Awards for promising ideas
Last week the 11th "venture" startup competition drew to a close with an awards ceremony for the submitted projects. The winner in the Business Idea category was theMOFcompany, a startup from ETH Zurich, the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
Despite the high Swiss franc and a challenging market environment for export-oriented companies, interest in business plan and business ideas competition "venture" remained strong. 230 teams took part in this year's competition: 114 submitted their ideas, 116 groups their business plans. From this huge pool of projects, a jury of investors and industry representatives ultimately selected the best 5, best 10 and best 25 in each category.
Market pioneer in organometallic chemistry
The top spot in the Business Idea category was taken by startup theMOFcompany, a joint venture from researchers at ETH Zurich, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). theMOFcompany wants to offer a unique production service for so-called Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs). The startup is a market pioneer whose product could revolutionise the industrial process.
Second place in the Business Idea category also went to an ETH start-up. hemoTUNE is developing a revolutionary therapeutic platform for blood purification: functionalised magnetic nanoparticles are applied in a dialysis-like circuit to remove specific disease-related compounds from the blood.
Top spot in the Business Plan category went to T3 Pharmaceuticals, a spin-off from the University of Basel. The founders are developing a method of fighting cancer with bacteria. The microorganisms are designed to infect and kill solid tumours.
Two ETH representatives, ComfyLight (University of St. Gallen/ETH Zurich) and Peripal, also made it into the top five in the Business Plan category. ComfyLight manufactures an intelligent LED light bulb that registers and analyses the behaviour of people at home. When they are not at home, the light bulb simulates their behaviour in order to ward off potential burglars. Peripal has developed a device that reduces the risk of infection among patients using home dialysis.
Bumpy and rewarding road
The awards ceremony took place on 30 June 2016 in ETH Zurich's Auditorium Maximum. ETH President Lino Guzzella welcomed visitors to the event. “I would like to congratulate all of the Venture participants not only on their business ideas, but also for their courage to travel the bumpy and rewarding road of entrepreneurship,” said Guzzella.
venture founder Thomas Knecht believes that travelling this road is an important part of the competition: "We want to significantly increase the success rate of budding entrepreneurs through knowledge transfer, coaching and by expanding their network."
TV moderator Patrizia Laeri chose the winning projects together with the representatives from the venture advisory board. EPFL President Patrick Aebischer gave the closing address. His university has also been venture's organisation partner since 2016.
venture has its roots in an initiative from ETH Zurich, McKinsey and Knecht Holding. In 1996 Thomas Knecht, the then director at McKinsey Switzerland, had the idea of staging a business plan competition and teamed up with ETH. venture was held for the first time in 1998. Since then 2,700 teams have taken part and 5,500 jobs have been created for highly qualified individuals.