nexoya: Meet the Venture Leader Technology optimizing marketing decisions with predictive AI

29.03.2023 07:00, Morgane Ghilardi

Meet Marco Hochstrasser, co-founder and CEO of nexoya. The startup helps marketers make data-driven decisions, leveraging AI for agile portfolio management: with one click, marketers can reallocate advertising budget for maximum efficiency across channels, with the promise of a 30% increase in conversions. Marco will be joining nine other tech innovators on an investor and business development roadshow in Silicon Valley next month.

Name: Marco Hochstrasser 
Location: Zurich, Switzerland 
Nationality: Swiss
Education: Bern University of Applied Sciences
Job title: Co-Founder & CEO
Number of employees: 24
Money raised: CHF 6 million
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Venture Leaders Technology 2023
 

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Whom does your product or solution help, and how?
nexoya helps marketers to optimize their digital advertising budget across all channels with a fully automated process and the power of AI predictions—this significantly simplifies the operation and daily hassle of digital advertising plus, results in higher returns, more transparency, and independence.

How did you come up with the idea for your startup?
We saw how hard it is for marketers to navigate millions of data points and how dependent they are on inaccurate data, having to make decisions based on gut feeling. We realized that becoming data-driven and leveraging AI will become even harder for them. This set off our problem-solving gene as trained engineers.

What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
Nexoya is helpful for digital advertisers active on three or more channels. We're currently active in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and are exploring opportunities in Italy and the UK. The potential is tremendous as we are the only platform combining predictive analytics with the fully automated cycle for budget redistribution.

How do you think the Venture Leaders roadshow will help you achieve your vision?
Nexoya saw immense growth in the past 12 months. More and more marketers today are fully relying on our platform. Venture Leader will allow us to get exposure in the US market as well as explore the next potential funding with US VCs.

Nexoya's management team (from left to right): Alen Cerovina (Country Manager Germany), Philipp Meier (Head of Software Engineering), Marco Hochstrasser (CEO), Flavia Wagner (Head of Customer Experience), and Manuel Dietrich (Co-Founder and CBDO)

What excites you most about your work right now?
It's very exciting to see a small group of 2-5 people growing into a highly diverse, amazingly talented group of individuals all trying to make the life of marketers more transparent, fair, and independent. It is exciting to be part of such a community.

How did you go about building your team?
We search for a high culture fit in our team. It's all about open communication, transparency, and clear structures. So, for us, grit, will and an eagerness to learn is more important than the curriculum. That's how we found the amazing people we work with today; hopefully, we'll be able to expand the team.
 
Nexoya's team

What are your team's key achievements to date? 
We found 24 amazingly talented, diverse, and international people, and also achieved +330% growth in just one year. 

How did you come up with the name of your startup?  
This was a fully crowd- and data-driven process. We used an online tool called squadhelp and ran a naming contest in which people can propose names for your venture. It was a fun and interesting process; we selected the winner and called it Nexoya, which stands for Next-Generation Analytics. 

What is the most challenging aspect of being a founder?
Focus. That's the hardest part, from the earliest to the later stage. Always make sure you are working on the most relevant topic for the business, not the ones you like most. For me, that's been the most challenging aspect of my journey as an entrepreneur, especially with my engineering background.

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?
Making quick decisions is sometimes worse than letting things unfold. Given all the metrics a founder hunts for in startup life, we sometimes don't spare enough time for things to develop before we act or react.
 

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Tell us something people don’t know about you. 
At the age of 15, I started a web-hosting business running in my parents' attic. It grew very quickly and after a year, we started having some lengthy discussions about the origin of the quadrupling energy bill and why all the computers needed to run 24/7. After that, I moved all servers into a data center.

What are you known for among your friends and family?
Having a lot of energy and always up the earliest in the group.

What are you most proud of?
Our small family startup: my wife and my two-year-old kiddo.

What did you want to do with your life at age 12?
I wanted to immediately start working and stop school. My goal was always to go out and work, help people solve problems, and not learn things you can find on the internet. Today, I obviously must say learning is important, but as a twelve-year-old my view was different.

What is your favorite movie or TV show and why?
How do people find the time to watch movies or TV shows?

What is your favorite podcast and why? 
I barely have time to hear podcasts today, but one of my favorites is Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman.

What is your favorite book and why? 
There are many books I like. One that explains entrepreneurship nicely is definitely That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea (2019) by Marc Randolph. It sheds some light on failures and how things work or don't.
 
What is always in your fridge and why?
Milk – my mother’s family were farmers, so you always need milk. Period.

What is one thing everyone should try at least once?
Start a venture or support an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship brings creative ideas to the floor of reality and in the market. It's something we should all encourage and support way more. So next time you see the little kid selling lemon water on the street, just buy it – this is the spark of early entrepreneurship. Making her successful today could lead to a flourishing business in +15 years.
 

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ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The Venture Leaders Technology 2023 were chosen from over 150 applications by a jury of investors and technology experts. The roadshow in Silicon Valley, one of the world's most important tech hubs, provides a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs to accelerate their startups' expansion in the US while expanding their professional network and profiting from workshops with investors and industry leaders. This year's Venture Leaders Technology is co-organized by Venturelab and supported by Canton of Vaud, Canton of Zürich, EPFL, ETH Zürich, Kellerhals Carrard, and Rothschild & Co.
 

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