Medtech Startup Distalmotion's CEO Michael Friedrich About Being a Serial Entrepreneur

30.03.2020 10:18, Guillaume Tinsel

Serial entrepreneurs start over and over again. But everything is different the second time around: the young entrepreneurs of yesterday now have a wide network in addition to financial resources and experience. If they meet young scientists and engineers with tenacity, the unicorns of tomorrow may emerge. We have talked with Michael Friedrich, CEO of Distalmotion and Swiss serial entrepreneur.

Each year 100 investors and experts choose the Swiss startups with the most promising business idea. The result is the TOP 100 Swiss Startup ranking. These experts rely on their instinct to propose startups with the best success potential. Year after year, the ranking provides an instant picture of the most innovative and promising young companies in Switzerland that are not older than 5 years. Last year the jury also selected for the first time the 25 best scale-ups. 2012 incorporated startup Distalmotion, developing a new surgical device for minimally invasive surgery, was one of them.  


Michael Friedrich - The Serial Entrepreneur
The joint journey of Michael Friedrich and Vaud Medtech company Distalmotion has not always been as smooth as it is today. His entry as investor and CEO brought conflict with the founders; Friedrich took drastic measures and the founders were bought out. “In my first start-up, I learned that it works only if everyone in the team pulls together.”Aïmago was the first Medtech project by the 38-year-old from Bern, which he sold to US company Novadaq. However, he quickly realised that he was not cut out to be a small cog in big business and after three months he quit. Since doing nothing was also out of the question, Friedrich needed “new stuff”.In 2014, he joined Distalmotion – the EPFL spin-off was working on a robot that facilitates minimally invasive abdominal procedures. “The concept behind ‘Dexter’ inspired me,” says Friedrich. The surgical robots on the market until now have been extremely expensive and banish the doctor behind a screen far away from the patient. 

Distalmotion positions itself as a service provider. “We install Dexter with the customer and provide all the necessary supplies,” explains Friedrich. The billing is per operation and the flat-rate model should lead to long-term high yields but requires a lot of money in the start-up phase. Therefore, Friedrich is currently preparing a financing round of between CHF 50 million and CHF 100 million.“The overall package seems to be right for investors,” comments the Distalmotion CEO. What he does not say, however, is that as a CEO who knows how to lift up a start-up and sell it to a big company, he himself is an important part of this package. A first distribution contract for ‘Dexter’ has been signed, the approval comes at the end of the year and then the first orders should come in. Incidentally, an ex-manager of Friedrich’s is responsible for sales and marketing – Novadaq’s former European boss has been working at Distalmotion since last year.

This article by Jost Dubacher with illustrations by Bianca Litscher was first published in the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Magazine 2019. TOP 100 is the event where the most promising Swiss startup CEOs, executives, investors, and journalists gain deep insights into the latest proven concepts, network and establish new business relationships. In 2019, over 700 participants (startups, investors, journalists, and corporates) from Switzerland but also investors from China, Silicon Valley, Boston, France, Germany, and the UK gathered to Switzerland to kick it with like-minded tech-heads while experiencing the phenomenal atmosphere. The upcoming TOP 100 Swiss Startup Awards will take place on September 9th, 2020.



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