The Swiss investment Fintech platform for start-ups, investiere.ch, has successfully closed another financing round. With a substantial participation in the capital increase, Zürcher Kantonalbank has become a new minority shareholder of investiere.ch. The financing round represents the largest fintech investment in Switzerland this year to date.
investiere.ch announced that it has successfully closed a Series B financing round totalling CHF 3.5 million. This capital increase will enable investiere.ch to further develop its investment platform with services and tools related to start-up financing and to drive the platform’s growth. At the same time, investiere.ch has gained an important shareholder in Zürcher Kantonalbank, which is a leading provider of start-up financing and has many years of experience in this field. Existing shareholders and other experienced business angels also participated in this financing round.
“With Zürcher Kantonalbank, we have acquired an ideal partner as an investor,” Steffen Wagner, co-founder and CEO of investiere.ch, explains. “Zürcher Kantonalbank has repeatedly demonstrated its innovative strength and its expertise in the area of venture capital and has for many years shared our mission of providing professional financing for start-ups.”
Martin Scholl, CEO of Zürcher Kantonalbank, commented: “We decided to invest in investiere.ch based on the team and technology behind the platform. The digitalisation of the venture capital market offers attractive growth potential and also creates opportunities for the further development of our own financing activities in areas such as SME financing.”
investiere.ch and Zürcher Kantonalbank are among the most active venture capital providers in the Swiss market. Zürcher Kantonalbank has long been investing in young companies. More than a decade ago, it launched its ‘Pioneer’ initiative and since then the bank has invested more than CHF 100 million in start-ups with new and innovative business ideas. This has resulted in the creation of almost 1,000 jobs. investiere.ch has already provided over CHF 17 million in funding for start-ups in more than 40 financing rounds. There will be no changes to the activities conducted by Zürcher Kantonalbank as part of its ‘Pioneer’ initiative. At the same time, investiere.ch will retain full independence with regard to the development of its business.
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