Say Hello to the #kickstarters19!

After two days of pitching and networking with our partners and experts, we have chosen 48 technology startups from 17 countries for our 2019 program. The companies will come to Zurich this autumn, where they will meet with 30+ corporations, cities, universities and foundations aiming at initiating successful innovation partnerships and joint pilot projects. We are excited to announce it for the very first time that also HealthTech and Cybersecurity companies will participate in Kickstart.

The following companies join Kickstart 2019:

Cybersecurity

CyNation (UK) is a digital risk management company that helps enterprises manage the risks inherent in third-party ecosystems.

enigmedia (Spain) provides native industrial control systems (ICS) cybersecurity. Best-in-class cyber operational technology solution fully compatible with legacy infrastructure.

Illusive Networks (Israel) stops advanced attacks and insider threats by disrupting the attacker’s ability to collect information and make decisions required to progress the attack process.

KOVRR (Israel) enables (re)insurers to transparently predict and price cyber risk.

Statice (Germany) enables organizations to leverage sensitive data for analysis, product development, and collaboration, without risking individual privacy, through the generation of privacy preserving synthetic data.

XM CYBER (Israel) provides automated breach and attack simulation platform to expose attack vectors, from breach point to organizational critical asset. This loop of automated red teaming is completed by actionable remediation of organizations’ security gaps.

EdTech & Learning

Area9 Lyceum (Denmark)‘s mission is to help deliver the world’s best educational and training outcomes validated by a long-term scientific approach.

Cambridge Spark (UK)‘s mission is to empower professionals to succeed in the tech industry.

EasyCorrect (Denmark) believes that great feedback can change the world and therefore wants to engage students with better and faster feedback.

Education Alliance Finland (Finland) provides a turnkey solution for educational impact evaluation and validation for learning solutions.

MobieTrain (Belgium) revolutionises workplace learning with our mobile-first, micro-learning platform. It empowers employees to drive their own career development and retain knowledge through bite-sized training content that they love.

Seppo (Finland) makes learning fun and engaging by using gamification and authentic environments.

Stroofy (Ireland) builds software that helps individuals, teams and companies to discover their optimal way of working and improves employee focus and engagement by utilising data analytics, cognitive science and gamification.

Taskbase (Switzerland) offers AI-based, easy-to-integrate modules that enable existing learning solutions to adapt learning paths to each student’s specific needs through our ability to automatically score complex exercises and give personalized didactic feedback.

FinTech & Digital Assets

Annanow (Switzerland) is an innovative last-mile delivery service that connects products with people – now!

AllianceBlock (Netherlands) is disrupting the investment banking model. AllianceBlock is an all-in-one decentralized, community-driven platform that makes investment and financing efficient, simple and safe by leveraging blockchain technology and AI.

Assetyze (Switzerland) supports you with unlocking the full potential of dormant, tangible assets such as art, classic cars or other precious collectibles.

Atpar (Switzerland): Banking-grade finance for blockchain. Atpar enables a global and frictionless financial market infrastructure.

Contract Vault (Switzerland) has developed an AI and blockchain-powered end-to-end document, contract and workflow creation, management and automation platform that enables new categories of agreements and makes every step of the document lifecycle massively more efficient.

Five Degrees Solution (Netherlands) offers an end-to-end digital core banking platform that makes your bank and financial service future-proof.

Helios Data (USA) deploys AI and advanced network technologies for enterprises to address and profit from the global wave of data privacy and protection mandates.

Taxdone (Switzerland) helps people do their taxes in 5 minutes, with smart questions and the right deductions – starting with Zurich.

tigerlab (Malaysia/UK) is a global IT company that offers insurance customized and agile solutions worldwide.

WeProov (France) simplifies and accelerates claim process for all stakeholders, from insureds’ hands, enabling insureds to qualify and claim their damages in self-care thanks to a digital guided process secured by blockchain and using AI for damage estimates.

Food & Retail Tech

Back of the Yards Algae Sciences (BYAS) (USA) is a circular economy food and agriculture microalgae-based solutions company.

Heallo (Italy)‘s mission is to find solutions to nutritional problems, from concept to market through biotechnology research – starting from Sugar.

Kaffe Bueno (Denmark) upcycles used coffee grounds to produce active and sustainable ingredients for the personal care, nutraceuticals, functional foods/beverages industries.

Nice Filler (Italy) provides new materials for food packaging to ensure shelf life extension.

Planted Foods (Switzerland) creates tasty “meat” directly from plants – and skips the animal. The plant-based meat is clean-label, sustainable, healthy and cruelty-free.

Posidonia (Belgium)‘s objective is to make the world a healthier place by helping people reduce their sodium (salt) consumption without sacrificing taste.

PREMIUM.energy by SwissTOP (Switzerland): Their heritage is selected organic Alpine hemp which serves as the basis for a) energy-releasing high-protein shakes, b) liquid food for care & hospitals, c) meal replacement shakes, d) pioneering in the first plant-based meat products made with hemp.

