20 Swiss startups zoom onto the world stage at SwissTech Pitchinar 2020

By Duy Nguyen, Junior Project Manager Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Continuing the tradition of SwissTech startup pitching in the framework of the Consumer Electronic Show CES ASIA, which was unfortunately postponed due to COVID-19, the SwissTech Pitchinar 2020, a pitching competition in webinar format, was launched as a world-premiere on June 10, 2020.

Continuing the tradition of SwissTech startups pitching in the framework of the Consumer Electronics Show CES ASIA, 20 Swiss tech-driven startups took the gl...

The pitchinar spotlighted groundbreaking SwissTech, providing a platform for game-changing partnerships with investors, mentors, experts, potential business partners and highly engaged audiences.

20 leading Swiss startups in the fields of Advanced Instrument, A.I., A.R/V.R, Biotech, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Energy, Fintech, HealthTech, IoT, Robotics, Software and VehicleTech, presented their innovation with pitches of 90 seconds each, moderated by Jordi Monserrat of Venturelab. He is the mastermind behind the iconic Venture Leaders program, an international roadshow for world-class startups. The grande finale with Swiss Ambassador to China Bernardino Regazzoni virtually presenting the trophy to the winner marked the peak of the event. "For Swiss startups, China is a key market to explore. The 70th anniversary of Sino-Swiss diplomatic relations is a good illustration of the strong bond between the two countries," he said. Ambassador Nicolas Bideau, Head of Presence Switzerland and Gary Shapiro, CEO of Consumer Technology Association and organizer of CES, delivered keynote messages.

During the event, the startups were able to exchange with the prominent jury composed by James Chou, CEO & Managing Director at Microsoft for startups, Chengfei Yuan, Director of Tax Services at PwC China and Bin Sheng, Managing Director at SDIC Fund Management Co.

After the 20 pitches of 90 seconds each, Mithras Technology was crowned winner in front of more than 950 registrants including top universities, blue-chip companies, media and 238 investors.

The audience was impressed by the miniature thermoelectric generators of the young company from Graubünden. Their mission: to transform the heat of the human body into electricity. Mithras Technology wants to enable everyone to become their own power station. The founder, Franco Membrini said after his triumph:

“This was completely unexpected. We feel very proud and honored to have won the first SwissTech Pitchinar 2020! We already received lots of positive feedback from people reaching out to us, which could result in very interesting leads and this highlights the inestimable worth of such events… We would like to thank the team of swissnex China for an outstanding organisation and wish all the presented startups best of success!”

Moderator Jordi Montserrat with the finalists and winner

The podium of finalists was completed by STOR-H Technologies, the Aaquius spin-off specialized in solid hydrogen storage for electric vehicles; Eyeware and its eye-tracking software to be integrated into 3D cameras; and Swiss Terahertz whose expertise is in terahertz waves, the invisible electromagnetic waves that could compete with X-rays.

The outstanding performance of all participating startups demonstrate the strength of the Swiss innovation ecosystem and the excellence of the world-class Swiss universities.

“Today, we pioneered a powerful virtual platform for Swiss startups to establish game-changing partnerships with investors, mentors, experts, potential business partners and highly-engaged audiences on a global scale: an unprecedented way to add value and build bridges”, said Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul and CEO of swissnex China. “We saw overwhelming interest in our DeepTech startups and wish them every success with their many follow-ups.”

A big applause again to our 20 startups:

ariadne.ai        GLOBAL ID                   Risklick                                     Swiss Terahertz

Battronics        holo|one                     Scientific Visual                       Tinamu Labs

Code Lane       !important                  Sevensense Robotics              TRUSTLESS.AI

collectID          KUDO                          Siodb                                       Typewise

Eyeware          Mithras Technology    STOR-H Technologies              Voliro

Needless to say, our warm congratulations and huge thanks to the tech-driven startups for sharing with us their inspiring solutions for a smart & sustainable future: ariadne.ai ag, Battronics AG, Code Lane GmbH, collectID, Eyeware [Finalist], Global ID SA - EPFL Innovation Park, holo|one, !important safety technologies, KUDO, Mithras Technology [Winner], Risklick, Scientific Visual, Sevensense Robotics, Siodb, STOR-H by Aaqius [Finalist], Swiss Terahertz [Finalist], Tinamu Labs, TRUSTLESS.AI, Typewise, Voliro Airborne Robotics.

We would also like to thanks our partners for their strong support for making this event possible: ETH Zürich, EPFL, Greater Zurich Area, Innovaud, Swisscom, Venturelab, and SwissTech campaign partners Presence Switzerland, Switzerland Global Enterprise, Innosuisse, digitalswitzerland, swissnex Network. Big thanks also to our Jury James Chou, Chengfei Yuan and Bin Sheng for their support and Jordi Montserrat for the masterful moderation!

Please find the link to download the slides here.

Future of Money: Neobanking

By Nicole Jucker and Nan Chen, Junior Project Managers

On May 20th, we hosted the 9th event of our Future of Money series titled Neobanking. A buzzword in the FinTech community, it has been taking the spotlight for digital banks in the news and media on the global level. With a strong viewership, a great panel discussion and an insightful presentation held by Tyler Aveni from the Fintech unicorn WeBank, this webinar gave a great introduction and insight into the present and future of Neobanks in China and Switzerland.

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In the last few years, we’ve seen a massive shift in the finance industry as digital payments are emerging at large scale. Customers are moving away from physical banks and physical cash towards online banking and wallets. A Neobank is a kind of digital bank that offers digital or mobile-only financial services. Rather than locating physically at a specific location, neobanking is entirely online. Neobank can provide the fluidity and the easy accessibility that traditional banks cannot.

Setting the tone, Tyler Aveni gave us an excellent presentation on WeBank: The World’s Leading Digital Bank. He started with a general introduction of WeBank as an affiliate of Tencent and its rise in late 2014. This followed a description of WeBank’s Propositions for Open banking, which includes Open Platforms, Open Innovation and Open Collaboration by referring to the Wechat wallet feature for credit loans (that can only be seen by a certain whitelisted group of people) as well as the WeBank app. Tyler presented WeBanks three main businesses, Direct banking, API Banking, and Mass Banking. He then gave us a quick introduction into the ABCD strategy and how their Chat Box can handle about 98% of the inbound inquiries. Lastly, Tyler wrapped up by presenting the Pursuit of Technological Enhancements and their drive for strong results. 

Subsequently, our Moderator Jonas Thürig, Head of F10, FinTech Incubator & Accelerator (Singapore) took over and led us in an interesting and informative panel discussion with Prof. Dr. Peter Schwendner at ZHAW School of Management and Law, Prof. Michael Sung at Fudan University and Marius Virmond, Director of Financial Services at Deloitte Digital as panelists. Followed by a lively Q&A session where a dozen questions were posed to the panelists. 

The panel discussion started with the question whether traditional banks have to fear a high-speed growth of Neobanks and therefore can expect that traditional banks will get leapfrogged.

According to Marius Virmond and Peter Schwendner, the digital banking market in Switzerland is relatively small and Swiss consumers are in general reluctant in switching to digital solutions. They both think that traditional banks in Switzerland do not have to fear Neobanks in the close future. However, in certain areas, Neobanks might be a threat as Swiss consumers won’t likely change their prime bank account, but might create an additional bank account with the advantages of additional convenience and costs saving. Michael Sung on the other side, referred to the fast changes in China and sees potential in hybrid solutions with open banking, where traditional banks adapt radically, go through changes and become nimble with Fintech.

Jonas then led the focus on the challenges of Neobanks such as sustainable customer acquisitions. Some key points were discussed such as generation of revenues per customer and  the reliability and ability to compensate when operational risks appear.

The main expectations for Neobanks in the future are seen in gaining people's trust in general, managing customer data smartly, offering investment products, and making use of big data. Neobanks could create higher margins. Lastly, the biggest opportunity of Neobanks is seen in digital assets and to be NEO. 

Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to our speaker Tyler Aveni, our panelists Marius Virmond, Professor Peter Schwendner, Professor Michael Sung and our moderator Jonas Thürig for their excellent presentation, the masterful moderation and the great panel discussion. Last but not least, we would like to express our appreciation to our viewers for having participated in the event and for all the interesting questions during the Q&A session!

We trust that everyone has acquired informative insights on the topic. Due to time constraints, we could only present a limited number of questions. If you have further questions for our speakers, please email us at innovation@swissnexchina.org. We will try our best to forward them to the speakers.  

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Since 2017, the 'Future of Money' Fintech series by swissnex China connected over thousand top academics, startups, thought leaders, regulators & executives from Switzerland & China. This edition was in partnership with Presence Switzerland and in association with SwissCham China Digitalization Committee.

Swiss Fintech will be back in China later this year with Venture Leaders Fintech 2020, co-organized by Venturelab and swissnex China! Stay tuned!

We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events!

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The Shenzhen Way of Open Innovation

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator Innovation & Entrepreneurship

On May 7, 2020, we hosted our webinar titled The Shenzhen Way of Open Innovation. We trust that everyone has acquired informative insights on the topic. Due to time constraints, we could only present a limited number of questions. If you have further questions for our speakers, please email us at innovation@swissnexchina.org. We will try our best to forward them to the speakers.

We would like to express our appreciation to our speaker Eric Pan, Founder of Seeed Studio and Chaihuo makerspace and moderator Raffael Tschui, Partner at Octanis Instruments and Engineering coach of the China Hardware Innovation Camp (CHIC), for sharing your insights, as well as our audiences for your great engagement.

The webinar recording is available to view and download here.

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Shenzhen is a major technology hub that produces the most hardware and electronic devices in the world. With R&D budgets going up across several industries, hardware suppliers seek to climb up the value chain with more sophisticated, higher-end products. This has gradually changed the partnership model.

In Shenzhen, as an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the biggest and most innovative hardware hub in the world. With the unique ecosystem rapidly evolving, startups need a flexible mindset and be prepared to redefine their relationship with the suppliers. 

How should entrepreneurs be prepared for a win-win partnership? What is Shenzhen's way of open innovation? With these questions, we are honored to have our distinguished guests with us, to share their views.

Our moderator Raffael Tschui, Partner at Octanis Instruments and Engineering coach of the China Hardware Innovation Camp (CHIC) is an electronics engineer based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Six years ago, Raffael had his first experience building hardware with CHIC program. He was able to build everything from scratch. For Raffael, Shenzhen is like a gigantic makerspace. Any imaginable subcomponent of your product will be available somewhere, as well as the capacity to produce it in millions. But the “factory of the world” is much more than that. It is also home to some of the most innovative technology companies such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Tencent and more.

