Swiss Startups Tackling Corona Virus - COVID-19

13.05.2020 13:14, Gianmaria Sbetta

Corona Virus is changing our society, our economy and our lifestyle. Remote working and online collaboration tools are gaining momentum and these Swiss startups are contributing to our daily life.

The coronavirus has a grip on social life as well as the economy all over the world and we deal intensively with the topic in the startup scene too. Venturelab has already published an article on How to run a startup in the time of coronavirus (Covid-19), listing many guidelines and recommendations from startup experts, investors and VCs that went through several crises already. 

The Swiss startup ecosystem stays strong and companies providing online medical services, delivery platforms and cloud-based services are tackling Corona Virus (COVID-19). There are Swiss startups that made the first steps to support our society:

E-commerce & Delivery

Farmy: online shop for regional and biological farming goods. The food e-commerce business is skyrocketing these days and the founder and CEO Tobias Schubert confirms that the company is working 24/7 to ensure deliveries, product quality and hygiene standards. 

Foodetective: a new food delivery service that doesn't take any commission fee for restaurants and supermarket to support the local economy. Discover more about the initiative here: Foodetective lance une plateforme de soutien aux commerces et utilisateurs.

LuckaBox: the last-mile delivery platform has developed a new delivery service to offer shopping services and delivery for the vulnerable groups are anyone who does not want to leave the house. People can order a courier service to go to the pharmacy now to buy and bring medicine.

Nosh-Pots: delivering weekly changing meals to various Pick-up Locations or to your office/home. The process of ordering is extremely easy. Local food, in reusable glass jars, is delivered every day to a client’s doorstep. Freshly made Pots are full of healthy and tasty ingredients.

yamo: fresh and natural organic baby food from Switzerland. The company will keep delivering fresh baby food and production is secured by trustful suppliers. CEO and co-founder Tobias Gunzenhauser shares more insights on his LinkedIn profile: Together through these difficult times.
 

E-health and Telemedicine

CARU: A smart sensor device for the home care industry that registers various parameters in the environment, learns the resident’s typical behaviour, and notes any deviations. This device is highly relevant today because of social distancing policies. This way, elderly- and people in need of support can stay in touch with their relatives and healthcare experts.

Creoptix: Focused on next-generation bioanalytical instruments, announced on may 13th 2020 its collaboration with Adriano Aguzzi, Professor for Neuropathology, University of Zurich, to characterize immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2* such as IgA, IgM and IgG antibodies, which signal whether an individual has been exposed to the Coronavirus.

Dema2go: innovative, comprehensive and secure communication system that enables dermatologists to offer online consultations via their clinic’s website. Patients do not need to visit the dermatologist for a first consultation anymore and can rely on professional experts. 

docdok.health: docdok enables physicians to communicate with their patients and exchange information remotely, allowing patients to stay at home and thereby preventing the transmission of the coronavirus and the spreading of COVID-19. The startup has special offerings for hospitals and practices to support the fight against the current crisis.

Dr.NOW.ch: online medical consultation service for CHF 39 including prescription and reimbursed by health insurances. More information on their website: drnow.ch.

KomedHealth: communication platform for the healthcare sector that enables clinicians to make better and faster decisions. 

Medisanté & Pryv: the two startups are collaborating to simplify Remote Patient Monitoring and guarantee privacy-by-design at the same time. Read more on their official press release.

Onedoc: Swiss-based online booking platform for the healthcare sector. The company has now ventured into telemedicine by offering video consultations for free to all our doctors during the pandemic.

TOM: helps thousands of people to cope with their daily medication management. Checking prescriptions and following the doctors' therapy is always essential, but even more so today. That's why the healthtech startup will keep their product free of charge for everyone during the COVID19 crisis. 

Uepaa: the Zurich-based startup is open and fully prepared to help and support any government effort to make full use of its proximity technology to fight COVID-19.

Wecan.group: the team is working on a blockchain-based system that to register the state of each patient regarding COVID-19 diagnostic on an immutable and secured distributed ledger (positive, negative, already contained and not tested). 
 

EnterpriseTech and Services

AI Retailer System: the RetailTech startup provides a checkout-free solution for retailers that want to operate autonomous stores, helping them to protect shoppers and their own employees. 

Akenza: as an enterprise IoT platform offering solutions for connected buildings and services, the startup provides now an automated people counting system for canteens and retailers.

Archlet: a startup originated from ETH Zurich is currently offering their procurement solution for free to support companies in assessing new sourcing scenarios using their sourcing optimization tool.

Backbone: a community of visual artists simplifying the access to premium visuals by booking a shoot on their platform.  Dorian de Vinck, co-founder and CEO of Backbone has decided to offer services on a voluntary basis to local businesses and producers. The objective of this initiative is to bring greater visibility to local merchants who have seen their sales drop over the last few weeks of confinement. Businesses wishing to benefit from this initiative can visit www.backbonephoto.co/together.

Beekeeper: mobile-first communication platform for front-line workers. With $45m raised in September 2019, the workplace communication platform simplifies workflow and activities for non-desk workers. With new smart working solutions and digital communication tool disrupting old economies, the Zurich-based companies will hopefully face steady growth. 

Careerfairy: A career live stream is a live video-broadcast of 30 minutes, which takes place at your company’s premises and features one or more of your employees giving insights into life at your company.

