Five Venture Kick startups shortlisted for the Vigier Award 2016
31.03.2016
On May 19th the W.A. De Vigier Foundation will name five Swiss Startups to receive its award, each endowed with CHF 100‘000. According to Regula Buob, Managing Director of the foundation, the quality of the roughly 200 submitted projects was very high and the choice wasn’t easy. Now ten innovative startups from various industries have been chosen, among which five are Venture Kickers: Gamaya, Inositec, Nanolive, Pregnolia and UrbanAlps.
 The EPFL spin-off and 2014 Venture Kick startup Gamaya traveled to Silicon Valley with the Swisscom Startup Challenge in 2015 and made its entry in the TOP100 Swiss Startups ranking, among other milestones.
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 Inositec is a 2010 Venture Kick startup. Its CEO, Mattias Ivarsson, met US investors with the venture leaders in Life Science in Boston in 2014.
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 The 2013 Venture Kick startup and venture leader in Life Sciences in Boston Nanolive launched the 3D Cell Explorer on the worldwide market in 2015.
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 Sabrina Badir from Pregnolia develops a diagnostic tool allowing to reliably identify women at risk of preterm birth. Pregnolia will hit the Venture Kick final in 2016.
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 UrbanAlps's co-founder and MD Alejandro Ojeda is revolutionizing security with a safer key. He won the Venture Kick final in 2014, and was a venture leader in 2014, together with Inositec's CEO Mattias Ivarsson.
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„The selection is a challenging and time consuming task! The board members work together with external scientific and economic experts and invest many hours every year, some of which are pro bono“, says Regula Buob. The projects are evaluated according to the following criteria: The entrepreneurial spirit of the CEO, the degree of innovation, the value for society as a whole, the technical and financial viability, market prospects and the potential for job creation.
The Venture Kick nominees
Gamaya from Ecublens (VD): Gamaya delivers large-scale analytics of farmland. Farmers are provided with actionable information about their land and crops, which can increase profit margins by at least 30% while raising the quality of produce and making farming more sustainable. More info
Inositec from Zurich (ZH): Inositec is developing novel therapeutics from its proprietary platform of small molecules. The lead product is a novel treatment for a widespread colon infection and the second is an inhibitor of vascular calcifications. More info
Nanolive from Ecublens (VD): Nanolive’s technology allows the exploration of living cells in 3D and without damaging them. The 3D Cell Explorer shows a comprehensive representation of the cells' activity in real time based on their physical properties. More info
Pregnolia from Zurich (ZH): In the US and Europe less than half of the women at risk for preterm birth are detected. Pregnolia measures cervical stiffness and can reliably assess the risk of preterm birth, enabling early therapeutic intervention. More info
UrbanAlps from Zurich (ZH): Today anybody can copy your house key. UrbanAlps brings the Stealth Key: an inexpensive mechanical key that is safe against 3D duplication. The solution is plain simple, a key which hides most of its mechanical security features internally – rendering the key unscannable. More info
Check the Vigier Award's full ten nominee's list here