Our speaker, Eric Pan, Founder of Seeed Studio and Chaihuo makerspace, is a producer of Maker Faire Shenzhen. He endeavors to integrate the latest AI/IoT technology and supply chain resources to create an open platform for global developers. Since 2008, Seeed has been empowering millions of developers in over 200 countries to turn ideas into prototypes and solutions.

Here are some key takeaways that we would like to share with you.

• Seeed studio has created Shenzhen map for foreign companies to easily find a hardware maker. Eric particularly mentioned Huaqiangbei, where you can almost find all your hardware components in order to build up your prototype in an easy and fast way. This map will help foreign companies to navigate the hardware manufactures.

• Major obstacles for foreign companies when they come to Shenzhen for manufacturing

1. Lack of understanding: the hardware producers don’t understand clients’ demand, while the clients are not sure if the hardware producer is trustworthy. 

2. Differences between software and hardware production: hardware needs a bigger team

3. Culture impact beyond languages

4. Missing knowhow during the prototype process can lead failures

• The hardware itself has no value, hardware should meet the market’s demand. And the market also needs time to mature. Team diversity is important for setting up manufacturing, but the management of a diversified team can also be challenging.

• For IoT startups, the real value is the upstream tech and applications they can bring to market, instead of just the hardware itself. 

• Eric suggests, startups should not design for the purpose of manufacturing but to work with the ecosystem to improve the design.

• Design for manufacturability (sometimes also known as design for manufacturing or DFM) is the general engineering practice of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture. The concept exists in almost all engineering disciplines, but the implementation differs widely depending on the manufacturing technology. DFM describes the process of designing or engineering a product to facilitate the manufacturing process to reduce its manufacturing costs. 

• Eric also laid out the manufacturing process & quality control process.

In the Q&A Session，there were also inspiring discussions between Eric and the audiences. 

Q: How to start a POC (Proof of Concept) or prototype?

Eric: Professional engineers start from the components, which is very challenging.  The recommended way is to start by using a solution, and to change the solution for your purpose, for example reuse or mix the solutions by leveraging existing resources.

Q: How do you find a good supplier?

Eric:  Keep trying. In the first 3 months when I just moved to Shenzhen, I went to Huaqiangbei every day to try to understand the hardware ecosystem, the supplier, and the market.

Raffael: It is very easy to get to know the sales channels, support contacts when you just simply go to Shenzhen, Huaqiangbei in person.

Q: What is the most common issue that causes failure for suppliers and startups?

Eric: Mutual respect from suppliers and yourself and respect the cultural difference. People need to adjust themselves to adapt to cooperation.

The Future of Meat

By Tobias Bolli, Junior Project Manager Academic Relations

Let’s be honest, many of us have a hard time resisting meat. In Switzerland an average person eats around 52 kg of meat per year, not including fish. In China per capita meat consumption hovers around 50 kg per year as well, a tenfold increase compared to 1960. None of these countries come close to the US, however, where the average annual meat consumption amounts to 100 kg - or roughly double that of a Swiss or Chinese person. 

Unfortunately, meat production comes with serious drawbacks, among them excessive land use (around a third of the planet´s ice-free surface), water waste as well as contribution to climate change (as much as the global transport system). In our webinar on “The Future of Meat: Meat Alternatives on the Rise” we put the spotlight on more sustainable options: plant-based meat and meat grown from stem cells. Both are predicted to have a bright future ahead of them. AT Kearny projects meat alternatives to overtake traditional meat in 2040. According to the survey (which is based on interviews with industry experts), plant-based meat will occupy 25% of the total market share with cell-based meat seizing a stunning 35%.

Our first speaker Pascal Bieri co-founded Planted Foods, an ETH spin-off dedicated to making “meat” entirely from plants. Opting for imitating chicken rather than beef, Planted chose a different route compared to most competitors. Since chicken are among the most used animals in meat production, Pascal hopes to make a big impact in terms of animal welfare. Another goal is to curb antibiotic-resistant pathogens which tend to proliferate in chicken farms. Pascal stressed the need for Planted´s products to have as many natural ingredients as possible. He contrasted that approach to some of his competitors which resort to artificial coloring to make their products resemble real meat. The same effect, Pascal insisted, can be achieved by using superior raw materials and processing. 

A slide out of Pascal’s presentation illustrating Planted’s processes.

Planted Foods, which began research in 2017 and launched its first product in late spring of 2019, has already achieved remarkable success. They started out by making a decision to exclusively cater towards a few select restaurants. Listening to the feedback they were receiving, Planted refined the mouth-feel, taste and color of their product. Fast forward to today: not only does Planted cater to about 150 restaurants (which, after a corona-hiatus, opened their doors again last Monday), but their “chicken” products can also be bought in more than 550 Coop shops, Coop being the biggest retailer in Switzerland. To top things off, Planted now has a webshop where customers can order products directly online.   

During the Q&A session Pascal underscored how important it is to offer a high-quality product to customers. Having tried out subpar meat alternatives, people tend to lose hope in the product category and go back to regular meat consumption. To ensure high standards, Planted draws on a large “library” of plant-protein raw materials, cherry-picking the ones with the best properties. They then use structuring tools to process the proteins and apply post-processing to highlight the fibers in the product. Asked about the future of the industry, Pascal opined that there is still significant growth potential in the plant-based meat market. He went on to reveal that Planted has recently founded a European daughter company to eventually expand across Europe. First they want to establish themselves in Switzerland however, and build a strong base in their home market. Naturally, the all-important question of price came up as well: Planted chicken are priced just below organic chicken for customers buying them at Coop.

From top left to bottom center: Carrie Chan from Avant Meats, Tobias Bolli from swissnex China and Pascal Bieri from Planted Foods.

Carrie, who is the business executive and co-founder at Avant Meats, started her presentation by highlighting the energy inefficiency of traditional animal farming. According to her, an input of 100 energy units only leads to an output of between 9 units (in the case of beef) and 12 units (in the case of fish). After all, animals use a lot of energy just to keep their metabolism going, they aren’t designed for the purpose of giving us food. Moreover, not all animal parts can be used in food production, which leads to a considerable waste of resources. Carrie explained that it is the mission of her company to get rid of the animal as an intermediary and grow meat right away (or fish in her case). 

In order to achieve that goal Avant Meats removes a small sample of stem cells from a fish, selects a cell line with a high degree of self-replication and then stimulates growth by putting it in a nutrient-rich environment. In essence, Avant Meats is applying the principle pioneered by the Dutch pharmacologist Mark Post, who showcased a proof of concept hamburger in 2013 (which cost around a quarter of a million dollars back then). Carrie mentioned that the medium used to stimulate cell-growth is not yet animal component free and very costly on top of it. Thus Avant Meat is working hard to find a more affordable and animal-free alternative.

Some people might consider cell-based meat to be “unnatural”, a product coming right out of the lab and thus hard to trust and even kind of scary. To counter that perception, Carrie stressed that the process leading to cell-based meat is not entirely new. Natural yoghurt is produced in a similar manner with a mix of denatured milk proteins and bacterial culture undergoing fermentation – a process not unlike stem cell-growth in a bioreactor. Carrie also mentioned beer which gets produced by a similar bio process and is - nevertheless - perceived as a completely natural product by most people.  

A diagram from Carrie’s presentation highlighting the prominent role of China in global seafood consumption.

While still being at the very early stages, Avant Meats already managed to create a fish maw prototype which was presented to the public in October 2019. Fish maw was relatively straightforward to produce since it features a simple texture with only one cell type. Next in the pipeline is a filet prototype which should see the light of day by the end of this year. Going for fish is perhaps unexpected but very understandable considering fish consumption in China and in Hong Kong (where Avant Meats is headquartered). As Carrie pointed out, a third of all fish products are consumed in China, with Chinese people eating more than twice as much fish per annum and capita than the worlds’s average. In other words, Avant Meats is tapping into a huge market and has the potential to really move the needle when it comes to more sustainable fish alternatives. 

Towards the end our speakers discussed whether plant- and cell-based meat can peacefully coexist or whether there will be competition between the two products. While both agreed that there might indeed be some competition, Carrie commented that we don´t live in a binary world and that there will be enough demand to support both plant- and cell-based meat. Pascal even mentioned the possibility of some collaboration in the future. Asked about the consumer acceptance of her novel product, Carrie pointed to a study which examined the acceptance of meat alternatives in the world’s three biggest countries: China, India and the US. The study concluded that more than half of potential Chinese customers are willing to spend their own money on cell-based meat, which makes for a huge potential customer base (the numbers are similarly encouraging for plant-based meat). Carrie explained these findings by the many safety concerns Chinese people might associate with meat consumption – concerns which lead some of them to look for alternatives. 

To conclude, we want to thank our two speakers Carrie Chan and Pascal Bieri who revealed some fascinating details about the inner-workings of their companies and about the meat alternative industry in general. Last but not least, we want to thank our audience who asked an impressive 35 questions during the webinar!

Please find a link to the slides and webinar recording below:

• Recording: view and download here.

• Slides: download here.

Teamwork makes the dream work - how to adjust it during COVID-19

By Tobias Bolli, Junior Project Manager Academic Relations

With people around the globe still being subjected to movement restrictions, communication has changed dramatically. People were thrust into virtual worlds, with face-to-face interactions becoming something of a luxury. The challenges that come with lacking full-bandwidth interaction are numerous and have huge implications for the workplace. 

This webinar – organized in collaboration with GloCoach – addressed some of these challenges. Our speakers didn’t shy away from giving practical tips on how to keep employees engaged, motivated and productive. Dr. Sarah Genner, digital expert and lecturer, started her presentation by talking about the now ubiquitous video conferencing tool Zoom and the “Zoom fatigue” that comes with it. She offered several explanations for the fact that people seem to get tired and distracted quicker while using Zoom. For starters, eye contact is never quite straight making looking at people rather tiring; moreover, with the video camera only capturing a fraction of one’s room, there is a considerable temptation to multitask (after all the children might be playing in the other room and darting a glance or two at the smartphone is just too easy); lastly, working on a couch or on the bed, people might have poor posture leading to a quick depletion of their energy. Thus one simple but effective tip: Improve your posture. To that end, companies might consider spending money on high-quality chairs for their employees. 

Importantly, Dr. Genner pointed out that digital skills are not merely digital. They go beyond knowing how to start a Zoom call, or sharing files on Google Docs, they are also about empathy. It all starts with empathy towards oneself. Big changes follow a predictable curve of shock and frustration, until one is ready to experiment with what is new and can finally accept and integrate those changes. As Dr. Genner put it, it is okay to not be okay. Digital skills are also about feeling empathy towards others, knowing that they might be on the bottom of the learning curve and need some time to adapt. To help facilitate empathy, it is essential to make time for informal talks with colleagues and find a replacement for what is no longer possible, e.g. the small-talk at the water cooler. 

