MassChallenge Switzerland today announced the 106 high-impact startups that will join the final stage of acceleration and benefit from world-class mentorship, programming, and resources.
The finalists were selected from more than 1,000 applicants from around the world – making the 2018 cohort MassChallenge Switzerland’s most competitive program to date. 

Last week, over 200 startups from 31 countries pitched their ideas to more than 150 experts during MassChallenge Switzerland’s final judging round at Campus Biotech in Geneva. Out of these, 66 high potential startups have been selected to join the Switzerland MassChallenge Acceleration Program and 40 startups for the global EIT-FAN Track, cumulating to 106 finalists for both programs.

The 66 selected startups invited to join the Masschallenge Switzerland accelerator represent 3 continents, 18 countries, with an even gender distribution, and are active in five major industries:

• 31.7% Healthcare and Life Sciences
• 30.0% High Tech
• 23.3% General
• 8.3% Social Impact
• 6.7% Energy/Clean Tech

“After an outstanding application drive, with about 75% of applicants coming from outside Switzerland, this year’s edition clearly shows the global impact and drive that our program has. This outcome underlines also the fact that innovators and change-makers across industries and geographies put their trust in our program to help them launch, succeed and maximize their impact, creating value and entrepreneurial growth the world over” – said Thierry Duvanel, MassChallenge Switzerland Managing Director

As part of the accelerator, the selected 66 startups will be able to engage with industry experts, corporates and investors, while receiving world-class mentoring, tailored programming, free co-working space and numerous key networking opportunities. The accelerator program will culminate on October 30th at the MassChallenge Switzerland Awards Ceremony, when the best startups will be rewarded with up to CHF 1 million in zero-equity prize money, as well as several other in-kind prizes, of over CHF200k in value.

For its third edition, MassChallenge Switzerland is organizing and running the EIT-FAN, a selective track dedicated solely to Agri- and Food-tech startups. This program, launched by the consortium EIT-Food fosters efforts to identify and support high-impact Agri- and Food-tech startups, making Europe the go-to innovation hub for this emerging industry. The 40 startups of the EIT-FAN Track with MassChallenge will be spread across 3 program locations running in parallel in Germany, Israel, and Switzerland. In Switzerland, 16  startups will be invited onsite in Renens, in June, for 4 months of acceleration.

“We are thrilled to welcome the first cohort of 40 outstanding food and ag start-ups in the EIT Food Accelerator Network (EIT FAN) programme. The selected start-ups come from 13 different countries and cover the whole food value chain and encompass projects in Agriculture, Food & Beverages, Retail, Health & Wellness, Robotics, IT, Online commerce, etc. They will now go through a 4-months intensive acceleration programme in one of the 3 locations of the EIT FAN (Munich, Lausanne or Tel-Aviv), in which top-level mentors from our EIT Food industrial and academic partners will bring them to the next level. The challenges faced by Europe in the transformation of its food system will not be solved without the disruptive innovations developed by great entrepreneurs and fast-moving start-ups. More than ever, they are an essential piece of the puzzle and we are very proud to support them in their growth,” said Benoit Buntinx, Director Business Creation EIT Food.

“Apart from the wide range of industries in which the MassChallenge 2018 finalists are active in, the partnership with EIT-FAN addresses a specific problem which is increasingly worrying. The challenges imposed by demography and consumption habits have a tremendous impact not only on how we produce and consume food, but on the environment as well. This means that we need to innovate very rapidly in order to help the food industry evolve, and the EIT-FAN with MassChallenge Switzerland partnership provides the space to foster precisely such needed innovation,” added Thierry Duvanel.

2018 MassChallenge Switzerland Cohort

Energy/Clean Tech

• Evezy (United Kingdom): An all-Inclusive Electric Vehicle Subscriptions Platform – swap your car at the click of a button. 
• hiLyte (Switzerland): We bring clean, safe and affordable on-demand energy to the poorest.
• EnerSeer (Switzerland): Developed a flexibility management tool that virtually extends the technical capabilities of ESSs boosting their economic value.