Career Lunch: matching job seekers with employees for informal exchanges over lunch. The startup switched from physical lunches to virtual coffee chats. Employers such as Bain & Company, PwC, CERN Coca-Cola, Julius Baer, and N26 are already offering virtual meetups through the platform.

Carvolution: Online car subscription model. Do you need a car for a short term period? Don't you feel safe about taking public transport due to Corona Virus? Carvolution has the right solution and the right car for you based on your needs. 

Coople: Europe's largest on-demand staffing platform for flexible work. While restaurants, bars and shops are closed, Coople's pool of flexible workers can now support your company with qualified staff to help fill shelves or answer calls. 

Droople: the cleantech company is developing a hygiene analytics module on our platform to enable hygiene monitoring to assess prevention campaigns and adapt cleaning services to contain the spread of the virus in shared restrooms in hospitals, commercial buildings and hotels. 

Evenito: The Swiss event management software helps you in the handling of postponed or future online events, their communication and other newly arising tasks. Don’t cancel your events but hold them online - with evenito webevents!

Futurae Technologies: the ETH cybersecurity Spinoff supports all startups and SMEs with a 3-month free usage of the authentication suite to secure their platform accesses.

geoCTRL: serial entrepreneur Mark Forster has created a COVID-19 dashboard with relevant information about coronavirus status, travel restrictions and further information. Read more here: covid19.geoctrl.com.

guuru: providing 100% remote customer service to e-commerce and online businesses. 

Locatee: to help corporations tackle the unique challenges provided by COVID-19, the startup also introduced a special Portfolio Insights Starter Pack, which waives the initial setup fee and offers a full year of measurement data for the price of 6 months. Then, the startup is working together with real estate managers to provide tips and best practices for returning to the workplace.

PXL Vision: PXL Vision offers free Identity Verification to Corona affected small businesses to continue business as usual. Get more information on this page. 

Securaxis: the security company has developed a new version of their application and mobile platform for sharing information in real-time to adapt it to a deconfinement situation with the need to share important geolocated information, such as the location for covid19 tests, stores where mask stocks are available for sale.

Seervision: state-of-the-art video analysis algorithms for real-time object recognition and scene segmentation in video productions. While big events have been cancelled worldwide, the ETH Spinoff is offering solutions to capture event remotely together with online streaming platform providers. To get more information, get in touch with the co-founder and CEO Nikos Kariotoglou. 

Sherpany: helps leaders to increase the productivity of their meetings and speed up decision-making by fostering agile and online meeting processes. 

Skribble: legally binding electronic signatures. While companies implement new home office policies and guidelines, the Zurich-based EnterpriseTech startup enables management and sales departments to keep signing contracts via their online platform.  

Sonect: COVID19 has sent people off the street and a lot of them still rely heavily on cash. SONECT has developed a cash-delivery service that brings the atm to your door! Discover more here. 

TestingTime: recruits test users for user and market research. From a pool of over 440'000 individuals, customers order test users for usability tests, interviews, focus groups and online surveys.
 

Medtech

Augurix: the medtech company is launching the first rapid serological screening test for COVID-19 on the Swiss market in cooperation with the startup GaDia SA and their partner in Asia.

Ava Women: ovulation tracking bracelet - The CEO and co-founder Lea von Bidder stated on a LinkedIn post that the Ava bracelet is the only wearable device that tracks temperature, breathing rate, and heart rate simultaneously, all highly relevant for COVID-19. Industry players and research partners can reach out to Ava to get the wearable device at a discounted price to leverage Ava technology for research in potential detection and monitoring of COVID-19.

greenTeg: developing a novel sensing technology for continuous core body temperature tracking and fever detection using so-called heat flux or energy transfer sensors. Their technology can add significant value to those fighting the pandemic as early warning signs of a potential COVID-19 infection.

HeiQ: high-performance textile technology. The Zurich-based textile company has launched HeiQ Viroblock NPJ03, an antiviral and antimicrobial textile treatment that was tested effective against coronavirus. Discover more on their official website. 

Insphero: InSphero develops 3D microtissues that are used in drug development and will offer free safety testing for exploratory COVID-19 medications and coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) vaccine formulations. More information on their website: insphero.com.

Memo Therapeutics: biotech startup developing immunoglobulins and human-derived monoclonal antibodies. The company has launched the HACK CORONA INITIATIVE to identify therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. For their study, they seek healthy persons that have overcome a heavy infection with COVID-19, aged between 18-80 and currently living in Zurich. More information on their official website: Memo Therapeutics. 

Spectroplast: the ETH 3D silicon printing Spinoff has started producing silicone attachments for breathing masks on behalf of medical companies. Read more here.

Swiss Premium Cosmetics:  the Swiss skincare producer has been supplying authorities, wholesalers and companies with high-quality disinfection gel thorughout the corona pandemic. Their skin-friendly formulation prevents hands from grying while eliminatic up to 99.9% of bacteria. Find further details here.

How is your startup affected by Corona Virus (COVID-19)? Do you currently have a special offering/initiative? Let us know and send us an email to info@venturelab.ch. 

In any case, keeping the momentum for your startup is of the essence, even in uncertain times, so join our Ask the Expert workshops, training to get ready for investors or our webinars to take the opportunity to learn from experts and other entrepreneurs.

Check out the startups' profiles below to discover more about these innovative companies!