Accepting change is an often arduous process that can be helped along with empathy.

Another focus of Dr. Genner´s talk was the importance of practicing gratitude in spite of the current pandemic situation. Thus, we should focus on what we have, not on what we don´t have or are in danger of losing. For instance, many people might still have a job, despite having to stay at home and not being able to get a proper haircut anymore. Even given greater challenges such as a job loss, one could still be thankful for having a place to shelter. Since adults are experts at taking things for granted, being grateful doesn´t come easy. Hence Dr. Genner recommends to exercise this ability on a regular basis. This could take the form of writing down three things one is grateful for each day, e.g. by using this free app. For a more in-depth account of the topic, she recommends the TED talk “Want to be happy? Be grateful” by the Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. 

Our second speaker, Chris Zheng Vice president at Eddingpharm, outlined three challenges and touched on strategies to address them. The first challenge is about managing oneself while working from home. Naturally, there are many potential sources of distraction at home, the family being chief among them. Chris recommends coordinating activities with other family members so that they don’t overlap. For instance, his wife does meetings and calls while he works on emails and documents. Chris also fixed specific time windows each day to interact with the children so as to clearly distinguishing between work time and free time. In the same vein, he has dedicated a room to assume the role of a traditional office, thus making not only a temporal but also a spatial distinction between work and other activities. Once the door is closed, entry by other family members is forbidden (except, of course, in special cases). 

A slide from Chris’ presentation: Having to deal with family matters on top of work makes for quite a challenge.

Moreover, Chris noticed that he isn’t the only person having to reconcile family with work. His team members – Chris is managing 260 people in five locations and three countries – are bound to run into similar problems. He realized that only talking about work-related issues isn’t enough and that he has to address personal issues with his team as well. For this reason, there are weekly calls enquiring about the well-being and family condition of each team member. Chris puts a premium on listening and finding a solution for each individual concern. He mentioned a team member having trouble to join meetings, since this person had to look after his newborn at the same time. As a consequence, the timing for future meetings was adjusted. 

Thirdly, Chris talked about how to best use the digital communication channels available. Not being able to have face-to-face meetings, the frequency of meetings via phone naturally increased – but couldn’t replace in-person interactions. Audio calls were plagued with unstable connections and people not being able to concentrate. Chris concluded that breaks during calls are necessary, since people tend to lose focus when communicating digitally. To increase the bandwidth of interactions, he decided to switch to video calls and allow people to not only hear each other but also pick up on body language and facial cues. Lastly, Chris decided to reduce the number of participants during meetings to facilitate more effective communication. 

Our panelists engaged in a lively discussion with the audience making this webinar a very interactive experience.

The panel discussion was moderated by André Gisiger, Chief Client Officer at GloCoach, and addressed questions by the audience. Asked which factors contribute most to successful virtual teamwork, Sarah stressed the need for predictable time off, knowing that one won’t be bothered by work-related messages after 7 o’clock for instance. Addressing another question, she warned against putting pressure on companies to reimagine themselves during this situation. After all, she pointed out, many are struggling to just survive. A big part of the discussion centered around cultural differences having to do with drawing boundaries between work and other activities. 

The panelists agreed that there are tremendous differences between countries, especially when comparing Switzerland to China – Switzerland being more accepting of clear-cut boundaries between work and non-work – with the US sitting being somewhere in between. Thus, colleagues are more likely to also be friends in the US, whereas in Switzerland this isn’t necessarily the case. Moreover, in the US – and even more so in China – it isn’t quite clear when work stops and leisure starts, with people expecting email replies even after official work hours. 

Chris Zheng told the audience about Chinese managers demanding immediate replies, no matter whether their WeChat messages are received at 6 pm, 8 pm, or even 11 pm. To make things more manageable, he arrived at an agreement with his boss that messages after 10 pm will be answered only the next day. Sarah remarked that what might sound crazy in Switzerland – answering emails at 10 pm – has much to do with cultural expectations. According to her, culture is the software of the mind, and determines what is perceived as normal and what isn’t.  

We want to extend a warm thank you to our two amazing speakers, Sarah and Chris, as well as to André, who excelled in making this webinar a highly interactive experience. Last but not least, we want to thank our audience for their participation and thought-provoking questions. 

The webinar recording and slides are available to download below:

• Recording: view and download here.

• Slides: download here.

Nan Chen and Libing Gu from swissnex working hard behind the scenes…

The Rise Of China's Silicon Valley

By Nan Chen, Junior Project Manager - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Within 40 years, Shenzhen has grown from a little fishing village to a megacity of around 13 million residents and along the way it has also become the manufacturing hub of the global tech industry. If Silicon Valley is the world’s software capital, then Shenzhen is the home of hardware, with the world’s most well-developed hardware industry supply chains as well as ample intellectual capital. Shenzhen has deep ambitions to become a world leader in technology innovation with investment of 4% of GDP in R&D. Situated in the country’s most open and economically vibrant region, Shenzhen is home to some of the biggest tech companies in the world, as well as an emerging innovation hub for international startups. 

Swiss startups, academic and R&D institutions increasingly wish to set foot in Shenzhen. Therefore, on April 23, we presented our second Innosuisse China Camp webinar to our Swiss stakeholders, to have an overview on how to tap into this innovation epicenter and gain access to the latest technologies developed in Shenzhen. We were joined by 104 live participants (incl. 23 Swiss startups).

Before the presentation of the two speakers, our moderator Prof. Markus Prandini, Visiting Professor at Shenzhen Technology University, gave us a brief introduction on Shenzhen and its ecosystem. He presented three questions which were later covered during the webinar:

1. What are the characteristics of the business and innovation ecosystem of Shenzhen?

2. How can a Swiss or foreign startup increase its competitive advantage by leveraging the innovation ecosystem of Shenzhen?

3. What can we expect from Shenzhen or China in the next two to three years?

The first presenter, Jan Smejkal, a.k.a. YourChinaGuy, founder of YCG&Co, is an active startup advisor and public speaker. He managed to scale Startup Grind (the world’s largest startup community) to 100+ cities in Asia (including 25+ cities in China) as the director of the company in the region. He created The Dinner hosting exclusive networking events in China and around the globe. As an expert in helping businesses to accelerate their activities in China, Jan shared his personal experience about how to build business in China as a foreigner and how to explore different opportunities in Shenzhen. 

He illustrated Shenzhen as:  

• A hotspot, not only for innovation or manufacturing, but also for connectivity in the region (Greater Bay Area).  

• A strategic place to bootstrap your startup.

• An innovation hub with strong support of the government to push their innovation.

Our second speaker, Ji Ke, Partner & Program Director at HAX, is responsible for driving the content and delivery of the HAX Seed accelerator program in Shenzhen. He is a mechanical engineer by training and is skilled in designing complex mechanisms for a wide range of industries. Ji is deeply connected to the innovation ecosystem of Shenzhen and this provides the frame for his presentation on the topic of “leverage the hardware ecosystem to boost up your startup speed”. He started by introducing HAX and why - as a foreign company - they choose Shenzhen to set up an office to help foreign startups to flourish.

He mentioned that for a hardware startup, it’s imperative to create as many iterations as possible and as short time as possible. The maturity of a startup is defined by the number of iterations, not by how long a startup has been in existence - and Shenzhen is the best place to do that.

HAX is more of a Venture Capital than an accelerator. They fund and support physical and digital early-stage startups. Those startups are co-located across their three global locations (San Francisco, Shenzhen and Tokyo) and access to premier ecosystems. Shenzhen has been identified as the world’s best physical ecosystem for sourcing, prototyping, engineering, industrial design and manufacturing. Startups work with HAX for 9 months across three phases (pre-product market fit, technology development, ramp & fundraising) aimed at a fundraising round. Every year they have more than 1500 startups applying for their program and they invest in 40 of them every year.

Ji Ke went through several points it takes to run a successful startup:

1. To be clever

2. Preservation

3. Domain Expertise

4. Network expanding

The last point Ji highlighted was that, Shenzhen is essentially an access to the world’s best technology, investors, partners and experts for HAX.

During the Q&A session, more than 20 engaging questions were posed by the live audience, on topics such as how to approach Chinese VCs and accelerators, IP, fundraising and more.

Finally, we would like to thank Jan Smejkal and Ji Ke for their excellent presentations and Prof. Markus Prandini for his masterful moderation of the event. Last but not least, we would like to express our appreciation to our viewers for having participated in the event and for all the interesting questions during the Q&A session!  

We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events!

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Smart and Sustainable Ways to Reduce Future Waste

By Suyao Ao, PR & Communications Coordinator

On April 22, 2020, we were joined by 158 live attendees to learn about how startups from China, South Korea and Switzerland are pioneering in turning today’s plastic waste and organic waste into a resource for tomorrow, contributing to the creation of a circular economy. We were pleased to have experts in their fields: Samantha Anderson, Founder & CEO at DePoly; Yuanbin Bai, Vice President at Bluepha; Sunyoung Lee, Founder & CEO at PureSpaces; Naomi MacKenzie, Co-founder at KITRO. During the Q&A session after the presentations, we received 38 questions centering around impact on environment, mask recycling, negative oil price, speed of biodegrading, target types of food, competitors, public awareness and much more.

Gallery view of the speakers

This is the first joint webinar within the swissnex Network between China, South Korea and Switzerland. The webinar is co-organized by swissnex China and the Science & Technology Office Seoul in collaboration with swissnex Network, Embassy of Switzerland in Republic of Korea, and EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne).

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Here are some key takeaways we would like to share with you from each speaker:

“A Sustainable Circular Economy for PET Plastic” by Samantha Anderson, Founder & CEO at DePoly

It is believed that most PET is recycled. In reality, only 9% of the PET plastic we produce is recycled and much of the PET plastic ends up in the oceans or landfills. The current recycling system is a costly linear economy, which includes collection, size sorting, manual sorting, float sorting, grinding, washing, drying, melting, screening, filtering, pellesting. With this system, PET can only be recycled a couple of times, and it requires manual sorting and is energy intensive. Moreover, not all feedstock can be recycled. It can only recyle clean plastic bottles, but not mixed plastics such as shoes, fibres and fabrics etc.

However, chemical recycling fits into the circular economy very well. Among the major methods of chemical recycling, DePoly uses Hydrolysis which extracts terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol (EG), which are main components of PET plastic. It operates at standard temperature and pressure, uses sustainable chemicals, lowers the energy bill by 66%, reduces CO2, and can process all PET waste (dirty, mixed plastics, fabrics, etc.).

