Kickstart Innovation 2025 celebrates 10 years of innovation – reaching 400 deals marks a decade of impact
- sara9231
- Nov 13
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 14
Kickstart Innovation celebrates 10 years of impact and looks ahead to a new decade of responsible AI and collaboration
AI is integrated into 95% of the solutions, ranging from deeptech to circularity and sustainability
Renowned Swiss companies are concluding over 20 deals with start-ups to enable new innovation in Switzerland.
The number of solutions from Swiss startups has doubled in the last 10 years
Zurich, November 13 – Kickstart Innovation, one of Europe’s leading open innovation platforms, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, marking a decade of driving collaboration between startups, scaleups, and established organizations in Switzerland and beyond. During the 10th edition of its annual program, Kickstart announced over 20 new innovation partnerships – including pilots, proofs of concept (PoCs), and commercial projects – strengthening its position as a cornerstone of the Swiss innovation ecosystem.
Since its inception in 2015, Kickstart has supported more than 500 startups and scaleups, reaching 400 innovation deals with leading Swiss and international companies. Startups collaborating through Kickstart Innovation have collectively raised more than CHF 3.1 billion in funding for innovative solutions that address today’s most pressing challenges – from sustainability and energy transition to digital transformation and AI-driven efficiency.
“Celebrating 10 years of Kickstart means celebrating hundreds of collaborations that have turned ideas into impact,” says Katka Letzing, CEO and Co-Founder of Kickstart Innovation. “Our mission has always been to bridge the gap between startups and established organizations to co-create meaningful solutions. The demand for responsible, technology-driven, and scalable innovation is greater than ever - and we’re proud to see Switzerland playing a leading role in this transformation.”
AI for Good Takes the Lead
This year, the participating startups – coming from 14 countries – offer cutting-edge solutions in fields ranging from deepfake detection and preventive health to data-driven retail innovation powered by AI. An outstanding 95% of the new solutions integrate artificial intelligence, underlining the growing importance of AI for Good - technology designed to be sustainable, transparent, and human-centric.
To further promote this vision, Kickstart co-initiated Swiss {ai} Weeks earlier in 2025, a new national platform uniting researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to foster dialogue and collaboration around ethical, sustainable, and inclusive AI. The initiative positions Switzerland as a global hub for responsible artificial intelligence.
Trusted Partners and Transformative Solutions
Renowned Swiss corporations and institutions, including AXA, City of Zurich, Coop, la Mobilière, MSD, PostFinance/VNTR, Swisscom have contributed to support the next generation of innovators.
“Over the past decade, Kickstart has built a bridge between the entrepreneurial spirit of startups and the market expertise of established organizations,” explains Sanitas CEO Andreas Schönenberger. “This collaboration model allows us to test and scale solutions faster, addressing evolving customer needs while contributing to Switzerland’s innovation leadership.”
A Decade of Growth and Global Impact
From early collaborations such as Planted with Coop and decentriq with PostFinance, to more recent partnerships in fintech, healthtech, and climatetech with Fini and Pacifico Biolabs, Kickstart’s approach to open innovation has consistently delivered results. Its alumni include some of the most successful Swiss and international startups, such as KernTec, and Multimodal, now recognized for their transformative impact.
As part of its 10th anniversary, Kickstart is expanding Mission 2050 - the long-term initiative launched in 2023 to help organizations innovate for a more sustainable and equitable future.
Through Mission 2050, partners such as IKEA Switzerland, Mondelēz, and others are developing technological as well as environmental solutions, turning collaboration today into measurable impact for the decades ahead. “At IKEA we're moving towards a circular business. Over the last few years, IKEA Switzerland has been exploring recycling solutions for operational wood waste. One of our highlights was the global scouting for innovative startups with Kickstart Innovation. We worked with one of the finalists, Lixea Sweden, on a lab scale project and we are delighted to announce the continuation of this proof of concept with them.” Monika Wülser, Sustainability Business Partner at IKEA Switzerland.
In addition, Kickstart is also expanding its Academy through hackathons, innovation sprints, expert sessions, and intrapreneurship programs. The Academy supports companies in accelerating internal innovation processes and adopting a more entrepreneurial mindset at scale.
“Ten years ago, Kickstart was born out of a belief that collaboration is the key to systemic change,” concludes Letzing. “Today, there is a shift in innovation driven by maturity of the ecosystem and that belief is stronger than ever — and we look forward to the next decade of innovation, partnership, and progress.”
