AAAccell, Dotphoton, Exeon Analytics, Sentifi and ROVENSO have been named as the winners of the sixth Swisscom StartUp Challenge. All gave a successful pitch to the panel at the Swisscom Braingym in Bern. The next stop is Silicon Valley for a one-week Business Acceleration Programme.

Since the launch of the StartUp Challenge in 2013, over 852 start-ups have applied to take part. This year, a record number of 238 applications were submitted for the event. Applicants come from the ICT, Cloud Services, Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, IOT, Robotics, Digital Marketing and Cyber Security sectors.

The top ten start-ups pitched to the panel of experts today, Tuesday, 14 August, 2018. The judging panel included Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler (Chief Digital Officer Swisscom), Carole Ackermann (Investor and President Business Angels Switzerland), Lukas Weder (Founder of EAT.ch) and Beat Schillig (CEO of programme partner venturelab).

Tailor-made mentoring programme in Silicon Valley

The five winners impressed the panel with their convincing business model, team spirit and determination: AAAccell, Dotphoton, Exeon Analytics, Sentifi and ROVENSO have secured their places on the one-week Business Acceleration Programme in Silicon Valley. Here, they will learn from the personal experiences of top entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and develop their marketing and sales skills. The young entrepreneurs also have the opportunity to win Swisscom’s backing in a collaboration or investment. The start-ups will set out on their journey on 21 October, 2018.

Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler:

“I am already looking forward to opening doors for these driven young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Contacts with international partners and mentors will help them to unleash their innovative energy.”

Short descriptions of the winners:

AAAccell is a spin-off company of the University of Zurich. The team consists of two former bank CEO’s, 11 professors and several PhD’s/Master’s from University of Zurich, ETH, Columbia New York and others. AAAccell links together “academic excellence”, “artificial intelligence” and “algorithmic power” and develops high-tech software solutions for the finance industry in the field of asset- and risk management based on the newest breakthroughs in science.

Dotphoton is a quantum-inspired raw image compression solution for professional applications: it makes raw images up to 10 times smaller with a strong guarantee that quality is preserved, saving a corresponding amount of time and money and enabling the next generation of high-quality imaging and processing solutions in photography, cinema, AI, biomedical and aerospace.

Exeon Analytics fights advanced cyber attacks using award-winning algorithms. It often takes months, if not years, until data breaches are detected because they are well hidden among millions of regular user activities. Our ExeonTrace security analytics and visualization software allows companies to understand their network traffic and detect hidden cyber attacks and data breaches.

Sentifi is a provider of financially relevant Crowd Intelligence. Our solutions are viewed more than 180 million times per month and used by the world’s leading financial services organizations to gain unique insights on over 50 thousand traded companies, currencies and commodities and the events that impact them.

Sentifi uses machine learning to rank and listening to over 14 million financial influencers and connect them with events impacting global assets. Our customers use this insight to make better investment decisions, often ahead of the markets. Our solutions are also used by over 50 of the world’s leading financial publications across 9 countries to attract new customers, retain them and drive additional revenue.

An EPFL startup initiated in 2014 and incorporated in January 2016, ROVENSO makes agile sensing robots for challenging and harsh environments. Based in Switzerland, it also has workshops and offices in Shenzhen (China) in partnership with HAX Accelerator. It has pilot projects with paying customers in China and Switzerland in the fields of firefighting and security surveillance.

Featured Image via Pixabay