DePoly can buy PET at higher market price from waste management organizations, or fabric companies etc., and sell TPA and EG to the industry, such as companies that make PET or suppliers of TPA and EG to chemical labs. With this technology, DePoly can contribute to tackling the economical and social challenges faced by their suppliers and customers.

Currently, DePoly is operating in the Swiss market for demonstration and entry of market, and it plans to expand to other markets, especially the Asian market which dominates both the PET plastic and TPA market.

“Biodegradable Polymer as a Solution to Plastic Waste Issues” by Yuanbin Bai, Vice President, Bluepha

In order tackle the issue of plastics waste, BluePha offers another alternative called PHA, a material with a long history in nature with plastics-like property.

PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates) is a kind of Polyester from nature by microorganisms, which is is produced with Glucose or Lipids as the feedstock. It is bio-based and biodegradable, and includes various types such as PHB / PHBV / PHBH / P34HB. The first example of PHA to be isolated and characterized was PHB in the year 1926 by Maurice Lemoigne.

By comparing the processes of the conventional plastics and PHA, we can see that the entire lifecycle of PHA is a green cycle. The major steps of PHA manufacturing consist of processing bio-based raw material, fermentation, extraction, purification and products made with PHA are naturally degradable in soil or water when discarded, turning into nutrition for microorganisms.

PHA can partly substitue any of the conventional fossile-based plastics. The typical applications of PHA includes injection molding, extrusion, thermoforming, non-woven fabrics, fibres, 3D printing, paper, fertilizer coating, glues, adhesive and etc.

With 161 million plastics produced in packaging and 65 million in textiles in 2015, if only 1% of the plastics in packaging and textile would be replaced by PHA, its market size could approximately reach €10 billion.

“Decomposing ethylene and microorganisms to reduce food waste” by Sunyoung Lee, Founder & CEO, PureSpace

According to predication by the United Nations, 60% more food will be needed until 2050, to meet the demand of 10.5 billion population. 1/3 of post harvest food are lost along the entire supply chain, among which fruit & vegetables food losses of 45% are the most significant.

Major causes of freshness reduction is due to respiratory activity, ethylene, and mold. Respiratory activity is typically reduced through cold chain. But not much is done to ethylene and mold.

What PureSpace does is to effectively decompose ethylene and microorganisms to extend shelf life and reduce food waste. According to control experiments, we can see that by reducing ethylene from 109ppb to 13ppb, the food loss rate can be reduced from 30% to 10%.

With PureSpace products, it’s possible to significantly reduce ethylene from the air where fruits and vegetables are stored. It’s safe on consumers as it does not treat any coatings directly on food. PureSpace products can be place in cold storages, warehouses, packing houses, retail storages, and reefer trucks etc.

“The benefits of measuring and monitoring your resources” by Naomi MacKenzie, Co-founder, KITRO

Trational ways of monitoring food waste always requires manual entry, which incurs high costs, time investment, and lacks overview. As a result, the problem of food waste is mostly ignored. However, in order to set goals for reducing environmental impact, it is very important to continuously measure and be aware of the quantity of waste we’re producing.

What KITRO offers is the first fully automated food waste solution with an IoT device and camera over the trash can. The device can give a complete overview on the weight, cost, ingredients and sources of food waste, which can help the management of commercial kitchen make data-driven decisions to optimize workflow, save cost, and reduce evniromental impact. In the meantime, operational changes to reduce food waste also requires an increased awareness among the consumers.

In the end, we would like to express our special appreciation to our speakers for their presentation and interesting discussions during the Q&A session. We would also like to thank Science & Technology Office Seoul for the collaboration. 

For details of our previous and upcoming webinars, please click here. We look forward to seeing you again! If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at info@swissnexchina.org.

You can find below links to the webinar recordings:

Post Pandemic VC Landscape in China

By Duy Nguyen, Junior Project Manager Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Venture capitalists in China are operating under a climate of increasing uncertainty, while startups have taken hits and are being scrutinized more rigorously than in the past. Significantly impacted by a series of factors such as the trade tension between China and the US and the slow-down of the Chinese economic growth rate, Chinese VCs are undergoing a shuffle and are changing their game. In the meantime, as China marches towards technological advancement, the dynamics of China's innovation landscape are changing as well. Furthermore, as with the situation all over the world, the unexpected outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus has shifted the established order of things, and startups are forced to look further afield for investment.

In this webinar, swissnex China has invited speakers with investment and accelerator management backgrounds to share tips on how Swiss startups should present themselves in meetings with Chinese investors.

Before the presentations from our three speakers, our moderator Jordi Montserrat, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Venturelab, reminded the audience about how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting Europe and that we are all looking at the same challenge: in particular, how startups have been affected, and how the investment landscape will evolve. He pointed out that relationships built over the past years between Switzerland and China, and opportunities for Swiss startups still remain despite the current evolving situation. Support from Swiss startup programs ranging from financing to international roadshows including training, supports and global scaling, has culminated in many success stories of Swiss startups funded by Chinese investors in the past, and this will continue in the future.

Hao Tang, Deputy General Manager of TusPark Jiangsu Development Co., Ltd. and the General Manager of TusPark Innovation Research Institute, presented an overview of support platforms and development ecosystem for startups in China.

He suggested that, before entering China, international startups face some challenges which can compromise their transition to a new market if they do not pay attention to some particular Chinese characteristics. Hao Tang gave us some prerequisites such as business knowledge, customer needs or law/regulation that have to be acknowledged beforehand. In addition, Chinese VCs expect the operations of the invested startup to take place in China. As a consequence, most of the foreign entities failed to achieve any fundraising due to the fact that they remain established abroad outside of China. In order to gain a foothold in China, it seems inevitable to dig into the Chinese landscape by adopting local business partners, using local customers' insights and adapting to the local market. To do so, he suggested leveraging the network of established local incubators and science parks which will benefit the startups to gain access to local companies, capital, and government’s incentives…

A personal and precious comment from his side was to not neglect the smaller towns (Tier 2 and Tier 3) where there is usually better policies in place for new startups when considering the place to start your business as there is less competition compared to the big cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen or Beijing.

David Chang, Vice President of Shanghai Blockchain Association and CEO of Blocknology Digital Ventures, talked about the funding landscape for international startups.

Structured in three parts: the BAD, the GOOD and the GREAT, David mentioned that along with national priority, VCs are currently focusing on the digital economy, digital supply-chain and digital transformation. Both the healthcare and sustainable development industries are raising their importance due to the global pandemic, but are also encouraged by the Chinese government who attaches more focus and funding. There is a pivot of focus that can open some opportunities for startups from Switzerland, the leader in these two areas. Indeed, as David claimed, the China economy is currently accelerating.

However, in order to capture these opportunities, while private investors are now working closely with government programs, flexibility is the key in the form of a mixed pie of private and public funding. Moreover, another constraint is that investors in China will give priority to the domestic, consumers, and enterprise markets. Contrasting with the past, establishing and presenting a good market strategy in China to investors is a must to raise any funds in China. Last but not least, David Chang underlined the importance of exit strategies for investors. As China landscape presents two different ecosystems: from one side the private tech unicorns, and on the other side the larger tech SoE ecosystem, international startups need to define their position before stepping into the China market with a clear M&A strategy in order to be potentially acquired.

Looking back at China, the pandemic situation exposed some vulnerabilities in terms of digital infrastructures as the Chinese government is trying to rebuild the entire system. As a consequence, the local government is looking for local solutions which serve as an open call for global startups specialized in the domain of digital infrastructure.

Presentation slides of David Chang

Finally, the last speaker, Dr. Rajwinder Lehal, Chief Scientific Officer at Cellestia Biotech AG, shared his success story as a Swiss startup entrepreneur having raised about CHF 50 M from Asian and Chinese investors.

Firstly, he presented some numbers to introduce the background and the role of China in the area of Biotech. There is no doubt from his presentation that the healthcare industry is booming in China, a country with huge medical needs and a huge need for innovative drugs. Hence, Dr. Lehal gave advice to Swiss startups by recommending some strategic considerations. The main question remains for the startups to define their needs: access to the Chinese market or access to the Chinese capital? As China is becoming more and more integrated into global development for biopharmaceutical companies, Chinese market cannot simply be ignored. For instance, a soaring number of Chinese companies came to Basel Switzerland over the last two years looking for out-licensing opportunities.

Dr. Lehal also warned about the risk of joint ventures for the reasons of cultural or administrative differences. Furthermore, when considering raising funds from Chinese VC, it is important to raise the question of whether the Chinese VC possesses RMB funds only, or opts for a global focus with USD and EUR.

Last point, Dr. Lehal highlighted the difference in strategy of Chinese VC fund compared to a typical European fund or US-based fund. In fact, many Chinese VCs have a portfolio of companies. Therefore, there is a tendency for them to build synergies between portfolio companies by trying to out-license the product with one of the local companies. Regarding this strategy, he advised from his perspective that the equity investment should be kept separately from any joint-venture made on the road, as there is a lot of uncertainty over time.

During the Q&A session, when asked about the impacts of the current COVID-19 situation, all our speakers agreed on the fact that startups are currently suffering a lot from the loss of partners and postponement of contracts. From an investor's point of view, investments are conducted more cautiously with slower due diligence before any decision-making, while the terms for investment will be longer. But the Chinese government is providing immense support to incubators to deal with the current situation.

Another comment on the necessity of starting a joint-venture, Dr. Rajwinder Lehal insisted on the fact that it is not the perfect structure for his startup as it requires a share of resources and financial commitment which for a startup, cannot be affordable. On the other side, investors are always welcoming towards startups which can potentially be acquired by the tech ecosystem. This strategy benefits the startup by providing them with funding and market entry in exchange for a share of the technology and know-how.

Finally, regarding the best time to create IP in China, Hao Tang provided precious insights: It always depends on the industry or the current level of competition in the market. Are you competing with the speed or not?  There are advantages of being the first entrants with a disruptive technology or new products such as in the healthcare industry. Otherwise, IP is a requirement if there is an intention of establishing a Chinese entity. But this option presents a huge cost for startups, which can be reduced with the support from the Chinese government pushing to find new IPs.

We would like to thank Hao Tang, David Chang and Dr. Rajwinder Lehal for their excellent presentations and Jordi Montserrat for his masterful moderation of the event. Last but not least, we would like to express our appreciation to our viewers for having participated in the event and for all the interesting questions during the Q&A session!  

How to Succeed in China by Lucas Rondez

By Nicole Jucker and Florian Moeri, Junior Project Managers

On March 31, the fifth Fireside Chat took place. “Build an Empowering Business Ecosystem” was the first webinar version of our event series, co-organized with SwissCham. Lucas Rondez, the founder and CEO of nihub Innovation Center & Startup Accelerator & Incubator, shared his experience and knowledge about the Chinese market and outlined his understanding of an open ecosystem in a fast-growing environment.