Selected Synopsis of 2025 public partnerships:
Partnerships in the Finance & Insurance Vertical:
A pilot has been initiated by la Mobilière, in which la Mobilière’s legal team and Legora will collaborate and test the Legora platform. The project will take place in November 2025.
Aurigin and Swisscom are working with their customers to bring audio deepfake detection into fraud prevention and KYC onboarding. By integrating real-time voice authenticity checks directly into call and onboarding flows, the partners aim to eliminate synthetic identity fraud, strengthen passive liveness verification, and reduce call-center handling time.
Fini and i-Web – a leading e-Gov provider and Swisscom portfolio company – will enter a POC to evaluate how finis agentic-AI can be integrated into the existing municipality suite from i-Web.
PostFinance is exploring potential collaborations with the startup Fini.
La Mobilière is partnering with Fini and Enterprise Bot to develop and test an Agentic AI support solution across all internal customers channels.
Enterprise Bot and Fini AI partner to address the hidden cost of outdated documentation: New partnership delivers Swiss-native AI context layer that continuously audits knowledge bases, flags inconsistencies, and auto-updates content, reducing hallucinations and improving support accuracy for regulated industries.
Partnerships in the Food & Retail Vertical:
Circly GmbH and Halba Swiss Chocolates have been joining forces to test and deliver automated demand forecasting for Halba’s product portfolio.
Halba Swiss Chocolates, a subsidiary of Coop Group, and Kokomodo are collaborating to identify opportunities to develop and test a cell-cultured cacao–based chocolate Proof of Concept. The project aims to evaluate the functionality, sensory performance, and scalability of Kokomodo’s cacao in industrial chocolate applications, contributing to more sustainable and resilient cacao supply chains.
Coop and FruitfulAI are collaborating to evaluate an AI-based quality control system at Eisberg’s production facility in Dällikon. The Proof of Concept will assess how automated label and content verification can be integrated into packaging processes to enhance consistency and scalability across Coop’s supply chain.
Coop and Pacifico Biolabs are working together on launching innovative mycelium based meat alternatives across various product areas - a collaboration that will upgrade the quality of meat alternatives and promote high-quality sustainable protein options.
Partnerships in the Health & Wellbeing Vertical:
Sanitas will collaborate with Pipra to help Seespital Horgen to accurately identify patients at risk of delirium and alert clinic staff which patients require prevention. Fully automated, based on AI. Reduce delirium cases & prevention effort for staff – measurably.
Sanitas is collaborating with Health Yourself to provide customers with a simple and innovative way to assess key health metrics from home. Through this integration, we aim to support and motivate our customers to try out new and innovative approaches to preventive healthcare.
Partnerships in the New Work & Learning Vertical:
MSD and Evolve ran a PoC converting existing content into bite-sized microlearnings to strengthen knowledge management and accelerate employee upskilling.
MSD and Zick Learn ran a PoC delivering short microlearnings via existing corporate channels on a regular cadence, reinforcing knowledge management and accelerating employee upskilling.
MSD and Mindstone are collaborating to train senior executives in AI mindset and practical, role-specific use cases—creating leaders who champion adoption and cascade actionable AI skills throughout the organization.
PostFinance explores partnerships with Everimpact and Evolve to be launched in 2026. The goal is to launch Pilots to collect data all around carbon emissions with Everimpact and create learning material with Evolve for internal use.
Swisscom launches a pilot with Zick Learn to turn internal training into 2-minute microlearning experiences, delivered via corporate channels to boost upskilling.
Swisscom is evaluating Evolve's application to transform internal trainings into engaging online courses, reducing production time from weeks to hours.
Swisscom and Mindstone are exploring a collaboration to empower employees and leaders with an AI-ready mindset and practical, role-specific applications - fostering adoption and accelerating continuous learning across the organization.
Swisscom and Scholé AI are co-designing a learning platform for on-demand, personalized Data & AI training.
Coop and Scholé AI are exploring a collaboration for on-demand personalized training.
Partnerships in the Smart Cities Vertical:
Findmee and CSEM collaborate to leverage machine learning for advanced sensor data analysis in construction machinery, driving next-generation asset security, reliability, and operational insights.
For more information, please contact: press@kickstart-innovation.com
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