PURESPACE (Korea) extends shelf-life of fruits and vegetables during storage and transportation by removing ethylene, bacteria and mold. PURESPACE can do so without using KMnO4, surfer emitting pad, direct chemical treatments or ozone emission.

Rebel Meat (Austria): With their hybrid meat technology, Rebel Meat’s vision is to save the planet by making eating meat healthy and sustainable.

SwissDeCode (Switzerland) is transforming food safety by helping farmers and food manufacturers to grow and produce food that is safe to eat.

HealthTech

Braive (Sweden) has developed the next generation of evidence-based online iCBT treatment and (remote) care for mental health challenges where users, on their own and/or with support from clinicians, can learn the skills needed to improve wellbeing.

Medicus AI (Austria) is an AI-based platform that interprets and converts medical reports and health data into an interactive, personalized experience with easy-to-understand explanations, insights and continuous health coaching.

myLAB Box (USA) is an at-home lab testing company that provides better access to healthcare by delivering kits directly to your doorstep.

Nahtlos (Switzerland) offers a comfortable and easy to use Smart Textile electrocardiogram (ECG) solution for long-term monitoring of the heart’s activity.

OneDoc (Switzerland) is a Swiss platform to find a doctor, dentist or therapist and book medical appointments online.

Selfapy (Germany) offers psychologically guided online therapy programs for people with mental disorders like depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

Smart City & Infrastructure

AirBie (Switzerland) is promoting bike-sharing as a means of transportation. They have developed a smart bike lock (with GPS), which fits any bike. Like this, anyone can create a bike-sharing fleet within a few minutes and manage it with their smart city analytics software.

BeOn Energy (Portugal) is transforming solar energy with innovative hardware and software that can create the connected energy communities of the future.

Breeze Technologies (Germany) provides tailored advice to improve local air quality based on advanced artificial intelligence, their own air quality sensor networks and external data sources, both in the urban environment as well as in indoor environments.

Oxygen at Work (Switzerland) improves the air quality in office spaces combining natural plants with modern technology in order to improve the health of the employees and reduce the energy consumption of buildings.

SunData (Netherlands) maximises solar production through continuous monitoring of photovoltaic power plants which also provide insights and training data for several implementations which could support energy companies and grid operators.

Sympower (Netherlands) is a demand response aggregator that enables smarter energy use for a carbon-free future.

Totemi (Switzerland) is a complete solution to create unique urban customer experiences. Thanks to its robust, autonomous (up to 7 years) and identifiably connected signage, TOTEMI brings a new form of discovery and commitment for the users of a city.

ViaNova (France) is a platform for managing urban mobility, partnering with cities and private mobility operators, in enabling more liveable streets, through better data analysis.

In the program, the selected startups will meet and work with the decision-makers of 30+ partner organizations, such as AXA, Coop, Migros, Swisscom, City of Zurich, ETH Zürich, Gebert Rüf Foundation, Mercator Foundation Switzerland, Mobiliar, Office for Economy and Labour of Canton Zurich,  SATW and many more, aiming at launching innovative partnerships.

Intrapreneurship Teams

Kickstart is running one of the largest programs fostering intrapreneurship in Switzerland. Intrapreneurship teams are corporate innovation teams, or “entrepreneurs within a company”. This year, 9 intrapreneurship teams have been selected for the program:

advaisor AG (ETH Zürich spin-off) has developed a software to measure and improve corporate culture (e.g. collaboration, client centricity, trust, etc.) using big data and artificial intelligence instead of cumbersome surveys.

Dermatologist (Swisscom) offers a skin cancer classifier based on artificial intelligence to support dermatologists in diagnose of melanoma.

eMost (Axpo) is working on development, production and marketing of smart plug & play battery storage systems, which are used for flexible and environmentally friendly power supply on construction sites, events, in emergencies, for charging e-cars or as a replacement for diesel generators.

Fillip (Mibelle Group /Migros) is an automated detergent dispenser that automatically supplies detergent for every wash cycle. In order to ensure a real end-to-end experience, Fillip also considers the touchpoints initial purchase of detergent, the replacement of detergent and the reuse of empty packaging.

Klima@ssurance (Mobiliar) is an innovative insurance solution that encourages people to get involved in climate protection in a simple and convenient way. To achieve this, they are focusing on reuse and repair instead of new replacement and are fighting against the waste of resources.

RiseUp Mentoring Platform (Swisscom) helps young professionals make critical career decisions, by providing access to the right information, inspiring role models and meaningful development opportunities.

Supply Chain Fit (Migros) provides supply chain analytics powered by machine learning algorithms to advise consumer product companies on tailoring their supply chains to market needs – to seize growth opportunities while staying efficient in an increasingly complex world.

tooyoo (Mobiliar / Swisscom) wants to power a legally valid, digital signature for testament and every end-of-life document in Switzerland in the future and is investigating the first steps towards this goal. 

UPTO (AXA) offers a flexible car subscription model as an alternative to car purchase and leasing. The team had already successfully participated in Kickstart 2017 and is now coming back in order to scale their business model further.

Photos by Thomas Lüthi, Ringier AG.