Startups developing sustainable kids footwear, agriculture with plasma-activated water, a vaccine to reduce the antibiotic need, a platform for streming movies, and physically intelligent robots each receive CHF 10,000
27.02.2025
4 Seasons, PAWER Solutions, Santella, Trovio, and Witty Machines were selected at Venture Kick's first financial and entrepreneurial support stage. Their projects transform children's footwear with modular, sustainable designs that grow with your child; advance innovative technology to enable the high-volume production of Plasma-Activated Water (PAW); develop an innovative probiotic vaccine to combat APEC infections; blend the movie industry and modern machine-learning expertise to build a unique discovery engine; and build simple robot helpers to solve the labor shortage in the food industry.
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 4 Seasons: Co-founders Yasmine Kazbik, Maria Clara Sayeg, and Raphaël Kazbik
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 PAWER Solutions: CTO Edvin Lund, CSO Martin Mecchia, and CEO Yacine Babou
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 Santella: CSO Dr. Olivier Schären & CEO Sabrina Stöckli
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 Trovio: CEO Dodo Hunziker
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 Witty Machines: CEO Dr. Kenneth Blomqvist & CTO Dr. Johannes Pankert
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4 Seasons: A Trendy, Playful, and Sustainable Revolution in Kids' Footwear
Parents spend over USD 200 annually per child on shoes, yet 53% of European children wear shoes that are too small, affecting their growth. Children outgrow shoes every 3-6 months, resulting in 300 million pairs discarded yearly, a huge financial and environmental waste, equivalent to one million cars on the road for a full year. In the growing USD 54+ billion market, parents need practical solutions, kids need freedom to explore, and our planet needs less waste.
4Seasons believe childhood shouldn't be disposable. Its mission is to transform children's footwear with modular, sustainable designs that grow with your child. They combine innovation and style to help parents invest wisely in footwear that supports healthy development, encourages exploration, and reduces waste. Their all-season kids' shoes are customizable, playful, and built to last three times longer. A smart, eco-friendly, and cost-effective choice that delights kids and gives parents peace of mind. The team understands the challenges firsthand thanks to their backgrounds in innovation, finance, business, and marketing which give them the expertise to create real solutions for real problems.
The Venture Kick funds will first be used to refine prototypes and launch a small-scale production.
PAWER Solutions: Redefining agriculture with Plasma-Activated Water
Modern agriculture relies heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which negatively impact the environment and biodiversity. Farmers are facing growing pressure to adopt sustainable, chemical-free solutions while enhancing productivity and resilience against supply chain disruptions.
PAWER Solutions was founded by CEO Yacine Babou, CTO Edvin Lund, and CSO Martin Mecchia, bringing together expertise in plasma technology, chemical processes, and plant biology. The team is advancing innovative technology to enable the high-volume production of Plasma-Activated Water (PAW). This solution allows growers to locally produce PAW, enhancing crop yield and plant health, and leaving no harmful residues, with applications across conventional, organic, and hydroponic farming. Targeting the rapidly expanding hydroponics market, PAWER Solutions is poised to tap into a multi-billion-dollar global market seeking sustainable alternatives to conventional agricultural inputs.
The Venture Kick funding will be leveraged to conduct market research, engage with growers to understand their operational needs and develop marketing materials to raise awareness of the transformative benefits of Plasma-Activated Water.
Santella: A poultry vaccine to reduce the antibiotic need
Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) causes severe infections in poultry, leading to high antibiotic use, economic losses, and animal welfare concerns. Existing solutions have limited efficacy, leaving producers with few reliable prevention options.
Santella, a biotech startup, develops an innovative probiotic vaccine to combat APEC infections. Guided by Sabrina Stöckli (CEO) and Dr. Olivier Schären (CSO) with expertise in microbiology & immunology, the team leverages its research to enhance poultry health. With over 80 billion chickens produced annually, the global poultry market presents a vast opportunity for sustainable solutions that reduce antibiotic reliance and improve productivity.
With the Venture Kick funds, they will conduct additional validation studies, and refine regulatory strategies to advance product development.
Trovio: The discovery-engine for streaming movies
Despite the growing number of streaming providers and guides, finding a good movie often remains frustrating. Existing platform algorithms promote mainstream content, creating a feedback loop that limits exposure to discoveries, especially from the user's cultural sphere.
Trovio changes this by placing users at the core, using an advanced AI-based Interaction System with a recommendation algorithm unbiased by market interests. Based in Bern, the experienced team is composed of Founder and CEO Dodo Hunziker, CTO Alex Zacharopoulos, and Marketing Consultant Christian-K. Meier. They have ties to European developers and blend the movie industry and modern machine-learning expertise to build a unique discovery engine. Trovio targets Europe's educated middle class of 125 million users who value autonomy in content consumption, offering an autonomous, enriching, culturally diverse movie search experience.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to advance AI algorithms for personalized movie searches.
Witty Machines: Physically intelligent robots for industrial environments
Currently, food producers rely on lots of manual labor in their operations, as there are no automated solutions available.
