CHF 10,000 for smart mattresses, sustainable sportswear materials, an AI chess coach, CO2 removal producing H2, and the first surgical device for measuring valve leakage during heart surgery
26.08.2025
4xsleep, Billoba, ChessLine KIG, DeltaSpark, and TightValve were selected at Venture Kick's first financial and entrepreneurial support stage. Their projects develop a patent-pending mattress that actively adjusts firmness and temperature in real time, learning each sleeper’s preferences to enhance comfort and recovery; offer high-performance, plant-based rubber alternatives tailored for the sportswear industry; combine AI and business expertise with deep chess knowledge for a personal AI chess coach, enables the local and economic removal of CO2 emissions while simultaneously producing affordable, clean H2 and building materials; and develop a simple and fast measuring device to quantify valve leakage during surgery directly.
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 4xSleep: Co-Founders Dr. Michael Greger (Business), Luka Vego (Product Design), Kristófer Reynisson (Data and Software Engineering), and Dr. Linus Rüttimann (Electrical Engineering)
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 Billoba: CPO Ashley Reese, CEO Jonathann Magne, and CTO Benoit Schnell
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 ChessLine: CEO Stefan Rau and CTO Carl von Burg
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 DeltaSpark: CEO Dr. Luc Bondaz and CTO Dr. Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar
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 TightValve: CEO Silje Jahren, CTO Lukas Glaus, CMO Emmanuel Zimmer, and CSO Dominik Obrist
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4xSleep: On a mission to build the world’s best mattress
Poor sleep is a major health and productivity issue. Up to 80% of people report difficulties with sleep duration and/or quality. Yet most still spend one?third of their lives on static foam or innerspring mattresses – technologies invented more than a century ago – that cannot adapt to each sleeper’s changing needs, including those driven by a warming climate.
4xSleep is a Swiss healthtech startup developing a patent-pending mattress that actively adjusts firmness and temperature in real time, learning each sleeper’s preferences to enhance comfort and recovery. The interdisciplinary founding team from HSG, ETH Zurich, and HKB brings together expertise in engineering, data science, design, and business, supported by advisors in longevity and sleep research. 4xSleep targets the fast-growing, multibillion?Swiss?franc smart?mattress market – serving consumers today and regulated healthcare tomorrow.
The Venture Kick funds will support the completion of a pilot-ready prototype.
Billoba: High-performance sustainable sportswear materials
Traditional rubber materials like neoprene are derived from petroleum or limestone, contributing heavily to environmental degradation. Today, sportswear brands are forced to choose between sustainability and performance.
Founded by Jonathann Magne (CEO), Ashley Reese (CPO), and Benoit Schnell (CTO), Billoba is developing high-performance, plant-based rubber alternatives tailored for the sportswear industry. The first innovation is a proprietary, plant-based alternative to neoprene that delivers on both sustainability and technical performance without compromise. The elastomer market exceeds USD 100B globally, with a USD10B serviceable market in sportswear alone. Billoba is positioned to become the premium sustainable material partner for forward-thinking brands.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to scale production from lab to industry, including the first large-scale foam sheet samples and end-product prototypes. Funds will also support marketing and customer engagement to validate product-market fit. billoba.com
ChessLine: Your personal AI chess coach
600 million chess players face an overload of generic tools and content and struggle to improve efficiently. Current platforms fail to provide personalized, explainable training.
Founded by Stefan Rau and Carl von Burg, ChessLine combines AI and business expertise with deep chess knowledge. Leveraging data from millions of real games, the startup applies cutting-edge AI methods to power an app that delivers personalized training with explainable AI, opponent-specific preparation, and tailored improvement plans. The USD 1.2B chess market is just the beginning: the technology is designed to scale into trading card games (USD 5.0B), fantasy sports (USD 8.9B), and poker (USD 86.2B).
Venture Kick funds will be used to expand user testing and continuously improve the product with real customer feedback, paving the way toward product–market fit.
DeltaSpark: From CO2 removal to clean H2 production
Record-high CO2 emissions are driving rapidly rising global temperatures, creating an urgent need for large-scale reductions.
Recognizing that waste consists of compounds that cannot be harvested or reused, DeltaSpark tackles this challenge by transforming CO2 into valuable social and economic opportunities.
DeltaSpark is a spinoff from EPFL, founded by CEO Dr. Luc Bondaz and CTO Dr. Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar, who met during the PhD Excellence Programme. The team is supported by a group of expert advisors: Prof. Jan Van Herle, a scale-up specialist; Prof. François Maréchal, our process engineering specialist; and Dr. Rafael Castro Amoedo, our business mentor.
