Besso: The Venture Leader Technology unlocking hidden savings in supply chains

09.03.2026 10:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Philip Sieber-Gasser, founder of Besso. The ICT startup transforms complex trade rules into a strategic advantage, enabling companies to cut tariffs, simplify compliance, and optimize sourcing. Philip and the other nine Swiss National Technology Team members will fly to Silicon Valley in April.

Name: Philip Sieber-Gasser
Location: Bern, Switzerland
Nationality: Swiss
Graduated from: IMD Lausanne, University of Manchester
Prior role: Partner at Obviam (exited in 2021)
Founding team members: 5 - Michiel Kalverkamp, Emilie Delattre, Jose Ignacio Diaz Ordoñez, Kholofelo Kugler, Nanda Sandhu
Number of employees: 19 by headcount, 14.6 by FTE
Money raised: CHF 1.38 M

What does your product or solution do, and what makes it unique?
Besso helps companies with international supply chains see through the tariff and trade regulations maze, so they can shift from reacting to optimizing their supply chains. 

What trend or shift in your industry is currently creating the biggest opportunity for you?
Geopolitics and trade wars have made tariffs and other trade regulations unpredictable. As a result, trade has moved from the background onto the board agenda.

How did the idea for your startup originate?
At the dinner table. I saw the pain up close as an investor, and my wife is a professor of trade law: we realized that GenAI could be used to turn academic legal research methods into practical guidance for business use cases.

Which market are you addressing, and what potential do you see for your startup in that market?
We provide trade regulation intelligence for companies operating international supply chains, a USD 31.3b market (TAM). 

What impact do you want your technology to have five years from now?
Regulatory volatility adds fixed transaction costs that crowd out smaller players and developing countries. Our goal is to reverse these impacts and thereby make global trade more inclusive and resilient.

What major challenges have you faced so far?
We had to learn how to sell into large enterprises in a complex domain. Even with several Fortune 500 companies as paying customers, aligning stakeholders with different incentives and definitions of success is hard. 

What motivates you on tough days?
The knowledge that we’re solving a real problem at global scale.

Why did you decide to join the Venture Leaders Roadshow, and what are you most excited about?
The timing is perfect: it coincides with the launch of our Seed Round and the acceleration of our go-to-market in the US. We hope it will catalyze both.