Awards dominated by startups from Greater Zurich Area

The W.A. de Vigier Award was presented for the first time 30 years ago. In this anniversary year, 60 startups were able to pitch to the jury rather than the usual 16. With ten winners, more than twice as many companies were selected on Monday than in other years. This year’s prize money also increased to 750,000 francs overall.

Of the ten winners, six come from the Greater Zurich Area, with four based in the city of Zurich. They are PXL Vision, which is developing an innovative solution for identity verification, PharmaBiome AG, which is working on new approaches in intestinal therapy, Piomic Medical AG, which is creating a wearable wound healing device, and Sleepiz AG, which enables medical sleep monitoring from home. The other two winners from the Greater Zurich Area are startups in Winterthur, namely, Scewo AG with a wheelchair that climbs stairs and Vatorex AG, which is using heat to save bees. All six winners from the Greater Zurich Area are spin-offs from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).

The W.A. de Vigier promotional award is the oldest and most financially significant award for startups in Switzerland. In its 30-year history, the W.A. de Vigier Foundation has distributed over 11 million francs of seed capital.