Witty Machines' CEO Dr. Kenneth Blomqvist and CSO Dr. Johannes Pankert build simple robot helpers to solve the labor shortage in the food industry. They are starting with case packing. They do this using commodity, off-the-shelf robots and sensors. Existing solutions aren't able to deal with the variability of products, packaging, and transport boxes that grocers demand their suppliers to use. Their product turns any common industrial robot into an AI robot that is capable of performing a variety of tasks. Witty Machines provide AI software to turn any collaborative robot into a case packer that can be retrofitted into any existing food production facility.
They will use the funds to hire a head of sales that can help them scale our solution in the egg market and eventually, to acquire customers in the food production industry.
Parents spend over USD 200 annually per child on shoes, yet 53% of European children wear shoes that are too small, affecting their growth. Children outgrow shoes every 3-6 months, resulting in 300 million pairs discarded yearly, a huge financial and environmental waste, equivalent to one million cars on the road for a full year. In the growing USD 54+ billion market, parents need practical solutions, kids need freedom to explore, and our planet needs less waste.
4Seasons believe childhood shouldn't be disposable. Its mission is to transform children's footwear with modular, sustainable designs that grow with your child. They combine innovation and style to help parents invest wisely in footwear that supports healthy development, encourages exploration, and reduces waste. Their all-season kids' shoes are customizable, playful, and built to last three times longer. A smart, eco-friendly, and cost-effective choice that delights kids and gives parents peace of mind. The team understands the challenges firsthand thanks to their backgrounds in innovation, finance, business, and marketing which give them the expertise to create real solutions for real problems.
The Venture Kick funds will first be used to refine prototypes and launch a small-scale production.
PAWER Solutions: Redefining agriculture with Plasma-Activated Water
Modern agriculture relies heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which negatively impact the environment and biodiversity. Farmers are facing growing pressure to adopt sustainable, chemical-free solutions while enhancing productivity and resilience against supply chain disruptions.
PAWER Solutions was founded by CEO Yacine Babou, CTO Edvin Lund, and CSO Martin Mecchia, bringing together expertise in plasma technology, chemical processes, and plant biology. The team is advancing innovative technology to enable the high-volume production of Plasma-Activated Water (PAW). This solution allows growers to locally produce PAW, enhancing crop yield and plant health, and leaving no harmful residues, with applications across conventional, organic, and hydroponic farming. Targeting the rapidly expanding hydroponics market, PAWER Solutions is poised to tap into a multi-billion-dollar global market seeking sustainable alternatives to conventional agricultural inputs.
The Venture Kick funding will be leveraged to conduct market research, engage with growers to understand their operational needs and develop marketing materials to raise awareness of the transformative benefits of Plasma-Activated Water.
Santella: A poultry vaccine to reduce the antibiotic need
Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) causes severe infections in poultry, leading to high antibiotic use, economic losses, and animal welfare concerns. Existing solutions have limited efficacy, leaving producers with few reliable prevention options.
Santella, a biotech startup, develops an innovative probiotic vaccine to combat APEC infections. Guided by Sabrina Stöckli (CEO) and Dr. Olivier Schären (CSO) with expertise in microbiology & immunology, the team leverages its research to enhance poultry health. With over 80 billion chickens produced annually, the global poultry market presents a vast opportunity for sustainable solutions that reduce antibiotic reliance and improve productivity.
With the Venture Kick funds, they will conduct additional validation studies, and refine regulatory strategies to advance product development.
Trovio: The discovery-engine for streaming movies
Despite the growing number of streaming providers and guides, finding a good movie often remains frustrating. Existing platform algorithms promote mainstream content, creating a feedback loop that limits exposure to discoveries, especially from the user's cultural sphere.
Trovio changes this by placing users at the core, using an advanced AI-based Interaction System with a recommendation algorithm unbiased by market interests. Based in Bern, the experienced team is composed of Founder and CEO Dodo Hunziker, CTO Alex Zacharopoulos, and Marketing Consultant Christian-K. Meier. They have ties to European developers and blend the movie industry and modern machine-learning expertise to build a unique discovery engine. Trovio targets Europe's educated middle class of 125 million users who value autonomy in content consumption, offering an autonomous, enriching, culturally diverse movie search experience.
The Venture Kick funds will be used to advance AI algorithms for personalized movie searches.
Witty Machines: Physically intelligent robots for industrial environments
Currently, food producers rely on lots of manual labor in their operations, as there are no automated solutions available.
Witty Machines' CEO Dr. Kenneth Blomqvist and CSO Dr. Johannes Pankert build simple robot helpers to solve the labor shortage in the food industry. They are starting with case packing. They do this using commodity, off-the-shelf robots and sensors. Existing solutions aren't able to deal with the variability of products, packaging, and transport boxes that grocers demand their suppliers to use. Their product turns any common industrial robot into an AI robot that is capable of performing a variety of tasks. Witty Machines provide AI software to turn any collaborative robot into a case packer that can be retrofitted into any existing food production facility.
They will use the funds to hire a head of sales that can help them scale our solution in the egg market and eventually, to acquire customers in the food production industry.