Lucas Rondez (l.), founder & CEO of nihub, and Dr. Felix Moesner (r.), Science Consul & CEO of swissnex China.

Lucas started off with the remark that he wants to tell his story not only to be listened to, but also to provide a vision and motivation for like-minded people. He opened his presentation with a short introduction about his company, nihub, and their working processes. Being a business ecosystem itself, nihub wants to share the gained knowledge and resources with others. With a mix of investment and mentoring, they want to provide the support that their CEO, Lucas, did not have when he started his first company, Nihao. In 2015, the Swiss national achieved his dream of becoming an entrepreneur by creating this all-English app to provide life services to China’s expatriate community. He used the same experience to explain the danger of growing too fast: If you don't have a precise revenue model, it becomes difficult – even though you have the best product on the market.

Afterwards, Lucas took us on a time travel into his past: growing up in the canton of Jura, he began an apprenticeship at UBS at the age of 16. There, he was able to acquire a strong basic foundation, for which he is still grateful today. In addition, the education of his parents, who supported him in everything he liked to do and always motivated him to strive for more, has had a great influence on him. He understood that no matter what you want to achieve, you have to put up with sweating and work hard for it. Lucas still goes by the motto "Challenge yourself", which was also the title of one of his slides.

Following a successful startup launch, an expansion to 30 employees, a dismissal of 25 of them and the start of nihub later, Lucas developed further guiding principles:

• Perseverance is the key to success

• Important is not the financial but the backpack (the experience)

• Grow together

• Get connected: Stop being a listener – become a speaker. Learn and get important (Let people come and connect to you)

• Ask yourself “Where are the problems?” and then “What is the solution?”

• Things we may learn during the COVID-19 pandemic: There is a lack of information and a non-use of technology that already exists. People should work as a community not as individuals.

• Learn & Love Chinese

• Do not waste time to complain. But: Spend time with people who are complaining

• Innovate or work with innovators

• Take care of your health – eat and drink good things

• Work with a lawyer from day -1

• Play golf or tennis and use your credit card (invest in networking)

• Be patriotic: Let’s be a community

• Give and not only take. Give your time, your money or your knowledge, if you can. The most amazing thing you can get back is trust.

A recurring element in Lucas' presentation was the changing dynamics in his development. He is convinced: you have to like the “roller coaster of life” to be an entrepreneur. This basic understanding was packed into the following slide:

Lucas salary and asset development compared with the salary and asset development of his father.

(Lucas introduced the slide with the comment that he chose his father for comparison because he is the motivation in his daily work. Having benefited from a great support in his childhood, he now likes to give back.)

After a short Q&A session, Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO of swissnex China, rounded off the webinar with a closing word. He stated that Lucas Rondez is a perfect reflection of the Swiss dual education system: "There are many opportunities for people to prove themselves at a young age already - if you are willing to accept challenges. And this is how you can make it from an apprentice in Switzerland to a successful, solution-oriented entrepreneur in Hangzhou!”

To end this blogpost, we would like to express our gratitude to Lucas Rondez for sharing his experiences and insights. Many thanks also to SwissCham Shanghai for co-organizing this edition of the Fireside series. 

 We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events!

 Please contact Lucas below if you would like to have access to his resources and work with him:

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Fireside Chat is a format inviting seasoned Swiss speakers to talk and discuss their experiences in China; this presentation series is a collaboration between swissnex China and SwissCham. Please join us for interesting talks, discussions and networking!

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Café des Sciences: 5 pays et une langue (Edition Spéciale Francophonie)

Contribué par Junior Project Managers Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Afin de célébrer le mois de la francophonie, une édition spéciale Café des Sciences a été coorganisée avec d’autres pays et régions francophones le jeudi, 19 mars 2020. Cinq scientifiques et startups de Belgique, du Canada, de France, du Luxembourg et de Suisse ont été invités à présenter leurs projets et partager leur expertise sur l’intelligence artificielle dans la santé, l’environnement des animaux de compagnie, la géographie humaine et la technologie de capture de CO2.

La conférence s’est déroulée sous forme de webinaire dû à la situation actuelle avec le coronavirus. Plus de 150 personnes étaient inscrites.

Notre modérateur Gaétan Messin, attaché scientifique au consulat de France a fait un excellent travail. Selon lui, cet événement scientifique de la Francophonie est unique dans le monde.

A partir du haut vers la droite: Romain Dittgen (Luxembourg), Gaétan Messin (modérateur, France), Charles Bark (France), Prof. Louis Fradette (Canada), Dr. Felix Moesner (Suisse), Matt Morawski (Suisse), Pierre Lebrun (Belgique)

Notre premier intervenant – Pierre Lebrun de Belgique, nous a introduit sa société YiQi Care. YiQi Care développe des applications de haute technologie autour de l’environnement des animaux de compagnie en Chine. La société a pour objectifs, d’informer, d’éduquer et d’améliorer l’environnement de tous les animaux de compagnies en Chine. YiQi aide à la gestion de la communauté de la ville de Shanghai en proposant une boîte de récupération de déchets animaliers avec un conteneur intégré pour animaux de compagnie et un fournisseur automatisé de sacs de ramassage biodégradables verts. Cet équipement moderne a pour but de renforcer le tri des déchets, de réduire le plastique, de sensibiliser et responsabiliser la société et de préserver une activité urbaine saine.

Puis vint le tour du Prof. Louis Fradette de Canada. Il est Chef de département en ingénierie chimique à Polytechnique Montréal. En 2013, Louis Fradette a rejoint CO2 solutions Inc., en tant que directeur de la technologie et premier vice-président des procédés et de l’ingénierie. Lors de la conférence, Professeur Fradette nous a présenté son projet Valorisation Carbone Québec (VCQ), un projet unique de 30M$ visant à la démonstration industrielle de capture et de l’utilisation du CO2 pour la production de produits à valeur ajoutée. Durant la présentation, il nous expliqua la capture et l’utilisation du CO2 et comment VCQ crée différentes opportunités de partenariat.

Notre troisième conférencier est Charles Bark de France. Il est fondateur et CEO de HiNounou Intelligent Robot, une société AI BLOCKCHAIN Predictive Healthcare Data Platform qui aide les seniors à vivre plus longtemps, en meilleure santé et plus heureux à la maison. Avec une population vieillissante, le nombre de seniors en besoin de soins quotidiens et d’assistance augmente à grande vitesse. Pour cela, HiNounou propose un kit de soins à domicile, composé de différents appareils connectés afin d’assurer une surveillance quotidienne de la santé et une identification précoce des risques. La compagnie offre aussi le premier service d’assurance abordable en Chine dédié aux personnes âgées. En raison du coronavirus, HiNounou offre le premier anti-covid aid kit pour éviter la foule à l’hôpital et donner la priorité aux patients qui ont réellement besoin d’un soutien vital naissant.

Romain Dittgen de Luxembourg prit ensuite la parole. Chercheur postdoctoral à Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Romain Dittgen est géographe et s’intéresse aux modalités de changement sociétal dans divers contextes en Afrique subsaharienne. Il nous a présenté un de ses projets, « (Ré)imaginer les espaces chinois en Afrique urbaine ». Il donna l’exemple d’un modèle d’une transplantation d’une nouvelle ville chinoise dans un contexte africain.  

Et pour finir, notre dernier intervenant, Matt Morawski de Suisse, directeur du développement commercial et co-fondateur de Deep Cube SA, spécialisé dans l’IA pour l’outil d’aide au diagnostic des maladies de la peau. Matt nous a présenté Deep Cube et ses technologies IA pour des diagnostics de soins de santé en temps réel dans des domaines comme l’oncologie, la biologie, les neurosciences et l’ophtalmologie. Matt a représenté Deep Cube sur la scène internationale avec succès en remportant 2 prix à Shanghai pour Deep Cube: 1ère place pour la meilleure startup Suisse lors de la Pitching Night au CES Asia 2019 et 2ème place parmi 600 startups du monde entier lors de la Conférence et Compétition Mondiale AI (WAIC) 2019.

A la fin de la présentation, une session questions-réponses était mise en place afin de permettre une interaction entre le public et les intervenants.

Veuillez cliquer ici pour le lien de téléchargement de l'enregistrement du webinaire.

Café des Sciences – Edition spéciale de la Francophonie, était coorganisée par le consulat général de Belgique et la délégation générale Wallonie Bruxelles, le consulat général du Canada, le consulat général de France, le consulat général du Luxembourg et swissnex China. Nous tenons à exprimer nos remerciements et notre appréciation pour leur grand soutient dans la coorganisation de cet événement !  Nous remercions aussi le modérateur et les cinq conférenciers d’avoir partagé leurs expertises de grande valeur.

Innosuisse Startup Roadshow: We stand ready to support you in China

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator Innovation & Entrepreneurship

It has been six years that swissnex China and Innosuisse launched the Innosuisse China Camp. Throughout this time we have witnessed a tremendous growth in the number of swiss startups keen on exploring the Chinese market potential, and we are delighted to be here in China to support Swiss tech-driven startups in market validation or help them take the deep dive into the local ecosystem.

This March, in collaboration with our colleagues from the US, Brazil, the UK and India, we planned an intensive one-week roadshow with public events and individual meetings to direct engage with our Swiss startups and entrepreneurs. Regrettably, the unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus negatively impacted our journey. In the interest of public health and safety, the decision was taken to cancel all public events while still keeping personal meetings with startups, thanks to our Junior Project Manager Niccolò Schlueb who was able to represent swissnex China in Switzerland.

While it was difficult to confirm a large number of meetings due to the COVID-19 situation, we were able to meet and discuss with some particularly ambitious startups including Marc from Juvabis AG, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, a joint spin-off of ETH Zurich and University of Zurich. Juvabis will discuss with their Innosuisse coach about further participation for China after being introduced to the Marktet Validation and Market Entry Camp support offered by swissnex China.

Back in China, due to the circumstances we were prompted to cancel our SwissTech Pavilion at CES ASIA in June and postpone Venture Leaders China to this autumn. Nevertheless, we swiftly initiated a series of webinars and remain supportive online to help swiss startups gain intelligence into the China market. Our upcoming webinar on April 3rd features speakers from the Chinese investment sector to share their insights on Chinese VCs’ appetites and aptitudes regarding foreign startups. 

