The Hottest Startups in Zurich in 2024

Home to good cheese, breathtaking scenery and footballing authorities (FIFA HQ overlooks Lake Zurich), Switzerland’s largest metropolis is besides a fiscal juggernaut. The cardinal quadrate of Paradeplatz is its beating heart, wherever the Swiss banking strategy pumps task superior backing into a thriving tech ecosystem—around CHF 72 million (more than $1 billion) was poured into Zurich startups unsocial successful 2023.

Fintech is simply a earthy large player, but if the banking manufacture is the ecosystem’s engine, innovation is its fuel. Many of the city’s astir breathtaking startups began beingness arsenic pupil projects astatine its world-leading universities, which supply a dependable travel of large thinkers.

“Zurich is simply a metropolis of ideas, people, and capital,” says Frank Floessel, caput of entrepreneurship astatine ETH Zurich, a nationalist probe assemblage focused connected science, technology, and engineering that ‘spins out’ an mean of 25 startups each year. “We person plentifulness of endowment and know-how. We fertile among Europe’s smartest and astir innovative cities. And we person the indispensable backing to alteration groundbreaking ideas into market-ready solutions.”

Nanoflex Robotics

While distant country isn’t yet common, scalpel-wielding robots tin often beryllium recovered performing keyhole surgery. Nanoflex Robotics is aiming to alteration exigency treatments specified arsenic a thrombectomy, the removal of a humor clot. It’s the process utilized for ischemic strokes, a worldwide starring origin of disability. “Today, the lone enactment is to transportation the diligent to a infirmary susceptible of performing a thrombectomy—but each 2nd the encephalon lacks oxygenated blood, encephalon cells die,” says Nanoflex laminitis Matt Curran. In the US, astir a 3rd of the colonisation lives much than an hr distant from a thrombectomy susceptible center. Alongside founders Christophe Chautems and Bradley Nelson, Curran has created a compact robotic level that includes a magnetic tract generator connected wheels. Positioned adjacent to a patient’s caput successful a cath lab, a neurosurgeon (often moving miles away) tin subtly alteration the absorption of the magnetic tract to crook the extremity of the catheter much easily, question done affected vessels, and reconstruct humor travel to the brain. In 2023, Nanoflex worked with Mayo Clinic Arizona connected its proof-of-concept—the aesculapian center’s seat of neurosurgery controlled its robot successful Zurich from Phoenix successful a non-clinical setting. In March 2024, Nanoflex’s archetypal robotics strategy was installed astatine the Jacobs Institute, a aesculapian instrumentality innovation halfway successful Buffalo, New York. It raised a full of $19.8 cardinal (£14.4 million)—including a $12 cardinal (£9 million) Series A circular successful February 2023. nanoflexrobotics.com

BTRY

The modular lithium-ion artillery contains liquid electrolytes which enactment good astatine unchangeable country somesthesia but little truthful successful the freezing acold oregon astatine precocious heat. Working astatine Swiss probe institute Empa, Moritz Futscher and Abdessalem Aribia discovered that stacking respective thin-film cells connected apical of each different not lone provides one-minute charging times and greater vigor capacity—it besides creates a artillery that tin withstand utmost conditions. Launching BTRY successful 2023 alongside Yaroslav Romanyuk, Futscher and Aribia are present focusing connected IoT applications successful environments specified arsenic acold aesculapian transport and steam plants. The trio are besides looking to the skies: immoderate aerospace applications necessitate batteries to relation crossed a 200°C somesthesia range. “Compared to existent batteries, ours reduces the request for heating elements and information measures,” says Futscher. Having raised CHF 1.8 cardinal ($2.1 million) successful pre-seed funding, BTRY is opening its archetypal aviator accumulation tests. btry.ch

Yokoy

Frustrated with the tedium of firm disbursal management, 5 accountants—Philippe Sahli, Thomas Inhelder, Lars Mangelsdorf, and Melanie Gabriel—founded Yokoy successful 2019 (initially nether the sanction Expense Robot). The fintech leverages AI to simplify invoicing, automating the reimbursement process by instantly matching paper payments with expenses. “We felt the symptom of manual work,” says Sahli. “Nobody trains arsenic an accountant to walk hours matching receipts to institution paper transactions.” Twenty cardinal disbursal reports and invoices later, Yokoy’s 700 planetary clients see Breitling, Austria Airlines, and On Running—the Swiss sportswear marque has slashed its costs by astir 79 percent since automating its walk absorption process, says Sahli. In 2023, Yokoy raised $80 cardinal (£60.9 million) successful Series B funding, led by Sequoia Capital. yokoy.io

BreezeLabs

BreezeLabs founders Patrick Helfenstein and Matthias Heuberger accidental that up to 90 percent of runners successful the US—estimated to beryllium astir 50 million—use a wearable instrumentality to way their performance. Yet bosom complaint is typically the lone measurement that these devices track. BreezeLabs has developed an app that monitors runners’ breathing patterns instead. It does this done a headphones’ built-in microphone, portion delivering deeper cardiovascular insights. BreezeLabs’ astute filtering dampens postulation noise, with audio information fed to a trained instrumentality learning exemplary that estimates a runner’s breaths per second. Since launching successful February 2023, it’s collected information from much than 100 trial runners (“one of the world’s biggest datasets wholly consisting of breathing samples,” says Helfenstein). BreezeLabs has secured CHF 500,000 ($584,000) successful backing from the University of Basel. breezelabs.ai

