Once again, startups that have benefitted from the support and expertise of IMD EMBA and MBA participants were featured among the Top 100 most promising and innovative young ventures in Switzerland.
Thirty-one of the top 100 Swiss startups were IMD Startup Competition winners, with 16 having worked with EMBAs and 15 with MBAs. Two companies featured in the top 10 – DePoly and Bloom Biorenewables) – have collaborated with IMD participants, while five were in the top 20.
“It is very gratifying to see that so many of the ventures that have worked and collaborated with IMD have been recognized as among the best in Switzerland,” said Jim Pulcrano, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management at IMD.
Each year since 1999, participants in IMD’s MBA and EMBA programs have provided input and support to Swiss entrepreneurs to improve their chances of funding and success. Two of the Top 100 startups – Cultivated Bioscience (26) and Composite Recycling (82) – will be in Silicon Valley these next few days with the EMBA class.
The 13th edition of the Top 100 Swiss Startup Award celebrates the strength of the Swiss startup ecosystem and highlights companies that are five years old or less, with many breaking new ground in industries, ranging from biotech and software to engineering and financial technology.
Since the influential ranking’s creation in 2011, it has featured 553 Swiss high-tech startups. Together, they have created 17,955 jobs and raised CHF 12.7 billion. Seventy-nine exits and nine IPOs top off their achievements.
Among the top 100 was Alpian (71), a digital private bank co-founded by Schuyler Weiss (MBA 2017) and Marion Fogli (EMBA 2017), while data security company Cysec (25) and integrated solar tiles company Freesuns (53) took part in IMD’s LeadiNNg to Scale-Up program with Innovaud (and had previously worked with our EMBAs and MBAs). A further two startups, Bloom Biorenewables (6) and robotics venture AICA (74), collaborated with IMD in a program with specialty chemicals company Evonik.
IMD recently featured Lausanne-based cleantech startup Enerdrape (83) in its Tech for Good video series profiling entrepreneurs developing technology to create a better world.
Among the other categories celebrated were the best scale-ups. These are fast-growing companies that must have been operating for more than five years to qualify. Seven out of the 25 chosen had worked with IMD’s MBAs or EMBAs.
The top 100 list is available online here.