Although international visits are currently on halt, we remain ever-responsive to all inquiries on fact-finding about the China market. Online applications for market validation and market entry are ongoing as well, as we’re expecting a startups influx and will be ready to carry out our next roadshow in Switzerland in the near-future! It would be a fantastic moment join all our swissnex Network colleagues and provide Swiss startups with a glimpse on Innosuisse Internationalization Camps under the context of different innovation ecosystems.

swissnex Global Innosuisse Internationalization Camps

Innosuisse China Camp Services

Innosuisse China Camps in Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou/Shenzhen/Hong Kong

New Year Café des Sciences: IoT & Organic Waste

By Percy Chen, Junior Project Manager Art-Science

All of past Café des Sciences lecture event pages

Started exactly one year ago in January 2019, Café des Sciences is a format at swissnex China offering a monthly platform for scientists, start-ups, and artists with Swiss background to present their projects and connect with the local community. The lectures aim to provide a casual setting in which speakers can present their works and engage with the attendees in meaningful manners.

Twelve months later, the Café des Sciences series has garnered a solid track record — 12 events at 5 unique venues, 480 total attendees with 80 plus core community members, as well as 20 speakers on novel topics ranging from shadow banking, drone revolution, to VR, biosensors, and smart home technologies.

Therefore, on 9 January 2020, to formally wrap up a year worth of content and celebrate its success, the New Year Café des Sciences featured multiple past speakers for their project updates, a keynote presentation from Enwise CEO Stéphane Vernède, a live performance from Passepartout Duo, and a community award for those who have voluntarily shared their ideas, expertise, and time with this diverse and interactive group of people.

Past speakers presented in the New Year event include Ying Liu, Assistant Professor, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and Alumna HEC Lausanne (Café des Sciences #1: Shadow Banking in China); Laurent Coulot, Co-founder and CEO of Insolight, a startup based at the EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne, Switzerland (Café des Sciences #3: Looking Beyond the Horizon); Hao Hua, Associate Professor, Architecture at Southeast University, Doctor of Science ETH Zurich (Café des Sciences #7: From Architectural Anthropology to Digital Fabrication); Laura Couto Rosado, Swiss Artist and Designer, 2017 Residency at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Café des Sciences #8: Technical Spiral that We Inspire) and Xueying Mao, Biomedical Engineering Master ETH Zurich, Chief Representative of rqmicro AG China Office (Café des Sciences #10: Lives in Our Water). 

From left to right: Enwise CEO Stéphane Vernède; Percy Chen, Junior Project Manager at swissnex China; Cissy Sun, Head of Art-Science at swissnex China; Christopher Salvito from Passepartout ​Duo; and Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO at swissnex China

Ying Liu, Assistant Professor, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and Alumna HEC Lausanne (Café des Sciences #1: Shadow Banking in China)

Laura Couto Rosado, Swiss Artist and Designer, 2017 Residency at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Café des Sciences #8: Technical Spiral that We Inspire)

After the updates from previous speakers, Stéphane Vernède, CEO at Enwise, shared the mechanism behind modular digester for organic waste: dry anaerobic digestion technology OSCAR and a real time IoT monitoring technology OTTO. His presentation really puts the issue of waste processing into perspective. For example, in 2018, China has produced 1,000,000,000 tons of organic waste, amounting to 1,500 Shanghai Tower put together in volume. In Shanghai alone, 9,500 tons of municipal organic waste are produced daily. Today we barely have the capacity to process the first 1,000 tons of waste. What is good, however, is on 1 July 2019, Shanghai has enforced waste sorting policy, taking its first step towards this serious matter.

“China’s war on trash is the world’s too.” concluded Stéphane after a long Q&A session where many people demonstrated strong interests in Enwise’s technology and waste processing issue in general.

Stéphane Vernède delivering the introduction

One of Stéphane’s slides showing the amount of organic waste China produces yearly.

Another slide on OSCAR and OTTO technologies

Christopher Salvito during his live performance

The next speaker is Christopher Salvito from Passepartout Duo, a music group comprised of himself and pianist ​Nicoletta Favari​. The​ musical events​ they create focus on reconsidering the modalities in which people listen to and connect with music and are cast from a wide range of aesthetics and disciplines. Their mission is to become ambassadors for contemporary music through performance, to cross cultural and aesthetic boundaries through interdisciplinary projects, and to be catalysts for the global mobility of art and artists.

Christopher went into details about their experience in North America and Europe: over a dozen artistic residency programs in USA, Canada, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Finland, Iceland, and more nations. Their extensive travel gave them rich opportunities to collaborate with all different kinds of artists, such as dancers, visual artists, animators, as well as other musicians and composers. Recently, Passepartout Duo has done residency programs at Dimensions Art Centre in Chongqing, T3 Art District in Beijing, and currently they are among the artists in residence at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai.

As We Speak, the snare drum solo Christopher performed focuses on the relationship between recorded voice and music. A machine-like monotone female voice plays in the background, introducing itself as “Vicky”. At first, it speaks coherently, announcing its joy to be the chosen voice. Yet, very soon it realizes as the musical piece comes to an end, it too will cease to speak. It starts to glitch, producing repetitive noises, affirming itself, “I am alive”, and questioning itself right after, “Am I alive? Am I a live?” The 5-minute piece ends with prolonged reiterations of “Stop speaking”. The cold, monotone voice gives the statement a nebulous meaning. Is it questioning whether or not it will stop speaking? Is it lamenting the fact that it will stop speaking? Does it accept its fate towards the end? It is up to the audiences for interpretation.

Likewise, Christopher plays snare drum alongside the voice. Using drumsticks, jazz brush, snare string and his fingers, he compliments the voice with different timber and volume of sounds. The interaction between Christopher and the voice creates a constant feedback loop where one listens and reacts to the other, forming a true cybernetics system.

Christopher Salvito introducing his trips in Europe

Finally, the event finished with multiple community awards. As mentioned before, Café des Sciences lecture has gathered a solid core community. We wanted to award those who voluntarily contributed their time with us through constant participations. The award winners are Zhenyu Peng (10 CdS attended), Xueying Mao (7 attended), Jina Zhu (7), and John Evans (6). We would like to thank you for sticking with us and shaping this series for the better!

Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO at swissnex China, and John Evans with his community award

Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO at swissnex China, and Jina Zhu with her community award and iconic gesture

The New Year Café des Sciences started this year on a high note. In 2020, we plan to keep the current format of Café des Sciences and bring in more engaging topics. Thank you again for all those who have been involved in this project!

Stay tuned for the next event!

(For more event pictures from the night, please click here.)

Future with 5G and AIoT

By Florian Moeri, Junior Project Manager

On the evening of November 28, swissnex China hosted a joint lecture with nihub about the future impact of 5G and AIoT.

The numerous visitors were welcomed by Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO at swissnex China. He emphasized the importance of emerging technology and innovation, which are a major part of the efforts at swissnex. And, according to him, the future of 5G and AIoT in particular is already very near.

After the short introduction, Sergio Medyk, Product Line Manager at Nokia in China, held a presentation about 5G. This upcoming standard for mobile telecommunications service promises to be significantly faster than today's 4G technology.

To illustrate this dimension, Mr. Medyk needed the following comparison: With today's LTE technology (standard for wireless broadband communication), you can achieve a capacity of 1 GB per second. With the new 5G technology it is 10 GB per second. In addition, a much larger number of devices can be connected together. And it makes it possible to connect not only people but also things, for example robots in a factory. A keyword here - and this was often mentioned in the discussion - is "low latency". The processing of data between machine and network now works as fast as possible. This prevents accidents with automatic cars, for instance, through increased reactivity. The background is the transfer of frequency, which can be raised from 2 - 2.5 Gigahertz (LTE) to 3 - 5 Gigahertz (5G). "A physical principle: the better the frequency, the more data can be transported in less time" said Medyk.

The general structure of the network will also change: We are now trying to prioritize the various applications differently. That means “dividing the network”. Subsequently, factory machines that require low latency will be prioritized over mobile phone users, who will not experience any negative impact either way. Finally, what is important with 5G is that the network no longer runs in hardware, but in the cloud. This means that it is programmable for all conceivable purposes. And if you put AI, machine learning and 5G wireless connection together, you get a foretaste of what the future of the industry looks like. This brings us to the possibilities of mobile providers, where Nokia, for example, is taking action: offering 5G as a network which can connect not only people but everything to create new verticals that can produce new sources of revenues and new business models.

Mr. Madyk went on to show a number of use cases, e.g. a Smart airport, where a robot will soon guide passengers from the entrance to the check-in area and then to the boarding area. Or the influence of new technologies on education, also called Smart education, where remote teaching or lessons with preproduced content become possible. Or finally, the fundamental advantage of the so-called Fixed Wireless Access: a 5G Gateway, where with the new connection no more cables have to be laid. At the end of his presentation, Mr. Medyk mentioned which changes will come fastest according to him: “The first phase will be access and the second phase will be the industrial cases that become reality. For those interested in 5G and its possibilities, Nokia has developed the following public platform: https://open-ecosystem.org”.

After the basics of 5G were explained to us, Qian Hao, founder of Taro.AI spoke about the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT). He did this, as well as the other speakers, in a very innovative way: he talked with a handheld microphone connected by a tracker to the tripod on which the mobile phone camera was placed. This product is an example of the product series of his company "Taro.AI": http://taro.ai.

In addition to this item they work with AI technology and transform spoken words into text. The vision is a search engine for keywords of a speech. Mr. Hao started by explaining his thoughts on the development of AIoT using keywords like "Great Company Originate from Great Episode (Big Changes). Great Episode Originate from New Dimension". He talked about the trends, included the last wave: the mobile Internet, where the key to the revolution was the "touch" factor (especially Apples iPhone display). He considers this wave as a big wave, because now it was possible to segment sources in marketing, whereas up to now 90 % has been done via TV advertising.

In contrast stands the small wave, AIoT. Small because it connects things rather than people. That's why it is especially interesting for the industry. And the technology of 5G will advance the technology of AIoT. The methodology, the distance and the service will adapt. According to Mr. Hao, in addition to the flow of people, money and things, a new dimension will emerge with the flow of robots. Every object will be connected. And with Blockchain there is even a payment method that could be used offline for selling 5G usage rights. The difficulties in rural areas and the correct handling of sensitive data will become a challenge when dealing with AIoT.

Next, Mr. Hao explained the characteristics of the interface between AIoT and 5G. Among there is the difficulty of localization in buildings, which is quite disrupted by walls and should therefore also be seen as a different scale than positioning outside. Another challenge is also the fact that in addition to the protagonist (e.g. the automatic car), its environment should also have low latency so that the technology works at its best. This is exactly where the big technology companies such as Huawei come in. In the course of the presentation, even the concept of the company as we know it was questioned, because in the future many things can be controlled centrally and remotely. Finally, the economic possibilities of the new technologies got mentioned. Focus here is not so much the already saturated market of applications, but the demand for control units: speakers and screens. Mr. Hao also made his personal prediction whereas he thinks that over the next 10 years, we will not offensively be connected but passively grabbed by the internet, especially by AIoT.

