Some months ago, I’ve written that things are moving in Biel/Bienne and that the city is back on the Swiss Startup map. After successfully holding a bunch of monthly events, we are moving to the next step: organizing the first Startup Weekend Biel/Bienne on March 20-22nd! (disclosure: I’m the driving force behind it!). As crazy as it sounds, Biel/Bienne didn’t hosted any of such events so far… even if there are so much creativity in this city. Now it will finally happen! For those who are not – yet – familiar with the concept: from Friday to Sunday night, you’ll have the opportunity to work on an innovative idea in small teams composed of other dynamic people. How does it work? You pitch your idea/project on Friday evening, get some investors (all participants get $$$ to invest in their preferred …
Discover the 10 (+26) startups from Seedstars World Competiton
This Wednesday, it wasthe grand final of Seedstars World. Seedstars World is a global competition todiscover promising startups from emerging countries and gathered 36 (!)startups here in Geneva. These startups were the winner of their national Seedstars competition and all had a booth at Lift Conference. 10 of them were selected by the jury to pitch to the whole Lift audience. Here they are: 6 degrees (Singapore) is a connected, self-updatingphonebook that helps you search your friends’ networks, get introductions to new people, shops & businesses. Busportal (Lima, Peru) is a online tool helping customers to find, compare and buy bus tickets in Latin America in a efficient way. Krowdpop (Seoul, South Korea) is the world’s first concert crowd funding platform dedicated to the increasingly popular K-pop music. OkHi (Nairobi, Kenya) is solving the problem of 4 Billion people who …
Get Free Funding and Mentoring: the Hello Tomorrow Challenge
The Hello Tomorrow Challenge is back! Launched in 2014, this challenge is a unique opportunity for European early stage startups to win the Grand Prize of EUR 100’000.-, and for 5 other startups to collect a EUR 15’000.- prize. And the great news is that the 30 finalists will get free mentoring during 3 months by prominent tech figures! Founded by French entrepreneurs Xavier Duportet and Arnaud De La Tour in 2011, Hello Tomorrow is a non-profit organization aiming at creating bridges between scientists, investors and entrepreneurs in all major technological fields. The challenge is open to anyone trying to solve major problems with technology in the following categories: Foods & Agriculture Materials & Manufacturing Transport & Mobility Healthcare Energy & Environment Information technologies The conditions to apply are pretty simple: Your startup has to be less than 2 years …
Share this post and win a FREE ticket to Lift Conference 2015!
Beginning of the year rhythms with The Lift Conference in Switzerland. 2015 is already the 10th edition of this international conference, where 1’000 people from around the globe gather in Geneva to experiment innovations, learn about new business models and get inspiration. The 3-day conference is a lot about connecting with people, learning new things and being creative (you’ll leave the conference with a plenty of ideas!). This year, there are also a lot more about startups. Bilan will disclose its selection of “50 Swiss startups in which to invest in 2015” on Wednesday morning. In the afternoon, the 36 finalists of Seedstars World competition will pitch their startups to a jury a top entrepreneurs and investors, as well as to the public. These 36 startups all come from emerging markets (from Indonesia to Mexico, from Santiago de Chile to …
How to leverage humor to build and develop a business?
Next Tuesday (2nd of December), the second Swiss Tech Talk Biel/Bienne, will take place at INNOCAMPUS. Pascal Meyer, atypical, funny founder and “Loutre-in-Chief” of successful e-commerce platform QoQa.ch, will tell us about his journey. Pascal will notably explain us how he has developed his concept, leveraging humor and fun things, what he learnt from it, his challenges… and how you can transform a crazy idea into a business generating more than CHF 35M of yearly turnover, without losing his soul! REGISTER TO Swiss Tech Talk with Pascal Meyer Location: INNOCAMPUS AG, Rue d’Aarberg 5, 2560 Nidau (Biel/Bienne) Start at: 19h00 Language: French Dress code: NO DRESS CODE! Event costs CHF 25.- (but is free for members of Swiss Tech Association). See you on Tuesday!
Financing Your Startup: Use the Power of the Crowd
Financing a startup is quite a hard job. Especially in Switzerland, where there is less and less money from Venture Capital firms flowing into web and mobile startups these last few years. It’s quite contradictory, as there is a ton of money in Switzerland. Thanks to crowd-funding, many people can now also invest in new projects and startups. On November 19th at 18:00, I’m organizing an event named “Financing your startup: use the power of the crowd” in Biel/Bienne. It will take place at the local technology park INNOCAMPUS (it’s 5min walk from train station!). We will have two speakers presenting 2 aspects of the crowd-funding: Julien Pache: Managing Director of the participative investment platform investiere.ch; Marie-Sophie Pocha: responsible of crowd-funding and special project at startup company Dacuda, (which raised 10 times the targeted amount of CHF 50k earlier this …
The 6 Startup Events To Attend In Switzerland (in Q4 2014)
Early 2008, as I’ve diven into the startup world, I often heard that there were too few events for entrepreneurs in Switzerland. There were almost only the venture ideas and venture aperos organized by the pioneer organization venturelab. People were talking about Silicon Valley as a place where you can go to 5 interesting events every day, or almost. In 2014, the Swiss startup scene has completely matured and there are many events to attend to, if you consider Switzerland as one place (the distances are small in international comparison). There is a big offer of events. And of course, as a person interested by innovation and startups, you sometimes have the feeling you must attend as many as possible. It’s true if you’d like to meet as many people as possible… But you can’t attend every event, otherwise you’re …
Biel/Bienne is back on the Swiss startup map!
Some months ago, I’ve written about the Swiss Tech Association, which has the goal to foster entrepreneurship and networking across Switzerland. The first initiative of the association was to launch an event serie named Swiss Tech Talk. After successfully testing the concept in Fribourg, the association is extending across (Western by now) Switzerland, with Biel/Bienne, Neuchâtel, Geneva and Sion. Each of this city will host 4 events until June 2015. I’m fan of the format of the event (learn something useful in a 1 hour event, in a relaxed, non-commercial atmosphere) and will therefore… be the owner of the Biel/Bienne chapter! Yes, Biel/Bienne is my « home city » (I live a dozen km away) and am particularly happy that something can finally happen here! In the beginning of the 2000’s, the local web startup scene was quite lively… but almost everything collapsed afterward …