General

• Brave Foods SA (Switzerland): Snacking without compromise: delicious & balanced, 100% natural & organic, always at your side wherever life takes you.
• Tunnll (Sweden): A smart mobility system for any small city, a personal bus for everyone.
• Be My Eyes (Denmark)
• AVAtronics Sarl (Switzerland): Our groundbreaking Active Noise Cancellation technology is a wide-band solution outperforming all available techniques in the market.
• Rideshaper (Switzerland): A communal workshop for motorcycle enthusiasts who want to wrench on their bike while socialising with the community.
• goUrban (Austria)
• Brightbites AG (Switzerland): A marketing and market research platform for food brands and producers.
• FLYLA GmbH (Germany)
• TRIPAFRIQUE (France): the African KAYAK.
• Beyond Engineering SRL (Italy): Wants to disruptively innovate the way food is delivered at home.
• La Garde-Robe (Switzerland)
• Armour Agent (United Kingdom): An online security personnel sourcing and management platform that makes hiring security professionals more globally accessible.
• FreshStrips (Netherlands)

Healthcare/ Life Sciences

• Kejako (Switzerland): Addressing presbyopia in the field of ophthalmology, with an anti-aging mindset in order to treat the gradual loss of visual accommodation.
• Nagi Bioscience (Switzerland): We aim to set a new standard for testing toxicity and efficacy of drugs, cosmetics and chemicals: the first “Organism-on-Chip” technology
• Rapid Graft (Switzerland): With TeD dermatologists can treat wounds with patients-own skin in a short and affordable intervention.
• LIfT BioSciences (United Kingdom): A socially-minded Biotech start-up creating The World’s First Cell Bank of Cancer Killing Innate Immune Cells to cure a range of cancers.
• Aesyra SA (Switzerland)
• Biospectal SA (Switzerland)
• EBA-Med (External Beam Ablation Medical Devices) (Switzerland)
• Medi360 (India): Last mile delivery of affordable quality primary healthcare services to underserved population using technology and doctor network
• Resistell (Switzerland): The world’s fastest antibiotic resistance test. It saves lives by determining the right antibiotic for the patient on time.
• Prometheus (Italy)
• Velox Therapeutics (Switzerland): Developed a novel anticoagulant that does not increase the bleeding risk, thus overcoming the safety issues related to current drugs\
• Leitwert (Switzerland): Enabling continuous patient monitoring in clinics with infrastructure for automated data capture from wearables using wireless technologies.
• Aspivix (Switzerland): In genecology, uterus access requires traumatic forceps. Aspivix, a new forceps gen using vacuum suction, eliminates pain, bleeding & lesion
• Scailyte AG (Switzerland): Uses AI technology to unlock single-cell data for biomedical research, pharmaceutical discovery and precision diagnostics
• AQrion Medical (Switzerland)
• ALAnostics (Switzerland): Develop controlled release nanomedicines for Fluorescent Guided Resection and Photodynamic Therapy of Solid Tumours
• Stithi (India): Tuberculosis kills over 4100 people every day. “Our aim is to enhance monitoring and adherence of the tuberculosis treatment.”
• Lab-on-Fiber GmbH (Germany): LoF revolutionizes laser surgery by integrating new and innovative sensing functionality into the distal end of the laser probe.
• Innoprick (Spain)

High Tech

• GenLots (Switzerland)
• Joto (United Kingdom): A robotic drawing board, which turns pixels into pen and ink. Award-winning creative robotics for the home, school or office.
• Feeltronix (Switzerland)
• Shelfwise (Poland)
• Prodibi (Switzerland): A unique professional image solution that solves all issues of displaying pictures online for any image of any size on any device.
• vAUDIENCE (Germany): We revolutionize the way fans experience live events.
• 2045tech (Italy): Wants to reshape life through technology and unique user experience. Our first project is Floome
• ROVENSO SA (Switzerland): Makes agile robots for challenging terrains and harsh environments
• Intelistyle (United Kingdom): An AI Fashion Stylist. Snap a photo of any garment and get personalised outfit ideas.
• Foldaway Haptics (Switzerland): Interfaces render forces under your finger. Users can “touch” VR objects thanks to the new generation of portable joysticks
• CREAL3D (Switzerland): A startup company developing a near-eye light-field display for Virtual and Mixed Reality glasses bringing depth immersion in 3D.
• CADLAB.io (Ukraine): A collaborative platform for hardware teams that helps to improve PCB design process, reduce time2market and development costs.
• Petpad (Portugal): Connects pet owners with trusted pet sitters in their neighbourhood

Social Impact

• Bloom Biorenewables (Switzerland): Makes industrial biomaterials from plants.
• Association Mobsya (Switzerland): We create and distribute products to help children understand and master digital technologies and sciences thanks to programmable robots.
• HIPPOCRATE.ORG (Tunisia)
• HIGH5 TEST (Latvia): A free strengths test helping people to discover their unique talents and to live a life full of happiness and fulfillment.
• Oxygen at Work GmbH (Switzerland): We help companies reduce health care and energy costs by using data analytics and specific plants to improve office indoor air quality.