Sergio Medyk, Product Line Manager at Nokia in China, during his presentation about 5G.

Qian Hao, Founder of Taro.AI and in the foreground his "AI Cameraman".

It was at this aspect of potential new innovation and investment that Lucas Rondez, Founder and CEO of nihub, picked up with his speech. His company also believes in the "new waves" which is why they work with startups to create opportunities and develop new technologies. They do this through strong collaboration with VALID, a Brazilian technology provider. Together they co-organize an Acceleration Program in China: https://validaccelerator.com. This program supports 5 early-stage companies working in the field of 5G and AIoT and consists of at least three employees. In addition to a special focus on increased visibility, it is also possible to generate an investment - e.g. from VALID - in addition to cash prizes. The program thus helps companies to gain a foothold in the sector. Or as Mr. Rondez puts it: "The Accelerator creates an ecosystem where VALID & nihub share knowledge and resources to innovative startups & talents to create value for tomorrow".

This is exactly where the whole range of presentations were aimed at, showing us what the current status with 5G and AIoT looks like, what the future might bring and what challenges we will be facing along the way. We would like to thank all three speakers for their fantastic presentations and also those who participated in the subsequent discussions. We are looking forward to the next event!

Lucas Rondez, Founder and CEO of nihub, on the possibility of supporting start-ups.

From Left to Right: Sergio Medyk, Product Line Manager, Nokia; Qian Hao, Founder, Taro.AI; Lucas Rondez, Founder and CEO, nihub; Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO, swissnex China.

Scaling up in Asia for Swiss Startups

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

From December 3 to 6, swissnex China organized a series of events and one-on-one meetings to present our services that effectively help Swiss startups to leverage business opportunities in Asia. swissnex China helps the startups to take their first steps into the Chinese market with multiple programs, support them with local resources and connect them with the right contacts.

During the events, I was able to meet with over 13 Swiss startups in Zurich, Basel and Lausanne, introducing how swissnex China can help them enter the China market through different programs in the upcoming year of 2020, which include Innosuisse Market Entry Camp (Market Validation camp, Market Entry Camp), Life Science Bootcamp 2020, CES Asia 2020 and etc.

Meeting Swiss startups- Public event at ETH Zurich

Meeting Swiss startups in person in Switzerland enables a smooth understanding of each other, about their projects and our camp services. For startups who are interested to join our programs next year, a meeting session makes the communication efficient & effective. For example, Seervision planned to discuss with Coach to elaborate milestones after meeting.

swissnex China meets Seervision

swissnex China meets Eyeware

We are looking forward to supporting Swiss startups to scale up in Asia with Innosuisse Market Entry Camp, CES Asia and other programs at swissnex China in 2020.

Venture Leaders Fintech in Hong Kong Puts Swiss Fintech in the Spotlight

By Niccolò Schlueb, Junior Project Manager Innovation & Entrepreneurship

There was no better destination for the Swiss National Fintech Team than the heart of Asia’s Financial markets and the gateway to the most dynamic region in the world: Hong Kong. Led by swissnex China and Venturelab, ten selected top Swiss fintech startups arrived on Sunday November 3 in Hong Kong to kick-off their week-long program of meetings with potential investors and partners, workshops and discussions. The startups also partook in the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2019 including two days of participating at the Fintech conference and a day trip to Shenzhen. Because this was the first Venture Leaders Fintech to take place in Asia, both expectations and excitement were extremely high and we could not wait to get started the next day.

The 10 Swiss National Fintech Startups:

Billte AG - Andrea Girasole | Crypto Finance AG - Jan Brzezek | Loanboox - Andi Burri | Orca AG - Tomas Hurcik | Pexapark - Michael Waldner | Raized.ai - Penny Schiffer | Tokenestate - Vincent Trouche | turicode - Martin Keller | vestr AG - Simon Hasenfratz | vlot Ltd. - Daniel Schmidheiny

Day 1: Monday November 4

First up on the agenda was a company visit to the Swiss investment firm Silverhorn Group to attend two consecutive workshops. The delegation was warmly welcomed by Patrick Heuscher, Olympic bronze medallist in beach volleyball, who now creates a stir in Asia’s investment sectors at Silverhorn Group. Musheer Ahmed from the Fintech Association of Hong Kong then spoke about the Fintech ecosystems in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Edward Webre and Isabella Wong from Deacons, Hong Kong’s oldest first-tier law firm, addressed important aspects in the local legal frameworks for foreign fintech companies that plan to set up an office in Hong Kong. A hot topic of discussion for the first, but certainly not for the last time, was the difference between the financial markets of Hong Kong and Singapore.

Subsequently, the Venture Leaders had the chance to pitch their startups at LGT in front of a high-ranking delegation and received valuable feedback from top experts within the banking industries.

Afterwards the delegation was welcomed by Howse Williams, a HK based law firm which made a brief introduction and answered questions regarding the judicial systems in Hong Kong finance. Representatives from CIGP investment advisors joined the meeting and gave helpful advice to the startups, which received another opportunity to present their exciting businesses.

The last meeting of the intense, but insightful day consisted of a meet-up with Standard Chartered Ventures, who specifically focus on the support of emerging fintech companies. The meeting included a pitch-session, which was also broadcasted to SC Venture’s office in Singapore.

Andrea Girasole from Billte about the investor meetings: “This is extremely important for us as Asia is a booming market in general, especially Hong Kong and China. We are looking to expand into this area as well. I delivered the pitch of our company to several investors and potential partners. Partners being banks and financial companies. It’s been a fantastic experience and I highly recommend it.”

Meeting at Howse Williams with CIGP

Michael Waldner presenting Pexapark at LGT

Day 2: Tuesday November 5

In the early morning, the delegation visited Eureka Nova, an accelerator by the New World Group, who held a workshop about the Hong Kong startup ecosystem and answered the startups’ many questions. Then, Oriente, a successfully launched Fintech startup welcomed the Swiss Fintech champions to its office. Oriente provided insightful information about their progression as a startup and answered the various questions of the team.

Visiting the accelerator Eureka Nova

Company visit at Oriente

A lunch meeting with Invest Hong Kong and GP Bullhound was scheduled next as they presented more details about their programs and the general investment environment in HK. Afterwards, the startups were able to present their ideas in an intensive pitch-session to invest HK and GP Bullhound.

GP Bullhound introduction

Two important pitch-sessions followed: firstly, at HSBC and secondly, at the Swiss Bank UBS. With great enthusiasm, the Swiss National Fintech Team made a lasting impression with their exciting business strategies.  

Tomas Hurcik pitching Orcas at UBS

Andrea Girasole introducing Billte at HSBC

In the evening, the long-awaited first highlight of the week took place. The Venture Leaders and our other 50 high-profile guests boarded the beautiful Aqua Luna, which set sail in Victoria Harbour surrounded by the millions of lights of Hong Kong’s skyline. Of course, the purpose of the cruise was not only to admire the stunning scenery: We also challenged our entrepreneurs to pitch on the swaying boat! Nevertheless, it is safe to say that all startups did a great job and they made valuable connections with our guests.

Day 3: Wednesday November 6

The Hong Kong Fintech conference (HKFTW2019) opened its doors on Wednesday and the Swiss National Fintech Team was ready to showcase high quality in Swiss fintech. The delegation was represented through the Swiss Fintech Pavilion, in which every startup had its own booth with promotion material. During HKFTW2019, various meetings with Hong Kong government, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, interviews with South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Economic Times were scheduled.

Hong Kong Government delegation visiting the Swiss Fintech Pavilion

In the evening, the second main event was held, granting a somewhat different view of the skyline.  On 100th floor of the ICC – Hong Kong’s tallest building - the startups engaged in a lively pitching competition in front of 100 guests and the critical eyes of our jury: Brian Ma from AngelVest, Veronica Fung from the Fintech Association of Hong Kong and Peter Luk from Hong Kong Science and Technology Park assessed the startups’ presentations and asked challenging question in the end of each pitch. Andi Burri from Loanboox topped the high quality of pitches throughout the evening and won the Venture Leaders Fintech Hong Kong Pitching Award for the best pitch of the evening. 

Andi Burri about Venture Leaders Fintech: “So, for me personally, I had maybe around 100 contacts and personal interactions already, alongside the 20 pitches, and I learned so much about whether Loanboox has the potential to access the Asian market or whether we need to grow a little bit more in Europe first. For that, I am highly thankful. I thank for the whole organization and I think this is one of the best pitching event organization that I’ve seen in my life and I am very thankful.  Also, I am looking forward to getting further feedback from the interviews I’ve had. I wish all the best to my colleagues with whom I’ve had the pleasure to be part of this journey and to Venturelab and swissnex China going forward.”

Day 4: Thursday November 7

The focus of Thursday’s program was the Hong Kong Fintech Week. The startups attracted a lot of attention and could deeply connect with interested visitors. A pitching session on the exhibition’s stage was organized and Mr. Rolf Frei, incoming Consul General of Switzerland to Hong Kong, visited during the day and took his time to talk to each startup. A stunning 8’000 people in total visited the expo. It is estimated that each startup held about 30-50 conversations during the HKFTW2019, with some being busy almost non-stop.

Consul General Rolf Frei visiting the Swiss Fintech Pavilion

Day 5: Friday November 8

On Friday, the final day, the ten entrepreneurs travelled to Shenzhen for company visits. The startups could select between four tours, which brought the representatives to either WeLab-Tencent, WeBank-ZhongAn, Gala Lunch-Tencent or ZhongAn-WeBank.

Visiting Tencent

The intense 6-day Venture Leaders Fintech program concluded on Friday evening with a hearty farewell dinner. Despite the short time together, the team grew close and everyone was excited to find out which contacts and opportunities made in the past week would bear fruit and open the gateway to the Asian fintech markets. Everyone agreed that their paths would cross again in the future as there is no way on their professional roadmap that would go around Asia.

swissnex China looks back at a very successful first edition of the Venture Leaders Fintech program, linking our 10 Fintech startup champions with local multi-$B investors, mentors, experts and business partners. swissnex China also made sure to provide the startups countless opportunities to pitch, including the two highlights of the week: the pitching events on the 100th floor of the tallest building in Hong Kong and on the iconic red-sail Aqua Luna. Luckily, Daniel Schmidheiny didn’t lose count: “An exceptional week has come to a close here in Hong Kong. It was just as intense as fun, in short: vlot Ltd. pitched and presented a total of 16 times. I made countless interactions with interested parties and now have no business cards left. Furthermore, I got a a first taste of the actual market size (still struggling on this one) and received extremely helpful insights from local experts to the needs and expectations of the clients”

Daniel Schimdheiny pitching vlot at HK Fintech Week

Congratulations to our Swiss National Fintech Startups - we wish them every success with their follow-up discussions and meetings!

