Piavita comes in third at the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award 2020

09.09.2020 20:30, Isabelle Mitchell

The third place goes to Piavita co-founders Dr. Dorina Thiess and Sascha Bührle. Their medtech startup aims to develop digital solutions that transform veterinary care by combining sensors, big data, and AI. Piavita was founded in 2016 and ranked 8th at last year’s TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award.

Animal Health Investment Europe was one of the last conferences to take place before the coronavirus crisis. For Piavita founder Dorina Thiess, the trip to London was a stroke of luck: she hurried from meeting to meeting, made countless contacts with investors and potential partners, and was pleased to note: “Everything in veterinary medicine revolves around data, data, and data.” 

Thiess and her co-founder engineer Sascha Bührle have combined sensors, big data, and AI to form a platform for the remote monitoring of sick and convalescent horses. The technical basis is a sensor technology developed by Bührle, in which the sensor, strapped to the horse’s chest, allows vital signs, such as pulse and temperature, to be measured through the coat.

The sensor module was ready for the market at the end of 2018. A lot has happened since then: more than 100 of Piavita’s systems are in use in the main markets of Europe and the US. And the use time is increasing: by May of this year, veterinary clinics and stud farms had recorded 2,700 hours – and this trend is rising sharply. “We sell the hardware cheaply,” says Theiss of her business model. Piavita makes its money through the license payments for the use of the platform, and with partner companies that offer services as in-app sellers; for example, customized valuation and visualization of data.

So far, Thiess and Bührle have no competitors; challengers to Piavita for the leading position worldwide would have a hard time since the platform is not only growing quantitatively, but thanks to machine learning algorithms is also becoming ever more precise and reliable.

To date, Piavita has raised CHF 32 million in venture capital. “In the medium term,” Theiss says, “we are now looking for a strategic partner.” Large suppliers of animal pharmaceuticals, such as Zoetis, Ceva, and MSD, are in the frame. “There’s no lack of interest from the industry,” says Thiess. That’s no surprise, as the data from Piavita open up completely new horizons in the testing and optimization of equine medicine.


This article by Jost Dubacher was first published in the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Magazine 2020.