Kickstart Accelerator has announced this year’s program participants. 30 high-growth companies from over 12 countries as well as five intrapreneurship teams will come to Zurich this autumn to work together with Swiss corporations, universities, cities and foundations in order to drive deep technologies. With Kickstart, Switzerland has one of the world's largest programs to connect leading established organizations with technology startups.
Zurich, 17 July 2018 – Kickstart Accelerator has chosen 30 technology startups and 5 intrapreneurship teams for its 2018 program. The startups will come to Zurich for seven weeks this autumn, where they will meet with Swiss corporations, cities, universities and foundations aiming at initiating successful innovation partnerships and joint pilot projects.
Virtual learning labs, blockchain-based contracts and text-to-speech for hearing impaired people
The selected startups work on innovative solutions addressing a variety of challenges: The companies in the EdTech & Learning Vertical have developed virtual learning labs (Labster) and learning solutions for the smartphone (Gnowbe) inter alia, while the Food & Retail Tech startups focus on algae based vegan proteins (Alver Golden Chlorella) and fast testing for harmful bacteria in food (Yarok Microbio). In the FinTech & Crypto Vertical, it is about analysing the financial industry using Artificial Intelligence (YUKKA Lab AG) and blockchain-based smart contracts (Reportix and Trakti) next to others. Meanwhile, the Smart Cities & Infrastructure startups work on AI-based software to manage energy consumption (The Energy Audit), on speech-to-text/ text-to-speech technology for hearing impaired people (Pedius) and many more. The following startups participate in Kickstart Accelerator 2018:
EdTech & Learning | FinTech & Crypto | Food & Retail Tech | Smart Cities & Infrastructure |
- CodeAll (Poland) - Differ (Norway) - Gnowbe (Singapore) - Labster (Denmark) - Potential.ly (UK) - Sharing Academy (Spain) - TEACHY (Switzerland) - WriteReader (Denmark) | - Altoo (Switzerland) - Asteria (Sweden) - Fintechdb (Germany) - Gauss Algorithmic (Czech Republic) - Reportix (Germany) - ResonanceX Ltd. (UK) - Trakti (UK) - vlot (Switzerland) - YUKKA Lab AG (Germany) | - Alver Golden Chlorella (Switzerland) - Besso (Germany) - Mondays (Switzerland) - LuckaBox (Switzerland) - microPow (Switzerland) - Yarok Microbio (Israel) | - AVUXI (UK) - Block Dox (UK) - Fleco Power AG (Switzerland) - Hivemind (Switzerland) - Kido Dynamics (Switzerland) - Pedius (Italy) - The Energy Audit (Italy |
More information about the selected startups can be found here. In autumn, the selected startups will come to the innovative premises of Kraftwerk located in the centre of Zurich, where they will work on accelerating their projects in close collaboration with Coop, Credit Suisse, Migros, Swisscom, City of St. Gallen, City of Zurich, Department of Education of the Canton of Zurich, ETH Zurich, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Mercator Foundation Switzerland, Mondelēz International, Swiss Federal Office for Energy SFOE, University of Zurich, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences and many more partners of Kickstart Accelerator.
Growing interest in intrapreneur teams
Next to the 30 startups, also 5 intrapreneur teams will participate in the program – more than ever before. Intrapreneurs are “entrepreneurs within a company”; although being integrated in a corporation, they act as autonomous teams on innovative projects – very similar to a startup. Credit Suisse, Migros and Swisscom are bringing intrapreneur teams into the program:
Intrapreneur Team | Product |
Credit Suisse | Open banking project to enable efficient and secure payment processing for e- and m-commerce. |
Menu Casa (Migros) | Home delivery service of healthy, varied and delicious food for people in the prime of life who are not able or willing to cook for themselves. |
Migros Klubschule | Online coaching platform for personal and professional development with more than 7’000 teachers and experts of Migros Klubschule. |
OLIQ (Migros) | Innovative food supplement in spray form based on natural plant extracts, vitamins and minerals, e.g. for strengthening the immune system or boosting the energy level. |
Robo VC (Swisscom) | Innovative food supplement in spray form based on natural plant extracts, vitamins and minerals, e.g. for strengthening the immune system or boosting the energy level. |
Kickstart Accelerator is operated by Impact Hub Zurich, which is the largest local community within the global Impact Hub network worldwide. The program takes place from July to October, including a one-week Planning Sprint in September and a six-weeks Collaboration Sprint from October 1st to November 9th, during which the international teams will be on site in Zurich.
For more information, please contact:
Simone Bächler, Communication Lead Kickstart Accelerator
+41 (0)79 858 57 00 / press@kickstart-accelerator.com
About Kickstart:
Kickstart Accelerator bridges the gap between startups, corporates, cities, foundations and universities to accelerate deep tech innovation. Science and engineering driven technologies have the potential to transform humanity’s biggest challenges into solvable problems. These challenges require unprecedented collaboration between powerful established organizations and audacious entrepreneurs. Each year, Kickstart brings around 100 such entrepreneurs to Switzerland to collaborate with key players for proof-of-concepts, pilot projects and other innovation partnerships. The program is free of charge (no fees, no equity) for selected growth ventures and provides exceptional access to the executives and decision-makers of Kickstart's partners.
Kickstart Accelerator is a program of Impact Hub Zürichand was launched 2015 bydigitalswitzerland. In 2018, Kickstart runs four verticals (EdTech & Learning, FinTech & Crypto, Food & Retail Tech and Smart Cities & Infrastructure) together with established partner organizations across industries and the private and public domain: Coop, Credit Suisse, Migros and Swisscom as well as AXA, Department of Education of the Canton of Zurich, City of St. Gallen, City of Zurich, csem, C4DR, Empa, ETH Zürich, evitive, EY,Gebert-Rüf-Stiftung, Google for Entrepreneurs, Helbling, Mercator Foundation Switzerland, Mondelēz International, PwC Switzerland, Stäubli, Swiss Federal Office for Energy, Swisslinx,University of Zurich and ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
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