We would like to express our special thanks to our program partners, without whose generous support this incredible program would not have been possible: digitalswitzerland, EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne), ETH Zürich, IMMOMIG V8.0, PostFinance Ltd, Redalpine, Presence Switzerland, Swiss Consulate General in HK, Walder Wyss Ltd., Volkswirtschaftsdirektion Kanton Zürich and Zühlke Group HK.

Venture Leaders Fintech 2019 is co-organized by Venturelab and swissnex China.

Cellestia Biotech Wins swissnex Innovative Startup Award at SSBA Award Ceremony

By Danli Zhou, Head of Marketing & Communications

Congratulations to Cellestia Biotech for winning the swissnex Innovative Startup/Entrepreneur Award at the Sino-Swiss Business Awards 2019 organized by SwissCham China! Our CEO Dr. Felix Moesner, a Guest of Honor at the event held in the evening of November 1, handed the award to Cellestia CEO Michael Bauer and CSO Raj Lehal onstage with words of congratulations. The award is entirely dedicated to Innovation and startups, putting Switzerland’s world-leading innovation on the main stage. Cellestia Biotech CSO Raj Lehal participated in the Venture Leaders China 2018 program, a 10-day pitching and fundraising roadshow across 5 Chinese megacities, co-organized by swissnex China and Venturelab. According to CSO Raj Lehal, the company have already raised multiple millions CHF from China, and initiated a partnership with Tianjin Hospital. Other Guests of Honour at the event included Swiss Ambassador to China HE Bernardino Regazzoni, Head of Presence Switzerland Ambassador Nicolas Bideau, Swiss Tourism Director China Simon Bosshart, Swiss Sport Legend Bernhard Russi and Nestle Greater China Region CEO Rashid Qureshi.

Cellestia Biotech, a clinical-stage biotech company based in Basel is developing innovative first-in-class cancer drugs based on its innovative discovery platform. The company’s lead development candidate CB-103 targeted cancer therapy is a small molecule that inhibits the NOTCH signalling pathway –a key factor in certain cancers and in resistance to standard treatments. The company is conducting phase one clinical trials of its lead drug candidate in cancer patients in Europe, with planned expansion into China and the USA.

Our congratulations also to the other nominees - Swiss startups holo|one (Dominik Trost) and Foodcoin Group AG (Gregory Arzumanian) for their contributions towards furthering Sino-Swiss collaborations in innovation and entrepreneurship! Both holo|one and Foodcoin Group joined 20 other Swiss startups at the #SwissTech Pavilion at CES ASIA 2019, while holo|one also participated in the Venture Leaders China 2019 roadshow. They joined the swissnex table alongside Prof. Jay S. Siegel (Tianjin University), Roger Parodi, (Silverhorn Group), Simon Vericel (Influence Matters), Douwe van den Oever (DomainShift.com) and Sandro Wirth, S&T Section, Embassy of Switzerland.

Lives in Our Water

By Percy Chen, Junior Project Manager Art-Science

On October 21, the tenth Café des Sciences: Lives in Our Water took place at the swissnex China office. Ms. Xueying Mao, the Chief Representative of rqmicro AG China Office, gave an exceptionally educational presentation on water safety and legionella detection technologies.

Ms. Xueying Mao giving the introduction

Water safety is a subject that almost all of us take for granted. Yet, water is ubiquitous and a necessity - we are constantly exposed to water vapors. In fact, as Ms. Mao points out, one of the crucial water safety applications is in the central air conditioning systems at enclosed public space, such as shopping malls and subway stations. This is due to the fact that instead of transmitting through drinking water, legionella pathogen bacteria spread via airborne transmission. A compromised central air conditioning system could lead to a legionella outbreak, sickening tens of or hundreds of citizens.

rqmicro AG device that shortens legionella pathogen bacteria detection cycle from 7 days to 2 hours, reducing response time by almost 99%.

Audiences curiously asking about the science behind rqmicro AG technology

Moreover, Ms. Mao went over her experience surveying Chinese hospitals for legionella outbreaks. To her astonishment, almost all Chinese hospitals lack the proper equipments to diagnose legionnaires' disease. Since legionnaires' disease share symptoms with pneumonia and is sensitive to antibiotics as well, doctors will treat it as if they were treating pneumonia. This leads to antibiotics overuse, which is contributing to antimicrobial resistance, threatening the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections and could turn treatable illnesses, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, or minor infections incurable in the long term.

Therefore, rqmicro AG is actively working together with China CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) on a 2-year project to validate its innovative method for rapid Legionella and Salmonella testing in water samples. We hope as well as firmly believe rqmicro AG will accelerate the development of a proper solution to legionnaires’ disease prevention and treatment.

At the end, we would like to thank Ms. Mao for her fantastic presentation and all those who were involved in the discussion. We aim to create and share values among our community members and this Café des Sciences was more than informative. Thank you! Stay tuned for our next event.

To view more photos from the event, click here.

Changzhou National Hi-Tech District (CND) and swissnex China Signed MoU to Strengthen Innovation, Exchanges and Cooperation

By Simin Yang, Project Coordinator - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

On September 26, 2019, Sino-Swiss International Industrial Innovation Park (Changzhou) commenced operations in Changzhou National Hi-Tech District (CND), Jiangsu province, China.

Changzhou National Hi-Tech District (CND) is located in the north part of Changzhou city, taking a central location in the Yangtze River Delta and enjoying a convenient transportation network. CND has successfully attracted more than 1,800 foreign-invested enterprises.

Inauguration ceremony –Swiss Innovation board

Sino-Swiss International Industrial Innovation Park (Changzhou) starts operations in CND, welcoming six foreign-funded firms

In order to promote the sharing and matching of resources between CND and Switzerland and to deepen Sino-Swiss industrial innovation cooperation, through friendly bilateral exchanges, swissnex China has signed an MoU with CND.

Signing ceremony for the cooperation between CND and swissnex China

This MoU is to strengthen mutual exchanges and cooperation, as well as deepen friendly relationship with Switzerland, encourage local influential innovation platforms to connect with Switzerland by establishing a long-term joint mechanism and establishing bridges for innovative cooperation，as well as promoting Swiss technological innovation and obtaining more cooperation results.

Entrepreneurs - The new rock stars

By Niccolò Schlueb, Junior Project Manager - Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Last week, a very Scandinavian start-up fair took place in shanghai: Slush Shanghai and swissnex China’s Innovation & Entrepreeurship team was there!

A black interior, glaring lights, loud music and animators on no less than four stages – Slush certainly resembled more a huge concert hall than an exhibition for entrepreneurs and innovators.

Nevertheless, Slush impressed with a large line-up of high-level keynote speakers and panelists such as Peter Vesterbacka, Finnish mobile game developer of Angry Birds and Tony Han, Cofounder and CEO of WeRide.

Slush Shanghai also hosted lively pitching competitions in Healthtech, 5G and IoT & IoV. Last but not least, it featured various upcoming companies showcasing and promoting their products.

Bobby Lee, co-founder and former CEO of China's first crypto exchange BTCC on ownership in blockchain

Slush Shanghai impressively demonstrated that innovation and entrepreneurship can be energetic as well as cool and attract an overwhelmingly young and modern audience.

Amongst all the companies we met at the fair, we felt that a high focus was put on the new technologies in the Greentech and Cleantech environment. We deeply exchanged with startups that aimed at having a sustainable impact for the planet through new mechanisms transforming waste into any kind of reusable material.

Shanghai has become one of the major epicenters of innovation and the hot spot for startups and entrepreneurs. This is proven by the fact that next to Slush, startupgrind, in cooperation with Google, organized a China Startup Ecosystem Summit at Explorium Shanghai. The summit offered insightful speeches with the CFO of Luckin Coffee, Reinout Schakel, and interactive workshops, for example Google’s perspective on IP protection in China.

Fireside talk with the CFO of Luckin Coffee Reinout Schakel at China Startup Ecosystem Summit

The Invisible Growth of Food Tech

By Percy Chen, Junior Project Manager Art-Science

On September 19, the ninth Café des Sciences: The Invisible Growth of Food Tech took place at the swissnex China office. Mr. Fabian Graf, the Co-founder and CEO of the food technology startup Faitron, gave an exceptionally interesting presentation on the new trend Food 2.0 and its connection to his entrepreneurial development. 

Mr. Graf introducing Food 2.0 concepts

What is Food 2.0?

Food 2.0 is a trend that aims to transform the way we eat and make food more sustainable, innovative, wholesome, as well as responsible. 

Why do we need Food 2.0?

Three reasons.

1. The majority of diets nowadays focuses on meat, which uses up a lot of resources. Producing a pound of beef consumes 16 times more energy than a pound of grain and requires up to 100 times more water. 

2. Animal brutality and its consequences: to make more profit, factories use all means to reduce costs and increase unit output. Animals are almost always stored in tiny spaces with bars limiting their movements, forcing them to eat, sleep, and repeat. In addition, the extensive use of various antibiotics is problematic, for it will eventually be passed on to humans. Finally, once an infectious disease breaks out, all the animals in the farm must be culled. Recently, more than 100 million pigs died to a swine fever epidemic and it is still on going.

3. Finally, in terms of nutrition and health care, researches have shown that in general cases, plant proteins are healthier than red or white meat.

How do we do Food 2.0?

Many startups have attempted to develop new ingredients or processing methods to replace animal proteins with plant proteins. One example is the startup Impossible Food – its impossible burger received favorable reviews for tasting like beef. Likewise, in Switzerland, ETH Zurich is working with companies such as Nestlé to launch its future food initiatives. The aim is to train students to address the challenges of sustainable food supply by researching and developing high quality, healthy and cheap food.

In the second half of the presentation, Mr. Graf elaborated on his inspirations for Faitron. Founded in 2016, Faitron’s timeline coincided almost perfectly with the paradigm shift towards healthier food. Faitron’s two products, HeatsBox and BabyBoo, provide convenient ways for people to take out food and monitor food temperature to ensure safety.

The audiences showed immense interests and asked questions ranging from the technologies and patents, to the reasoning behind certain designs, as well as Mr. Graf’s opinions toward cheaper alternatives on Taobao. Indeed, the discussion was fruitful and it continued even after the event.

Once again, we would like to thank Mr. Fabian Graf for his excellent speech and our audiences for their enthusiastic engagements!

If you are interested in Faitron and would like to provide feedbacks via a survey, feel free to join here. Likewise, for more pictures from the event, please click here.

Stay tuned for our next event！

Audience members asking about BabyBoo, one of Faitron’s products.