Various

Swiss Fintech Ecosystem: Accelerators, Incubators and Associations

Johannes Hoehener, head of Swisscom’s Digital Banking Innovations, has shared an infographic summarizing the Swiss fintech ecosystem, its players and leading organizations.

Accelerators

Kickstart Accelerator

Kickstart is a startup program that aims to put Switzerland on the map by bringing some of the most promising early-stage startups from different fields to Switzerland during three months.

Kickstart was founded in 2015 and is an initiative by the Kick Foundation in cooperation with DigitalZurich2025.

Nexussquared

Nexussquared is a fintech platform with a special focus on blockchain technology. The company offers fintech research and consultancy services and is the organizer of Nexuslab, a three-month acceleration program taking place predominantly virtually.

It has recently selected the 10 startups to join its inaugural class which will kick off on April 24, 2016.

Fusion

Based in Geneva, Fusion is a 12-month fintech acceleration program that aims to fuse the best of Switzerland with the most promising fintech talent to lead innovation in financial services.

Founded in early 2015, Fusion is a program of Polytech Ventures, a VC firm that invests in early-stage technology companies located in western Switzerland.

Incubators and Labs

F10

Opened in August 2015, the F10 Fintech Incubator is located in Zurich and is the innovation center of SIX.

F10 is home to small interdisciplinary teams who develop promising ideas and evaluate their potential for the financial industry. In collaboration with startups, the team is setting up a complete innovation ecosystem with a dedicated staff, know-how, infrastructure and communities. The aim is to drive further developments on Switzerland’s fintech front and develop new technologies for SIX.

BlueLion

Created in 2012 in Zurich, BlueLion was launched to support the early stage information and communications technology and Clean Tech projects, offering in-house coaching program, partnership network and the basis for the incubation.

Its incubation program is a systematic and tailor made development program in four phases over a maximum of 36 months.

Swiss Life Lab

Swiss Life Lab is the innovation lab of Swiss Life, a global insurance company and Europe’s biggest real estate investor. The lab has a dedicated team focused on researching and developing innovative solutions for the insurance and pension industry.

Swiss Life Lab is lead by Myke Näf, Doodle’s co-founder, and Adrian Bührer, a startup investor and corporate consultant.

Associations

Swiss Finance + Technology Association (Swiss FinteCH)

The Swiss Finance + Technology Association is an independent association aimed at fostering a world-class fintech hub in Switzreland and developing globally renowned fintech companies.

Its missions and activities include helping members of the community to connect, advising startups and creating research and insights about in the industry.

Swiss Fintech Innovations

Swiss Fintech Innovations is an independent association of Swiss financial institutions committed to drive collaboration and digital innovations in the financial services industry.

The organization allows members to access to fintech startups, research and talents, but also working groups on relevant focus topics around fintech, digitalization and innovation.

Global Fintech Association (GFA)

The GFA is a non-profit organization that allows members to exchange ideas in the fintech space and network with fintech companies globally.

The organization also provides collaborative offering and financing opportunities.

Swiss Finance Startups

Swiss Finance Startups is a coalition of Swiss fintech companies aimed at fostering the common Swiss startup spirit, support the exchange of ideas as well as industry know-how, and help to educate the outside, non-startup, world on their innovative ventures.

Swiss Crowdfunding Association

The Swiss Crowdfunding Association is an independent organized aimed at gathering all the crowdfunding platforms in Switzerland and promote the domain in the country.

The Swiss Crowdfunding Association also helps to disseminate the best practices in the domain among its actors and aims at being the reference organization to media organizations and politicians.

Digital Finance Compliance Association

The Digital Finance Compliance Association brings together the leading companies in the Swiss digital finance industry including Monetas, Bitcoin Suisse, Ethereum Switzerland and ShapeShift.

The organization is committed to bring together members in the industry, help create regulatory certainly in cooperation with the regulatory authorities, and to establish standards and best practices for a compliant and regulated digital finance industry.

Relevant non fintech initiatives

MassChallenge

Launched in February 2016, MassChallenge’s Switzerland edition is an accelerator program aimed at connecting the country with other global hubs to expand the open innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Switzerland.

Impact Hub

Impact Hub Zurich is a space dedicated to the startup community that combines a trusted community, an innovation lab and a business incubator.

The space hosts a variety of events and workshops to foster collaborative learning and thought leadership.

To date, there are over 27 open Impacts Hubs around the world from London to San Francisco, Johannesburg, Melbourne and Sao Paulo.

Swiss Start Up Factory

The Swiss Start Up Factory began in 2014 with the purpose to create global disruptive companies, products and business models.

Its core business is a three-month accelerator program that provides early stage startups with financing, services, coaching, mentoring, office space and access to a large entrepreneurial and investor network.

Venture Kick

Venture Kick, an initiative of the Venture Kick Foundation, helps entrepreneurs kick startup their startups.

Venture Kick provides funding, coaching, mentoring, and access to a broad network of investors and experts.

Pirates Hub

Pirates Hub, an initiative of Swisscom, helps European teams build successful businesses.

Once a startup has been chosen, Pirates Hub helps the team with developing business concepts, building prototypes and supplementing the team with necessary resources.