The TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award 2023 celebrates Switzerland’s most promising startups

06.09.2023 20:30, Rita Longobardi

The 13th edition of the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award celebrated Switzerland’s best startups according to a 100-person strong jury: HAYA Therapeutics (1st), Planted Foods (2nd), and Yokoy Group (3rd) lead the ranking. The event took place at the Startup Space in Schlieren and was attended by a curated audience comprising startup founders, investors, and key partners of the TOP 100. Additionally, the award ceremony was broadcast live to a worldwide viewership. The 13th edition of the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award was organized by Venturelab, in collaboration with its presenting partners Credit Suisse and Swiss Venture Club.

With a decade of excellence, the “TOP 100 Swiss Startup” has evolved into Switzerland's ultimate startup benchmark, promoting a dynamic community of innovators. A strong and networked community has come together under the umbrella brand “TOP 100 Startups,” which provides deep insights into the latest proven innovations, strengthens networks, and establishes new business relationships for and with the 553 Swiss high-tech startups that have been featured in the ranking over the past 13 years. So far, these award-winning startups have created 17,955 jobs and raised CHF 12.7 billion—79 exits, and 9 IPOs top off the achievements of these entrepreneurs.

Swiss Startup Ranking 2023: HAYA Therapeutics, Planted, and Yokoy 
The TOP 100 Swiss Startup Ranking showcases the 100 Swiss startups with the greatest potential. A jury of one hundred startup investors and experts select the 100 startups that are no older than five years. The podium places in the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Ranking 2023 come from three different sectors: biotech, foodtech, and fintech. "The ranking reflects the strength of the Swiss startup ecosystem and showcases the diversity and strong technical background,” says TOP 100 program director Stefan Steiner. “Startups remain true drivers of innovation. They contribute both directly and indirectly to our country's present and future prosperity, especially in this rapidly accelerating world. Cleantech, for example, has 17 representatives in the TOP 100 (including 3 in the TOP 10), confirming a positive momentum that began several years ago and is even stronger in 2023." Another example of innovation involves the emergence of artificial intelligence in our daily lives and in the business world beyond ChatGPT. This new ranking introduces also 41 new nominees, offering an exclusive panoramic overview of this pioneering ecosystem that ranks among the best globally.HAYA Therapeutics, Planted Foods, and Yokoy are, on average, four years old, have created over 520 new jobs, and have cumulatively raised CHF 237 million in investment.

First place: HAYA Therapeutics | Epalinges | www.hayatx.com   
The biotech startup HAYA Therapeutics develops precision drugs. The lead candidate for cardiac fibrosis is currently in the preclinical phase. The Vaud-based startup was founded in 2019 by Samir Ounzain and Daniel Blessing and ranked 8th in 2022.

Second place: Planted Foods | Kemptthal (ZH) | www.eatplanted.com
Planted Foods revolutionizes the food industry by creating plant-based protein made of 100% animal-product-free ingredients. The vegan meat alternatives do not include any additives. Planted Foods was founded in 2019 by Christoph Jenny, Eric Stirnemann, Lukas Böni, and Pascal Bieri and ranked 2nd in 2022.

Third place: Yokoy Group | Zurich | www.yokoy.ai 
Fintech company Yokoy Group uses artificial intelligence to automate the entire corporate spending and corporate credit card process. The Zurich-based startup was founded in 2019 by Melanie Gabriel, Devis Lussi, Thomas Inhelder, Philippe Sahli, and Lars Mangelsdorf and was ranked 1st in 2022.

Investor Summit: Global investors discover Swiss “Soonicorns” 
Swiss unicorns Climeworks, GetYourGuide, MindMaze, and Sophia Genetics have one thing in common: they were already represented in the seed stage in the ranking of the TOP 100 Swiss Startups. The 100-member expert jury behind the ranking recognized their potential very early on. It’s no surprise that every September, well-capitalized venture capitalists from around the world flock to Zurich to attend the TOP 100 Swiss Investor Summit. They are on the lookout for the next generation, the Swiss “Soonicorns.” More than a hundred international super angels, venture capital investors, corporate VCs, and family office representatives from Europe, America, and Asia participate in the TOP 100 Investor Summit, which is open only to accredited investors. The event brings together handpicked TOP 100 startups in both the seed and growth stages, along with a pool of global investors, collectively bringing over 22.316 billion in investment capital to the table. When the most promising Swiss startup entrepreneurs meet the best international investors at the TOP 100 Investor Summit to align business models and investment strategies, the ever-growing list of Swiss unicorns will soon have new additions. Discover more details at https://www.top100startups.swiss/investorsummit2023.

Swiss Startup Magazine:
Presenting the Who’s Who of the Swiss startup ecosystem, the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Magazine portrays the most promising Swiss startups, which were selected by the TOP 100 Jury. Additionally, the publication analyzes the startup and scale-up rankings, showcases the jury members, and features a deep dive into the Swiss AI ecosystem. Download the full magazine from www.top100startups.swiss/magazines.

Key facts and figures about the TOP 100 Startups:

•    To date, the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award has recognized a total of 554 startups.
•    Cumulatively the startups have raised more than CHF 12.7 billion, with 79 exits and 9 IPOs.
•    The TOP 100 Startups have created 17,955 active jobs.

The TOP 100 Swiss Startups 2023
Discover all the 100 startups in the 2023 ranking.



10 winners of the TOP 100 Public Voting 2023
The TOP 100 Public Voting runs parallel to the expert jury rankings and highlights 10 outstanding Swiss startups in their respective industries. All startups that are no older than five years and listed on startup.ch are eligible to participate. Each person with a LinkedIn profile had one vote, and the companies with the most votes win in their respective industries.

Limula
Voltiris
Impossible Materials
Calingo Insurance 
boostbar
CARIFY 
Moonlight 
Properti 
Ascento 
Integritee

The TOP 25 Swiss Scale-ups 2023
As startups cannot appear in the TOP 100 for more than five years after incorporation, a growth jury was asked to select the TOP 25 Swiss Scale-ups. These companies, aged five up to ten years, have the greatest potential to become future Swiss unicorns.
Discover the 25 scale-ups in the 2023 ranking.



About the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award
Venturelab has been organizing the annual TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award since 2011. A panel of 100 leading investors and startup experts select the 100 most innovative and promising Swiss startups. Each jury member nominates 10 Swiss startups that are less than five years old and show the greatest commercial potential. The first-placed company gets 10 points, the second 9, and so on. All these individual rankings are compiled to generate the final TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award ranking, which recognizes the startups that have most impressed all 100 jury members.

The TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award 2023 is supported by presenting partners Credit Suisse and Swiss Venture Club, and gold partners Innosuisse and SIX. TOP 100 Startup partners are Canton Vaud, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Walder Wyss, IKEA, Handelszeitung, PME, startupticker.ch, startup.ch, effekte.ch, Venturelab, Venture Kick, and IFJ.

The TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award’s website www.top100startups.swiss showcases the German, French, English, Chinese, and Japanese editions of the TOP 100 Swiss Startups magazines, the full 2023 ranking, and the jury members.