A venture using personalized nutrition advice to minimize the symptoms of the menopause and a developer of 3D-printed electrical stimulation headsets to treat Alzheimer’s are among the 30 winners of the 2022/2023 IMD Startup Competition.
Now in its 25th year, the IMD Startup Competition gives MBA and EMBA students a valuable insight into entrepreneurship, while also helping promising young Swiss ventures to achieve success.
Jim Pulcrano, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management at IMD, praised the winners, adding: “At a time when global investments in early-stage companies have dropped precipitously over the past nine months, we are very pleased to see the brave founders who have put themselves forward to work with our MBAs and EMBAs next year. That shows a level of optimism and resilience that all of us could learn from.
“When triaging the many candidates we had, we look for several things: Do we believe this will be a successful business? Is the venture at a stage where we can add value? Is this a company or technology that will excite our students, as well as the investors we work with? Can we see what our students might learn from working with these founders?”
Eight of the 30 startups selected this year are led by IMD MBA or EMBA alumni, while seven have women as either their CEO, founder or co-founder.
Many of the startups are looking to solve some of the business challenges thrown up by the COVID-19 pandemic, from supply chain disruption to remote work and labor shortages. AdVentura Works is developing a way to drive forklifts remotely, while FLYDESK is a hybrid work app that helps organizations navigate their remote team and desk booking management issues.
Eight of the ventures are operating in the health space. Avelo is developing a breath aerosol collector to better diagnose respiratory disease, while PhenomX Health provides personalized nutrition advice to help reduce the severity of menopause symptoms.
Sustainability was another theme among this year’s winners. Kidstorie is an online platform for pre-loved designer children’s clothing, Xilva AG is a platform for early-stage investments in regenerative forests, and Composite Recycling has developed a technology that can recover reusable glass fiber and oil to make new composites.
Find out more about the 15 Swiss ventures that IMD’s MBAs will have the privilege of working with in 2023:
AdVentura Works is building a solution for remote driving of forklifts to help logistics and industrial companies tackle employee shortages, improve efficiency, and reduce product damage in the warehouse.
Avelo makes every breath count with its breath collector for better diagnosis of respiratory infections.
Bottneuro is developing a personalized 3D printed multifocal electrical stimulation headsets for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases.
A subscription-based platform for local craft beer.
Following the pandemic, the majority of companies are shifting towards hybrid work. FLYDESK is a hybrid work app and service which helps companies with remote team and desk booking management issues.
Haidi helps mid-sized companies simplify their supply chain with AI and smart decisions, providing cutting-edge forecasting and network algorithms.
HeroSupport is a Swiss healthcare company improving cancer treatments’ effectiveness, safety, cost-efficiency and universal access with personalized patient-positioning medical devices and standardized workflows and services.
Isochronic develops new pick and place industrial robot solutions for the 2D material processing industry which are capable of transporting multiple parts simultaneously, thus vastly increasing the throughput compared to existing solutions.
Kidstorie
Kidstorie is an online platform for pre-loved designer children’s clothing.
Dagsmejan creates a new kind of functional sleepwear, helping people to sleep better for longer.
Using 3D image processing and machine learning, MycoSense AI develops technologies for harvest optimization, increasing the efficacy of human labor in industrial mushroom farming, and helping producers boost yields by 30% with the same infrastructure.
PhenomX Health is on a mission to empower women to take control of their hormonal health and aging wellness journey, providing personalized nutrition and the access to an integrated digital solution that aims at reducing the frequency and severity of menopause symptoms.
Pulse is the incubator of HES-SO Geneva, supporting innovative ideas and entrepreneurial projects that are building tomorrow.
SIBIUS uses artificial intelligence and patented Digitrack technologies to create the first objective marker for cognitive disorders.
Creating the world market leader in early-stage regenerative forest investments.
The 15 Swiss startups who will work with the EMBA classes and accompany them to Silicon Valley will be:
Acodis, with its Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), enables enterprises across the globe to better use their data by fusing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology.
Acthera Therapeutics is developing a unique and innovative nanotechnology for the targeted delivery of drugs to increase the efficacy and safety of therapies with acute cardiovascular events as primary clinical indication and a clot-lysing drug as lead compound.
Wearables and software for brain injury prevention and performance optimization in sports.
Composite Recycling is closing the loop for glass fiber–reinforced plastics using mobilized recycling units to recover reusable glass fiber and oil to make new composites and new plastics.
Condensation supports application makers with an open-source backend system capable of scale with low latency, traceability, and security, using efficient data processing on distributed edge devices.
Using GMO-free yeast to ferment creamy fats for plant-based dairy to help increase the appeal of dairy alternatives to flexitarians.
Grownate is a new digital platform that enables corporates to deepen and leverage their sustainability initiatives and thereby engage and build trust with their customers.
Neology enables the net-zero economy of the future, leveraging ammonia as the energy vector and unlocking the hydrogen eco-system through their proprietary ammonia-cracking technology.
machineMD is radically improving the early diagnosis of brain disorders with a unique combination of virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
Swiss-based Matchspace Music is the leading full-service music edtech platform that makes music accessible to everyone.
Qaptis is a spin-off from EPFL, building CO2 capture technology. This technological innovation retrofits onto existing heavy vehicles and can captures up to 90% of their carbon emissions
SightIn Health’s Machine Vision and Artificial Intelligence software enables anyone to expertly operate, interpret, and analyze point-of-care ultrasound without the need for any prior training.
Swisspod Technologies is a deep-tech company that aims to accelerate the adoption of Hyperloop Transportation by developing the required technology building blocks.
Thinkgate is developing highly accurate deep learning–based crowd mobility prediction software to support optimal airport resource allocation, reduce waiting times, and enhance the passenger experience.
Harvesting crops and producing energy without compromise with solar modules leveraging the sunlight not used by photosynthesis.