DeltaSpark’s compact, multi-patented electrocatalytic process enables the local and economic removal of CO2 emissions while simultaneously producing affordable, clean H2 and building materials.
Venture Kick Funds will support the demonstration of DeltaSpark’s solution at scale, with an initial target of removing 1 kg of CO2 per day.
Poor sleep is a major health and productivity issue. Up to 80% of people report difficulties with sleep duration and/or quality. Yet most still spend one?third of their lives on static foam or innerspring mattresses – technologies invented more than a century ago – that cannot adapt to each sleeper’s changing needs, including those driven by a warming climate.
4xSleep is a Swiss healthtech startup developing a patent-pending mattress that actively adjusts firmness and temperature in real time, learning each sleeper’s preferences to enhance comfort and recovery. The interdisciplinary founding team from HSG, ETH Zurich, and HKB brings together expertise in engineering, data science, design, and business, supported by advisors in longevity and sleep research. 4xSleep targets the fast-growing, multibillion?Swiss?franc smart?mattress market – serving consumers today and regulated healthcare tomorrow.
The Venture Kick funds will support the completion of a pilot-ready prototype.
Billoba: High-performance sustainable sportswear materials
Traditional rubber materials like neoprene are derived from petroleum or limestone, contributing heavily to environmental degradation. Today, sportswear brands are forced to choose between sustainability and performance.
Founded by Jonathann Magne (CEO), Ashley Reese (CPO), and Benoit Schnell (CTO), Billoba is developing high-performance, plant-based rubber alternatives tailored for the sportswear industry. The first innovation is a proprietary, plant-based alternative to neoprene that delivers on both sustainability and technical performance without compromise. The elastomer market exceeds USD 100B globally, with a USD10B serviceable market in sportswear alone. Billoba is positioned to become the premium sustainable material partner for forward-thinking brands.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to scale production from lab to industry, including the first large-scale foam sheet samples and end-product prototypes. Funds will also support marketing and customer engagement to validate product-market fit. billoba.com
ChessLine: Your personal AI chess coach
600 million chess players face an overload of generic tools and content and struggle to improve efficiently. Current platforms fail to provide personalized, explainable training.
Founded by Stefan Rau and Carl von Burg, ChessLine combines AI and business expertise with deep chess knowledge. Leveraging data from millions of real games, the startup applies cutting-edge AI methods to power an app that delivers personalized training with explainable AI, opponent-specific preparation, and tailored improvement plans. The USD 1.2B chess market is just the beginning: the technology is designed to scale into trading card games (USD 5.0B), fantasy sports (USD 8.9B), and poker (USD 86.2B).
Venture Kick funds will be used to expand user testing and continuously improve the product with real customer feedback, paving the way toward product–market fit.
DeltaSpark: From CO2 removal to clean H2 production
Record-high CO2 emissions are driving rapidly rising global temperatures, creating an urgent need for large-scale reductions.
Recognizing that waste consists of compounds that cannot be harvested or reused, DeltaSpark tackles this challenge by transforming CO2 into valuable social and economic opportunities.
DeltaSpark is a spinoff from EPFL, founded by CEO Dr. Luc Bondaz and CTO Dr. Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar, who met during the PhD Excellence Programme. The team is supported by a group of expert advisors: Prof. Jan Van Herle, a scale-up specialist; Prof. François Maréchal, our process engineering specialist; and Dr. Rafael Castro Amoedo, our business mentor.
DeltaSpark’s compact, multi-patented electrocatalytic process enables the local and economic removal of CO2 emissions while simultaneously producing affordable, clean H2 and building materials.
Venture Kick Funds will support the demonstration of DeltaSpark’s solution at scale, with an initial target of removing 1 kg of CO2 per day.
TightValve: First surgical device for measuring valve leakage during heart surgery
One treatment option for aortic root diseases is valve-sparing aortic root replacement, which repairs the valve and replaces the aortic root with a graft. The valve's tightness can only be assessed after surgery and in 20% of the cases reoperation is required. This is harmful, costly, and may prevent treatment for fragile patients due to the high risk.
TightValve has developed a simple and fast measuring device to directly quantify valve leakage during surgery. In the western world (EU, USA, CAN) 25k David procedures/year are conducted, a number that can be increased if the high re-operation risk can be reduced. The funding team of TightValve is composed of a CEO Silje Ekroll Jahren a biomedical engineer, CTO Lukas Glaus a mechnical engineer and heart surgeon, CMO Emmanuel Zimmer a heart surgeon and scientific advisor Prof. Dominik Obrist.
The Venture Kick funds will contribute to build up a quality management system to be used on the regulatory path towards FDA/CE approvals.