“We have been a Global Partner of Kickstart since its founding in 2016. Together with our in-house experts, Kickstart defines relevant topics and looks for promising startups. We are able to promote open innovation, connect with startups, and enable new trends in the marketplace and contribute to Deeptech Nation as well as sustainability-driven solutions." explains Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Swisscom. Also participating in Kickstart's 8th innovation program with the aim of developing sustainable and innovative solutions within society are AXA, Canton de Vaud, City of Zurich, Coop, la Mobilière, PostFinance, Sanitas, CSEM and MSD. Over the past years, Kickstart has been able to attract some of the world's best startups, including well-known names such as Planted, Neustark, Unsupervised and AAAcell. Since 2016, Kickstart has supported over 400 startups from more than 80 countries, facilitating over 270 deals in the form of collaborations. To date, investments of more than CHF 2 billion have been raised in the process.

"The program continues to grow in importance not only from an innovation perspective, but also in sustainability and circular economy," explains Katka Letzing, Co-Founder and CEO of Kickstart Innovation, one of the largest open innovation platforms in Europe. "The challenges for companies and organizations are becoming more complex and the competitive pressure is increasing. With us not working in silos and resulting in proofs-of-concept, both sides have the opportunity to progress significantly faster in their respective fields." The goal of the Kickstart program is to enable pilot projects or commercial collaborations between later-stage startups and established institutions. The aim is to bring new products and services to market on a larger scale, develop new revenue streams and invest in pioneering models and processes. Last year, over 50 deals were announced to collaborate on cutting-edge solutions for Switzerland and beyond. The ideas were diverse and ranged from a software platform for decarbonizing supply chains, to sustainable insulation packaging made from recycled waste paper, to solar thermal and photovoltaic collectors that achieve one of the world's highest energy densities.

Five focus areas are being explored to identify the topics of the future: New Work & Learning, Health & Wellbeing, Finance & Insurance, Food & Retail and Smart Cities. Each vertical focuses on specific innovative trends and the needs of individual partners with acceleration in technology, sustainability and investments.