Lausanne, Switzerland, October 27, 2023 – MassChallenge Switzerland, part of MassChallenge’s global network for innovators and zero-equity startup accelerators, celebrated yesterday the winners of its 2023 Early-Stage Startup Accelerator Program, as well as the Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) Climate Resilience Prize laureate.
Hosted in Lausanne, Switzerland, the 2023 MassChallenge Switzerland Awards Ceremony was attended by over 400 guests and simultaneously broadcast worldwide. The ceremony celebrated the 12 early-stage startups that won the MassChallenge Switzerland awards, sharing the CHF 400,000 equity-free cash prize among them, in recognition of their solutions contributing to substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or the removal of carbon or/and in consideration of their broader social and environmental impact. Impossible Materials has been distinguished as the Diamond Winner with CHF 120,000 in cash.
In addition, the LDC Climate Resilience Prize, a non-dilutive cash award of CHF 100,000, was awarded to SeaStock.
“I was honored to present the Climate Resilience Prize on behalf of LDC to SeaStock, whose impressive solution to produce and extract compounds derived from seaweed and algae shows great potential to drive climate resilience across several value chains and industries,” said Michael Gelchie, LDC’s Chief Executive Officer. “Our collaboration with MassChallenge is directly aligned with LDC’s purpose to create fair and sustainable value for the benefit of current and future generations, by supporting ideas, solutions and technologies with the potential to help shape more sustainable food and agriculture production systems.”
The ceremony was also the occasion to celebrate our newest inductee into the prestigious Super Judge Club, reserved for judges with five years of continuous service across all our judging rounds. We also recognized Emil Virag and Zhanar Baishakova as our top mentors of 2023 due to their significant contributions to the program and their mentees’ success.
Our partners also awarded over CHF 100,000 in in-kind prizes to our 2023 startups. Reuteler & Cie and kellerhals carrard will provide 12 hours of IP and legal services, respectively, to 12 selected startups: ArcoScreen, Allcup, Biosimo, biped.ai, Correntics, Hexem, Impossible Materials, irmos technologies, Neology Hydrogen, Perovskia Solar, REVOZONA, and Terra Preta.
We also proudly supported Impossible Materials with CHF 10,000 for their participation in the One Young World 2024 Summit.
Matt Lashmar, Managing Director of MassChallenge Switzerland, said: “I would like to thank our experts and partners for generously giving their time and expertise to help our startups advance their projects. This help is reflected in the record result this year, with 58% of startups exceeding their ingoing accelerator objective. I would also like to recognize the support we gained across the ecosystem to enable our entrepreneurs to be “climate responsible. We hope this becomes the ‘new normal’ for accelerators, in collective pursuit of reduced emissions and benefits for society as a whole.”
Ian Roberts, President of MassChallenge Switzerland added: “I’d like to congratulate all the startups who competed for the LDC Climate Resilience Prize Award and will, as they grow their businesses, decarbonize the food value chain. In particular, I would like to congratulate the 6 finalists. You gave the jury a tough decision to make. SeaStock was selected as a worthy winner because they had the potential to deliver a rapid impact by helping cut methane emissions from world’s dairy and beef herds. The dairy and meat industry is a significant contributor to climate change, and we need to go faster to rebalance protein intake across animal and plant sources to reduce stress on land and water resources. However, changing consumer habits is challenging and dairy & meat consumption is forecast to continue to rise globally. SeaStock provides a solution that can plug into the existing supply chain, thus scale fast to cut emissions in the short and medium term. They create a meaningful impact as we speed up global transition to a future where alternative proteins take a much bigger share of our diet.”
MassChallenge Switzerland 2023 Early-Stage Startup Accelerator Program cash prizes winners are:
Diamond Prize – CHF 120,000
Impossible Materials – They provide businesses with plant-based formulation ingredients to enable them more safe and sustainable product formulations and working towards a circular economy; their first product is a cellulose white pigment.
Platinum Prize – CHF 100,000
LiveGrow Bio – LiveGrow Bio is a microbial fermentation & formulation company capable of manufacturing microbes into agricultural biopesticides & biostimulants at COGS on par with chemical products & shelf life of 2+ years at room temperature.
Gold Prize Winners – CHF 30,000
Kestrix – Kestrix uses mass thermal image capture and AI to rapidly construct 3D heat loss models of buildings, which inform planning, pricing, and verification of retrofits.
Perovskia Solar – A Swiss cleantech startup that provides digitally printed customizable solar cells to OEMs.
REVOZONA – Their ozone gas technology cuts CO2 emissions and water usage by up to 90% during cellulose textile pretreatment.
SeaStock – SeaStock creates global marine science solutions to produce and extract compounds derived from seaweed and algae.
Silver Prize Winners – CHF 10,000
Allcup – They invented the first delicious edible coffee cup with a patented heat- and water-resistant coating like plastic, but edible.
BioMixing – BioMixing is focused on bioreactors’ efficiency, which are the essential equipment for food manufacturing.
Brown Reed Agri Waste Innovations (Sunbird Straws) – They make drinking straws from dried fallen coconut leaves which helps prevent the burning of leaves, reduces the use of single-use plastic straws, and provides employment to women in rural areas.
Clean Valley CIC – They are bringing the ocean back to aquaculture, giving clients a green premium on their product and increasing profitability and value of their fish.
Climatenza Solar – Climatenza’s Solar thermal technology is like a converging glass that generates clean heat for Industries to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels.
imPASTA! Foods – They set out to solve the growing demand for healthier, diet-inclusive, and convenient, pasta/noodle options like ready-to-eat spaghetti squash.
Discover All our 2023 Finalists here.
About MassChallenge Switzerland
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 create meaningful change. Since launching in 2016, MassChallenge Switzerland has accelerated more than 720 startups who have raised over CHF 1.2Bn in funding and created 50,000+ jobs. Follow us on X, LinkedIn.
Media Contact
For further information, please contact: elodie@masschallenge.org .
About Louis Dreyfus Company
Louis Dreyfus Company is a leading merchant and processor of agricultural goods, founded in 1851. We leverage our global reach and extensive asset network to serve our customers and consumers around the world, delivering the right products to the right location, at the right time – safely, reliably and responsibly. Our activities span the entire value chain, from farm to fork, across a broad range of business lines (platforms): Carbon Solutions, Coffee, Cotton, Food & Feed Solutions, Freight, Global Markets, Grains & Oilseeds, Juice, Rice and Sugar. We help feed and clothe some 500 million people every year by originating, processing and transporting approximately 80 million tons of products. Louis Dreyfus Company is active in over 100 countries across six geographical regions, and employs approximately 17,000 people globally. For more information, visit www.ldc.com and follow us on X, LinkedIn and WeChat (ID: we_are_ldc).
Media Contact
For further information, please contact: media@ldc.com