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March 10, 2007
Swiss Startups Make Silicon Valley Connections - Euro VCs In The Wings
Besides getting serious timepiece-envy this time, like we do every time a Tech Tour organizer gets one of those Audemar Piguet watches, we picked up a hint of a new trend at the kickoff of the Swiss Tech Tour here this week.
It is a trend that has been missing in Switzerland on the whole. But it looks like early stage startups in the tech sector, as opposed to the traditionally strong biotech sector, are on the radar of international VCs.
Clearly, Swiss tech companies can attract international capital but usually at a much later stage, some examples are chip companies like Nemerix (GPS), Innovative Silicon (new memory chip architecture and materials), and Bridgeco (home networking chips).
But getting meetings, money, and some good feedback from top tier investors at the very early stage is new. Who knows, maybe it's the Jajah effect - Jajah is the very early stage Austrian startup that managed to get Sequoia to back its new low-budget telephony service, a year or so ago.
No Stylish Wrist Gear But We Did Get A Nice Swiss Army Knife
So which Swiss startups are making the connections to West Coast investors?
Kyte.tv (mobile photo and video sharing)
It dubs itself as "YouTube for Mobilephones" and so far has Swisscom Mobile as a test customer. Rumor has it that it has tapped some well-known VC backers.
Vipera (mobile messaging and community platform)
Targeting big mobilephone-using populations where PC penetration is less prevalent, the founding duo are launching a consumer-oriented mobile community, media, messaging play. Their revenue-generating mobilephone banking business has been licensed out to a Dubai-based investor for further development.
Zattoo (peer to peer TV platform)
Free European TV to go is how this one is now positioning itself. Channels delivered to laptops or PCs almost in real time. A Swiss-American founding team that has moved quickly and has attracted a lot of positive attention among the experts and on a low-budget. Among others, Ads-Click CEO and co-founder Pascal Rossini told us he uses it and gives it a big thumbs up.
Although our Swiss faves of the moment are solar cell innovators Flisom and Flexcell, we will be keeping up with the startups that everyone else is talking about. We expect them to also seek a European investor type to go with US money, either a strategic one or a VC investor.
Read - Swiss Tech Tour 2007 (remo blog)
Read - Swiscom mobile tests kyte.tv (remo blog)
Read - Zattoo= P2P + European P2P + DRM (a:c euro)
Read - Vipera Fangs (a:c euro)
Posted on March 10, 2007 06:14 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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