Pioneer in Swiss Startup Support: Venturelab Celebrates 15 Years Supporting the Best Startups Become World-Class

06.08.2019 00:00, Joseph Heaven

Partners, investors and alumni joined Venturelab for its 15th anniversary, as its founders looked back on Swiss success stories and shared their vision to build the next generation of world-class startups in Switzerland.

Guests included alumni from the first startup training program in 2004, founders of what are today’s industry-leading companies such as Bestmile, Climeworks and MaxWell Biosystems. Over the past 15 years Venturelab has supported thousands of entrepreneurs, who have launched over 1,000 companies, which have raised more than 5 billion Swiss francs from investors around the globe and created thousands of jobs in Switzerland.


“Our goal is to help Switzerland's entrepreneurs to stay at the forefront for the next 15 years. In order to achieve this, we want to keep on working with the best partners to create meaningful startup programs,” proclaimed Jordi Montserrat, Venturelab’s managing partner.

15 years of world-class startups. Swiss made

In 2004, Beat Schillig teamed up with Jordi Montserrat to train the new generation of entrepreneurs with the original Venturelab program. Since then, they have built or been mandated with initiatives including Venture Kick which today invests 4,35 million Swiss francs per year in Swiss startups. The Innosuisse Start-up Training which offers mission-based trainings to launch and grow deeptech startups. The Venture Leaders roadshows bringing founders to pitch to the world’s leading venture capital fund in global tech hotspots from Silicon Valley to China and the annual TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award that showcases Switzerland’s most-promising startups at its flagship event. Venturelab powered programs so include digitalswitzerland’s Scale up Bootcamps, the Swisscom StartUp Challenge, Swiss Prime Site Accelerator Workshops, Academia-Industry Training, Swiss Africa business and innovation initiative, the Swiss postal service’s PostVenture and the EIT Food Pre-incubation bootcamp.

Beat Schillig, founder and president of Venturelab emphasized: “We are proud to have supported many success stories such as the one of  Madiha Derouazi  whose startup Amal Therapeutics was recently acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim. A truly world-class startup. Swiss made. Or GetYourGuide who raises $484 million in his last financing round. 

A growing platform for startup success

Together with successful founders, key academic and industry partners, Venturelab designs and operates programs to bring the best startup talents to the next level of development. Our mission is to support entrepreneurs towards successful fundraising and business growth throughout the evolution of the company. The Venturelab team, based in Zurich, Lausanne and St Gallen, organized 375 events in 2018, supporting more than 1,000 Swiss startups, which raised 735 million francs in funding during those 12 months. Our partners to grow world-class startups. Swiss made are BKW, Credit Suisse, digitalswitzerland, dpd, EPFL, ETH, ESA BIC Switzerland, EY, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, IFJ, Innosuisse, Kanton Zürich, Kellerhals Carrard, Postfinance, PSI, Rothschild & Co Bank, SVC, Swisscom, Swiss Post, Swiss Prime Site, Swissnex, Uni Basel, Uni Zürich, VAUD, Vischer, Walder Wyss, Zühlke and many more.