSD Switzerland, as well as IKEA Switzerland and Romande Energie.
“Consumers are becoming increasingly discerning when it comes to digital services and technological advancements. This year, we’ve observed numerous compelling use cases leveraging AI, alongside impactful sustainability solutions. Sustainability is part of our DNA, and aligning with emerging customer trends is crucial for us. This year, we are collaborating with many startups and are proud to announce new commercial projects with alumni such as KernTec. The starting signal has been given, marking another step toward innovation and progress,” explains Adrian Giger, Project Manager for Corporate Development at Coop,” explains Adrian Giger, Project Manager for Corporate Development at Coop.
Selected Synopsis of 2024 public partnerships:
Partnerships in the Finance & Insurance Vertical:
La Mobilière will collaborate with hypt to test how hypt can improve customer feedback capabilities, generate qualitative leads, and enhance customer satisfaction, including better Google ratings for individual locations. Hypt will be integrated into the advisory process at the general agency level, and the results will be continuously monitored and analyzed.
Sanitas is partnering up with hypt to digitalize their word-of-mouth management for improved lead generation and measurable consulting quality.
AXA and hypt intend to launch a pilot for the digital and automated activation of customers.
Swisscom and Neur.on have partnered to design a secure AI toolbox tailored for Swiss legal and financial professionals. Through their Kickstart PoC, Neur.on is among the first companies to test the deployment of its AI solution for specialized legal and financial translations on Swisscom's brand-new, state-of-the-art GPU infrastructure.
Swisscom and Multimodal will partner up to automate document classification and extraction using Multimodal's All-in-One AI Agent Platform.
A project has been initiated to use hypt and strategic word-of-mouth management to generate live feedback from the Startup ecosystem and to source high-potential Investment Cases for Swisscom Ventures.
PostFinance and hypt have identified three promising use cases to be tested through Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs) to evaluate the effectiveness of word-of-mouth as a marketing tool. The first PoC agreement is expected to be signed before the end of the year.
The City of Zurich and YData will collaborate to explore the potential of synthetic data for enhancing external data-sharing initiatives.
Partnerships in the Food & Retail Vertical:
Coop and UpGrain are joining forces to make a contribution to closing the cycle.
Coop and ProSeed are working together to identify opportunities in various product areas and to use recycled ingredients coming from the ProSeed process – a step that will help promote sustainability in the food industry.
In order to extend the freshness of food and reduce losses, Coop has initiated a project with Ryp Labs to test the StixFresh freshness technology. The aim is to extend the shelf life of selected fruit and vegetable products and thereby save more products.
Coop and B'ZEOS are working together to examine existing packaging and technologies in which plastics can be replaced by alternatives based on algae.
Partnerships in the Health & Wellbeing Vertical:
MSD and Thryve are in discussions to identify methods to enable earlier and faster diagnosis of patients in Switzerland with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare condition that often goes undiagnosed for extended periods, leading to significant burdens on patients.
La Mobilière will recommend the mental health digital solution from Teale to the medium and small enterprises segment that might need it.
Sanitas and AllyWell will collaborate in revolutionizing easy access to professional psychological support for parents without waiting times (via chat and voice-based communication in the mobile app).
MSD and Lifen are exploring collaboration to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment in Switzerland, streamlining referrals and enhancing patient pathways for an optimized patient care.
Partnerships in the New Work & Learning Vertical:
Swisscom and Silatha will collaborate to start a DEI Audit to define Swisscom's position vs. the industry's best practices and create a roadmap for the future.
MSD and Silatha are exploring collaboration to enhance HPV-related cancer prevention in Switzerland by fostering awareness of women's health within large corporations.
Swisscom and Interloom are conducting a PoC to optimize unstructured processes by orchestrating collaboration between employees and corporate memory-based AI agents. This initiative will improve process documentation, enable access to precedent cases, and accurately automate tasks, driving greater efficiency and scalability.
Swisscom and Moodtalk are partnering to improve teamwork at Swisscom using the AI-based teamwork assistant from Moodtalk.
Organisation und Informatik (OIZ) from the City of Zurich and Silatha are partnering to create support for the women leaders at OIZ through the Silatha Female Leadership Program.
Sanitas will collaborate with Joineer to push towards an open culture within Sanitas, based on mutual exchange and reflection. The “feedforward” philosophy of Joineer will boost Sanitas’ positive, solution-oriented mindset and speed up organizational learning.
Partnerships in the Smart Cities Vertical:
Shayp and Stadtspital Zurich have launched a Proof of Concept to enhance water efficiency across the hospital, with real-time monitoring now active in three connected buildings.
Irmos and Romande Energie are discussing a Proof of Concept aimed at maximizing the safe operational life of crucial energy infrastructure, as well as to minimize downtime and improve resilience in response to disasters.
Irmos signed a project with the infrastructure department of the City of Zurich, with the goal to maximize the safe operational life of an existing bridge by combining intelligent algorithms with cost efficient sensors.
Partnerships with Kickstart Alumni and other announcements:
Partnerships in the Climate Positive Mission:
IKEA and Nature Coatings are partnering to transform treated wood waste into a valuable resource using innovative bio-based BioBlack pigments and pigment dispersions. The goal is to achieve scalable, sustainable reuse solutions.
IKEA Switzerland is teaming up with Lixea to explore sustainable ways to convert treated wood waste into bio-based chemicals and materials using Lixea’s advanced bio-refining process, reinforcing IKEA’s dedication to circularity and reducing waste.
For more information, please contact: press@kickstart-innovation.com
Check the photos of the event : https://photos.app.goo.gl/gapk5UDBjkyqmdUi8
Download the Press Release
About Kickstart
Kickstart is one of Europe’s largest zero equity, open innovation platforms. Our mission is to build innovation ecosystems with purpose, by fast-forwarding innovation. We bring together public and private organizations, startups, investors and experts, with the shared ambition to deliver next-generation products and services and have a meaningful impact at scale. Each year, Kickstart engages 100 entrepreneurs to collaborate with key players for proofs of concept, pilot and commercial projects and other innovation partnerships (overview of collaboration map). Additionally, through the intrapreneurship program Kickstart helps established organizations to promote and accelerate internal innovation.
Kickstart is a spin-off of Impact Hub Zurich and was launched in 2015 by digitalswitzerland. In 2024, Kickstart runs five verticals: New Work & Learning, Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail, Health & Wellbeing and Smart Cities, together with partner organizations across industries: AXA, City of Zurich, Coop, La Mobilière, MSD Switzerland, PostFinance, Swisscom, CSEM, Canton de Vaud, ETH Zurich, IKEA Switzerland, EMPA, Romande Energie, Sanitas, University Hospital Zurich, Panter, SATW, Impact Hub Switzerland, Swiss Healthcare Startups, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Ringier, MLL, WECOCO, Day8, HealthTech Cluster Switzerland, SwissLEAP, EPFL, IMD, gfm and over 200 partners globally. Climate Positive Mission; Circular Economy Initiative is supporting startups in all verticals as well as has a special focus on specific climate challenges.
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