Univerbal

When coder Philipp Hadjimina was priced retired of one-to-one Greek connection lessons (“incredibly costly successful Switzerland,” helium says), helium built his ain chatbot. Quazel launched connected Hacker News successful September 2022—and 50,000 users tried it wrong 2 days. Renamed Univerbal successful January 2024, it had much than 250,000 downloads. Users tin speech to an AI ‘tutor’ successful 22 languages done on-screen chat prompts, creating naturalistic, unscripted conversations based connected ample connection models from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and Open Source. “It’s ever amazed maine that astir who privation to larn a connection bash truthful via vocab games and memorizing grammar rules, but wholly neglect speaking,” says Hadjimina. Founded alongside Samuel Bissegger and David Niederberger, Univerbal has raised $2 cardinal (£1.5 million) successful effect funding. univerbal.app

Oxyle

“Clean water, down to the past drop” is the ngo connection of Fajer Mushtaq and Silvan Staufert, the founders of Oxyle. Launched successful 2020, the ETH Zurich spin-off takes purpose astatine per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS): synthetic chemicals agelong utilized successful mundane goods for their water, grease, and oil-resistant properties—and toxic to humans. “We’re driven by a shared imaginativeness to code h2o contamination and ‘forever chemicals,’” says Mushtaq, whose inspiration stems from encountering h2o scarcity during her upbringing successful India. Common among non-stick cookware and water-repellent fabrics, PFAS vulnerability has been linked to cancers and immune strategy suppression. They’re besides mislaid into wastewater and discharged into streams—ending up successful drinking water. But Oxyle’s modular reactors—applied astatine h2o attraction plants and reaching up to 100 cubic meters successful size—break down 99 percent of PFAS into harmless mineral components, lowering levels beneath regulatory limits. Machine learning past adapts attraction to real-time PFAS fluctuations. Since raising CHF 12 cardinal ($14 million) successful pre-seed funding, Oxyle has partnered with large h2o exertion companies successful Europe (including Belgium’s Waterleau) to commercialize its solution. Its aboriginal people is helping to cleanable US waters. oxyle.com

DeepJudge

A trio of Google researchers are the minds down DeepJudge: an AI-powered hunt for ineligible teams that scans hundreds of millions of documents, freeing clip spent searching for paperwork accumulated crossed emails, memos and contracts. “We’re connecting users to the entirety of their corporate knowledge,” says Paulina Grnarova, who launched the startup successful 2021 alongside Yannic Kilcher and Kevin Roth. Retrieval augmented procreation (RAG) technology—and DeepJudge’s proprietary ample connection model—surfaces the astir relevant, up-to-date accusation via summary. Once deployed, astir 80 percent of users wrong an enactment regularly prosecute with DeepJudge—saving countless hours trawling inboxes. In June 2024, it raised $10.7 cardinal (£8.1 million) successful an oversubscribed effect backing circular led by New York backstage equity steadfast Coatue. Clients utilizing the AI-powered hunt instrumentality see Swiss instrumentality firms Lenz & Staehelin and Homburger. deepjudge.ai

Decentriq

Data clean-rooms connection neutral, unafraid environments for organizations to stock insights connected markets and customers without sharing first-party data—any idiosyncratic accusation is restricted, encrypted, and anonymized. A supplier of this is Decentriq. Its level has been utilized by Publicis Groupe, Switzerland’s Federal Department of Defense and the Swiss National Bank. “We wanted to make a neutral space—a ‘Switzerland of data’,” explains Decentriq laminitis Maximilian Groth, who launched the startup alongside Stefan Deml successful 2019. The brace person raised much than $21 cardinal (£15.9 million), including a $15 cardinal (£11.4 million) Series A circular led by Eclipse Ventures, and a CHF 2.2 cardinal ($2.5 million) assistance from the Swiss government. decentriq.com

Riskwolf

Launched successful 2020 by Thomas Krapf and René Papesch, Riskwolf’s level leverages AI and real-time information to make alleged parametric security solutions. This means that payouts are based connected the probability of a loss-causing lawsuit (a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, for example), alternatively than existent losses. A cardinal usage lawsuit is changing upwind patterns, says Krampf: Kashmir pome farmers present person parametric upwind sum that pays retired successful days alternatively than months. “Traditional underwriting tin person missing oregon outdated information histories,” says Krapf. “Conversely, we person overmuch much affordable information and processing powerfulness acknowledgment to the maturation of unreality exertion and outer sources.” Having raised a combined CHF 3 cardinal ($3.5 million) done an Innosuisse assistance and equity investment, Riskwolf present works with insurers crossed Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The institution has besides acceptable its sights connected IoT, economical data, recognition hazard and terms indices to research aboriginal parametric products. riskwolf.com

LatticeFlow

Beginning beingness arsenic an ETH Zurich probe project, Petar Tsankov, Pavol Bielik, Martin Vechev, and Andreas Krause launched LatticeFlow successful 2020. Its level automatically stress-tests AI models, analyzing however predictions are made, and uncovering patterns that pb to systematic errors: deliberation blindspots and hallucinations. “Traditionally, this process is addressed successful an ad-hoc, manual, and reactive manner,” says Tsankov. “We proactively uncover these, efficaciously enriching the data.” Clients see manufacturing firms and defence organizations, notably the US Army. The institution has raised full backing of $14.8 cardinal (£11.2 million), including a $12 cardinal (£9.1 million) Series A circular led by Atlantic Bridge and OpenOcean. latticeflow.ai

This nonfiction archetypal appeared successful the November/December 2024 variation of WIRED UK.