MassChallenge Switzerland’s 2021 top innovators with moonshot-potential technologies will show cast their startups, pitch live and compete for the cash and in-kind awards on October 28th, 2021 during our 2021 Awards Ceremony
(Renens, Switzerland – October 12, 2021) – MassChallenge Switzerland, part of MassChallenge’s global network on innovators, today announced the top 12 startup finalists. These startups will now participate in a final round of judging where they will compete for up to CHF 500,000 of prizes including CHF 400,000 in equity-free cash prizes. The prize winners will be announced on Thursday, October 28, 2021 as part of the 2021 Awards Ceremony, which will be a hybrid event, with on-site and online participation – RSVP here.
“2021 was MassChallenge Switzerland’s biggest and strongest year ever. We had our largest ever cohort at 107 startups, and it was also our most geographically diverse – 27% coming from Switzerland, 41% from the EU+ region, and the balance led by US and India. The largest industry sector represented was food/ag-tech at 60% of startups. Virtually all these amazing businesses are purpose-led enterprises – 57% being focused on Good Health, Responsible Production/Consumption or Climate Action.” – said Matt Lashmar, Managing Director of MassChallenge Switzerland.
During the past 4 months, our community-powered accelerator program provided 107 high-potential startups with the accountability, expertise, and network they need to accelerate towards the next critical milestone.
Matthew Lashmar further explains: “This year’s program was run as a Hybrid. We mostly ran it online – with 4 large in person events. Thanks to the 380 Mentors, 3 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, 37 Speakers, 20 Partners, 72 Experts who judged our Pre-finals & Finals, and 6 Team Members. Collectively your advice, connections, enthusiasm, and passion drove startup engagement to our highest level for 3 years with 64% of startups scoring us 9 or 10 out of 10 if asked to recommend the program to other startups.
This year we tried to deliver better outcomes for our startups. Simply put – we asked each startup what they wanted to achieve during the accelerator – and then helped them deliver it. 42% of startups said they “exceeded” or “hit objectives”. Including those who “nearly achieved objectives” we hit 94%. The main area of startup focus was collaborating with our corporate partners. Here we had our most successful year ever. We had 113 connections, and 56 concrete next steps between startups and corporate partners; pleasingly the number of concrete next steps was double versus 2020.”
The top 12 startups that will be awarded on October 28th were selected following an online pitch, in which they demonstrated their growth and impact to top corporate executives, industry, academia and innovation leaders from across the globe. So join our Awards Ceremony either ON-SITE or ONLINE and meet the innovators of today, who are disrupting the status quo and creating meaningful change!
2021 MASSCHALLENGE SWITZERLAND TOP 12 FINALISTS
AMPHIBIO (United Kingdom): development of a sustainable and recyclable Waterproof Breathable Textile and Garment for the outdoor apparel industry.
B’ZEOS (Norway): offers sustainable, home compostable, and bio-digestible packaging solutions made from seaweed extracts to combat plastic pollution.
CLEAR LEAF (Costa Rica): offers 100% non-toxic fungicides and bactericides for agricultural use.
EPIOS (Switzerland): is providing personalized and precision management of brain disorders using daily life monitoring and therapeutics.
GELATEX (Estonia): high-throughput and cost-effective bio-based nanofibers production for cultured meat, wound care, filtration, or other industries.
SMART HELIO (Switzerland): brings second life to solar panels, helping to generate more clean energy and prevent e-waste using out patent pending IoT sensor.
SOPHIE’S BIONUTRIENTS (Singapore): are developing a new sustainable plant-based protein out of microalgae using fermentation technologies.
SPIRECUT SA (Switzerland): develops surgical instruments for percutaneous treatment. No skin incision, less complications, early return to normal life.
ULLMANNA (Czech Republic): is working on an innovative solution that will scale organic food production using robotics and artificial intelligence.
UMAMI MEATS (Singapore): is cultivating the future of sustainable seafood by crafting delicious, affordable, nutritious cell-cultured fish.
UMIAMI (France): created a proprietary technology to produce better-tasting, more clean-label plant-based meats and fish.
ZEG (United Kingdom): their proprietary 3D AI tech allows any eCommerce seller to create photos virtually at 1/10th cost and 1/100th the time compared to a studio.
ABOUT THE 2021 MASSCHALLENGE SWITZERLAND AWARDS CEREMONY
This is the celebration of the best ideas, technologies and entrepreneurs, featuring our 12 top finalists, the best “Intrapreneur Team” from our Corporate Partners and the best Mentors of the year. This isn’t your average Awards Ceremony: there’ll be interaction, bringing together entrepreneurs, corporate executives, investors, media and other innovation A-listers and of course plenty of inspiration, music, delicious food & drinks and other surprises. RSVP here.
ABOUT MASSCHALLENGE
MassChallenge is the global network for innovators. Headquartered in the United States with seven locations worldwide, MassChallenge equips bold entrepreneurs to disrupt the status quo and to create meaningful change. Since launching in 2009, more than 2,928 MassChallenge alumni have raised more than $8.6B in funding, generated more than $3.6 B in revenue, and created more than 186,000 total jobs.
Learn more about MassChallenge at masschallenge.org
MassChallenge Switzerland Founding and Diamond Partners
Bühler, Givaudan, Nestlé, Barry Callebaut, Swiss Economic Forum, Inartis Foundation, DSM