Venture Leaders Biotech 2025: 10 innovative startups selected for Boston roadshow
Ten startups have been selected for the 2025 Venture Leaders Biotech program, which will take them to Boston from June 23rd to 27th as part of the Swiss National Startup Team. During their roadshow, the entrepreneurs will connect with international investors and industry leaders, acquiring expertise to help scale their ventures. Venture Leaders Biotech is organized by Venturelab in partnership with Swissnex Boston & New York and supported by the University of Basel, EPFL, ETH Zurich, Hansjörg Wyss, Kellerhals Carrard, and VISCHER.
After reviewing over 70 applications, the jury of investors and biotech experts selected the ten startups to participate in the Boston roadshow, a key program in one of the world’s leading life science hubs. The program will allow the selected entrepreneurs to meet potential investors and industry experts, accelerating their expansion into the US market.The 2025 selection spans a wide array of innovative scientific fields such as advanced drug discovery for degenerative and aging-related diseases to revolutionary stem-cell-based blood platelet products, innovative cell therapies or next-generation biomaterials for controlled drug delivery. The Venture Leaders Biotech, which collectively showcases the dynamic potential and diversity of Switzerland’s biotech ecosystem, kick-off the program pitching at the Swiss Biotech Day in Basel on May 5, 2025.
"Getting ready for this roadshow for the 20th year is a great reflection of the quality of innovation of the new startups involved," said Jordi Montserrat, Managing Partner of Venturelab. "I’m looking forward to being part of this new edition and assisting the team with their fundraising and international expansion."
The 10 startups will follow in the footsteps of high-flying former team members such as Araris Biotech (recently announced its acquisition for USD 1.1 billion), Covagen (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), Versantis (acquired by Genfit), AMAL Therapeutics (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), NBE-Therapeutics (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), Alentis (USD 105 million funding round in 2023), and BioVersys (recent IPO on the SIX Swiss Exchange).
"What an amazing road trip we have made," said Maria van Dongen, Co-Founder of Allegria Therapeutics and Venture Leaders Biotech 2024—who closed a USD 3.5 million Seed Round last year. "Connecting with so many knowledgeable players in the Boston Biotech ecosystem was mind-blowing. I am confident that this trip will be paying off as ALLEGRIA Therapeutics is developing."
Venture Leaders Biotech is organized by Venturelab in partnership with Swissnex in Boston & New York and supported by the University of Basel, EPFL, ETH Zurich, Hansjörg Wyss, Kellerhals Carrard, and VISCHER.
Follow the entrepreneurs and the Venture Leaders Biotech roadshow on social media using the hashtag #VLeadersBiotech or on https://www.venturelab.swiss/venture-leaders-biotech.
About Venture Leaders
The Venture Leaders – the members of the Swiss National Startup Team – have a clear goal: envisioning themselves as global players, they want to take the first step towards their global expansion. Venturelab has over 20 years of experience bringing Switzerland’s best entrepreneurs to the heart of the global technology hubs: Silicon Valley, Boston, China, London, Barcelona, and Munich. Companies founded by the 582 Venture Leaders alumni have created more than 12,900 jobs and raised more than CHF 8,9 billion in investment capital. For more information, visit www.venture-leaders.ch, and discover all the alumni here.
Meet the Venture Leaders Biotech 2025:
Abrinca GmbH: Abrinca has built the engine for microbial innovation.
A major barrier to discovery in microbial genomics research is data analysis, which demands time-intensive collaboration between microbiologists and bioinformaticians. Abrinca eliminates this hurdle w... Read more
Amporin Pharmaceuticals AG: Acute membrane repair for deadly degenerative diseases.
Amporin Pharmaceuticals AG is developing a breakthrough new class of small molecule amyloid pore inhibitors that can uniquely protect and repair cell and mitochondrial membranes from the damage caused... Read more
Apricot Therapeutics AG: Data-driven drug discovery for targeted medicine
Apricot BIO, a spin-off from the University of Zürich, is positioning itself to become the “Google maps” of the tumor cell by combining drug perturbations, image-based phenotypic profiling, systems bi... Read more
Aukera Therapeutics GmbH: Our drugs keep the cell's growth engine mTORC1 in check
Aukera Therapeutics is a preclinical-stage biotech spin-off from the University of Basel, emerged from pioneering research on mTOR biology. We specialize in leveraging protein design to drive drug dis... Read more
ENANTIOS AG: Solution to analyze chiral molecules and biologics.
Modern pharmaceutics are becoming more and more structurally complex, and traditional measurement techniques are slowing down the discovery pipeline. At Enantios we are leveraging new measurement tech... Read more
Encelta AG: Providing healthy immune cells to patients in need.
Encelta has developed a groundbreaking cell therapy platform addressing key challenges in the field. Our allogeneic T-cell product is uniquely compatible with all 7 approved bispecific antibodies and ... Read more
HemostOD SA: Producer of donor free universal platelets for transfusion
HemostOD is assembling a novel, cell-based production platform based on natural human biology that makes blood platelets for transfusion in hours, not the days taken by its competitors. In pre-clinic... Read more
InkVivo Technologies SA: Best in class polymer platform for formulating drug delivery
InkVivo integrates its proprietary polymer platform with AI predictive modeling to accelerate drug formulation and de-risk clinical outcomes. This combined materials-science and data-driven approach i... Read more
Juvion Health Sciences SA: Improving health span in the elderly: Nurturing motion
Juvion’s vision is to redefine aging biology. We aim to prove that age-related loss of movement and memory is driven by weakening cell communication in the nervous system, and that it can be restored ... Read more
Nerai Bioscience AG: Reimagining genetic medicine through protein engineering.
Nerai pioneers novel highly personalized CRISPR proteins to deliver lifelong cures for diseases beyond the reach of current genome editing. By fusing AI with programmable biology, its editors redefine... Read more
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