2018 EIT Food Accelerator Network with MassChallenge Cohort

• The Food Safe System (United Kingdom): Makes food regulation compliance easy & automatic for our customers.
• Alver Golden Chlorella (Switzerland): We are addressing the growing demand for tasty low impact, high protein foods with a range of healthy foods made with Golden Chlorella.
• Tryna Grub (Israel): A social dining platform for hungry foodies to spontaneously arrange last minute meals with friends, instantaneously.
• Farmerline (Ghana): Connects smallholder farmers to information, high-quality resources, and supply chains through innovative mobile technology.
• Jet-Eat (Israel)
• CocoA Switzerland GmbH (Switzerland): We are fighting food waste and increase the income of small-scale cocoa farmers by carrying the exotic taste of cocoa pulp into the world.
• Alkion BioInnovations (France): Develop & produce the new natural GMO-free 0-cal substitute for sugar using disruptive sustainable traceable cost-effective biotechnologies.
• Embion Technologies (Switzerland): Customized extraction of novel functional ingredients starting from low-value natural plant resources.
• AgroSustain (Switzerland): Aims to develop and bring to market efficient organic treatments against broad ranges of plant fungal pathogens.
• wisefood GmbH (Germany): Eatapple – The World’s First Edible Straw – Plastic was yesterday: True to our motto: LESS WASTE – MORE TASTE
• Avocadoo (France): We use tech to promote healthier eating habits – with a background objective of preventing and treating chronic diseases.
• Koepala (Finland): Develops takeaway food packaging to help foodservice and retail provide their customers convenient and sustainable meal experiences.
• ten-ace (Germany)
• farmee (Germany): Bridges the gap between farmers and software developers to make smart farming simple
• Cambridge Sustainable Food Hub (United Kingdom): The Food Hub is a new model for food storage and distribution, serving as a living lab for perfecting a scalable, sustainable food system.
• FlavorWiki (Switzerland): A digital consumer insights platform specifically designed for food and beverage products.
• Flying SpArk (Israel) 
• CULTIVANDO FUTURO (Colombia): Business intelligence tool for the agro sector, aimed to provide key market data to the ground level of the food industry.
• Kiinns (Israel)
• Phytoponics (United Kingdom)
• Senorics (Germany)
• ORBEM (Germany)
• xFarm (CH): Offers an intuitive, map-based Farm Management Platform coupled with the Plug and Play IoT field sensors xSense.
• FruitsApp (Italy): B2B Marketplace adapted for Fresh Produce Industry
• Wine Picker (United Kingdom): The sommelier in your pocket. Never drink bad wines in restaurants again.
• GreenhouCity (Switzerland)
• LOEWI (Germany)
• Acrai (Germany)
• Completeorganics (Germany): Reinventing fermented vegetables – ancient foods full of probiotic life for the modern gut.
• Noyanum (Germany)
• Entoprot Oy (Findland)
• Supp.li (Hungary): A B2B marketplace that enables European chefs to order specialty, unique food products directly from European SME producers.
• The Sprouted Grain Company (Israel)
• Foods for Tomorrow (Spain)
• Agri Marketplace (Portugal): A B2B digital marketplace where fair food trade is made easy!
• Lironix (Switzerland)
• Climate Edge (United Kingdom): Making climate data accessible to smallholder farmers, to increase resilience to climate change and improve livelihoods.
• Biofood systems ltd. (Israel)
• Philosoffee (Germany)
• Natufia Labs (Estonia): Our machine-learning technology grows the nutritious organic plants right in the kitchen. We are the Nespresso for plants and herbs.
• NeoCarbons (Switzerland): We develop the equipment making migration from fossils by CO2 remediation profitable and competitive on an industrial scale.

About MassChallenge
MassChallenge is a global network of zero-equity startup accelerators. Headquartered in the United States with locations in Boston, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, Texas, and the UK, MassChallenge is committed to strengthening the global innovation ecosystem by supporting high-potential early stage startups across all industries, from anywhere in the world. To date, more than 1,500 MassChallenge alumni have raised more than $3 billion in funding, generated over $2 billion in revenue, and created over 80,000 total jobs. 
Learn more about MassChallenge at masschallenge.org 

MassChallenge Switzerland Founding Partners
Barry Callebaut, Bühler, GEA, Givaudan, Inartis Foundation, Nestlé, Swiss Economic Forum