Kickstart announces milestone of 200 collaborations

Kickstart Innovation has announced the 50 proofs of concept and other partnerships between startups/scale-ups and established companies/organizations this year. Thirteen of these come from Switzerland and 37 from abroad.

According to the press release from the innovation platform, which is self-proclaimed as being one of the largest in Europe, it has achieved a milestone: Since it was established in 2015, it has conducted over 200 innovation agreements. Digitization and sustainability are strong drivers of innovation here according to Kickstart Co-Founder and CEO Katka Letzing. She adds: “Large companies are increasingly interested in cooperating with high-growth start-ups and developing together here.”

Kickstart hopes that the new partnerships will include successful examples like those in the past, such as the collaboration between the meat replacement manufacturer Planted on the one hand and Coop and Migros on the other hand. The collaborations between Veezoo, with its intelligent business analysis tool, and the insurance company Axa as well as between the sensitive data specialists at decentriq and PostFinance, the financial services unit of Swiss Post, are also heralded as examples in the press release.

In addition to those already mentioned, Kickstart’s collaboration partners also include renowned Swiss companies and organizations such as the Swiss telecommunications provider Swisscom, Mobiliar, which is the oldest private insurance company in Switzerland, the global investment bank and financial services firm Credit Suisse, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and the Mava Foundation, a family-led, Swiss-based philanthropic foundation. The most recent partnership with CSS, one of the largest Swiss health insurance funds, was recently confirmed.

Kickstart is a spin-off from the Impact Hub Zürich. The platform was created by digitalswitzerland in 2015.