Swiss start-ups thrive despite pandemic 

Start-ups delivering cutting-edge healthy food, skin tech and engineering solutions dominated the top three places in the 100 Swiss Startup Award ceremony held late Wednesday. 

Christoph Jenny, Eric Stirnemann, Lukas Böni and Pascal Bieri are the founders of top Swiss start-up Planted Foods. (c)2019 Thomas Rafalzyk

Planted Foods – a company making vegan meat alternatives without chemical additives – nabbed first place. CUTISS, a biotech company making customized human skin grafts, came second; engineering startup 9T Labs, which manufactures hardware and software solutions from carbon composites was picked third by jurors. 

“The last year has not been easy, but the Swiss startup ecosystem has shown that it is resilient and thrives under pressure. Celebrating the TOP 100 is celebrating all entrepreneurs in these turbulent times,” said Jordi Montserrat, managing partner at Venturelab, which organized the 11th edition of the award ceremony along with partners Credit Suisse and Swiss Venture Club. 

The winning start-ups are on average, three years old, have created over 140 new jobs, and have raised CHF 80 million in investment. They are all based in canton Zurich. 

Switzerland’s start-up scene has been on the upswing despite the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019 and 2020, just over CHF2 billion ($2.2 billion) were invested in Swiss startups on an annual basis for the first time, Swiss startups raised this amount by July 2021 and are heading for an impressive record high, according to a media statement on Wednesday’s event.