NEMIS Technologies AG closes a CHF 7.75 CHF million Series A funding round

Feb 3, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member news

NEMIS Technologies AG closes a CHF 7.75 CHF million Series A funding round

The investment will enable the Swiss Biotech Startup to further scale up its production, boost product development and pursue its ambitious internationalization strategy to meet increasing global demand.

DÜBENDORF, Zurich – Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, NEMIS Technologies Ltd. – ranked as one of the Top 15 Swiss Biotech Startups in 2021 – announced the closing of a CHF 7.75 million Series A financing round with the participation of both institutional and private investors this week.

The problem
Food borne pathogens like Listeria Monocytogenes, Salmonella, E. Coli and others can be found everywhere and are spreading rapidly throughout global food and supply chains. They make hundreds of thousands of consumers sick every year, and can even be fatal. Contamination by microorganisms also causes huge amounts of food waste. Food manufacturers and distributors are increasingly confronted with product recalls, which not only cause immense financial costs, but also major reputational damage to the companies concerned.

The solution
NEMIS specializes in fast, easy-to-use, affordable and reliable on-site pathogen detection solutions. The company will use the investment to scale up its production, accelerate its ongoing international expansion, boost product development and relocate to new laboratory and office facilities in Au, ZH, Switzerland.

Arnaud Muller, CEO of NEMIS, stated:

“Following the great care and dedication of our team over the past year to rapidly industrialize and scale our production, the capital raised will enable us to accelerate our expansion in Europe and overseas. We also have the means to accelerate the development of additional diagnostic test kits and methods to further improve our offering, strengthen our organization in a targeted manner and to reach profitable growth. This would not be possible without the great trust from our partners and investors, for which we are very grateful.”

Roger Meier, the Chairman of the Board, added:

“In just three years, NEMIS has transformed itself from an interesting start-up into a very dynamic and promising growth company with a value proposition that serves a rapidly growing need in an almost optimal way. We are very pleased that we were able to inspire different types of investors – from the extraordinary successful company leader and entrepreneur to the international highly specialized, renown Foodtech fund, who will accompany us on our further journey. With gratitude and confidence, we look forward to creating great benefit for our stakeholders.”

About NEMIS Technologies Ltd
NEMIS Technologies Ltd. (www.nemistech.com) founded in January 2018 by an experienced team of entrepreneurs, scientists and diagnostics, medical and food business professionals. Its patented core technology opens up a near-endless application space for the detection, identification, or monitoring of bacteria, parasites, viruses, or fungi. Unlike most other technologies, the company’s kits can be used anywhere by anyone, empowering food producers to take back control. By meeting several stringent requirements simultaneously, the young company is now on the verge of setting a new transformative industry standard. The power of mass testing closes the current environment control gaps and enables permanent process control in the food chain and allows for preventative elimination of contaminated sites to massively improve product safety.

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New Report Reveals Swiss Startups Raised CHF 3.1 Billion in 2021

Jan 28, 2022 | Ecosystem news

New Report Reveals Swiss Startups Raised CHF 3.1 Billion in 2021

The Swiss Venture Capital Report 2022 published yesterday revealed that Swiss startups raised CHF 3.1 billion in 2021. Innovaud Director, Patrick Barbey, takes this as a sign that the Swiss innovation ecosystem has remained robust, despite the pandemic.

LAUSANNE, January 28, 2022 — 2021 was a record fundraising year for Swiss startups, according to figures published yesterday in the Swiss Venture Capital Report, prepared by Startupticker.ch in conjunction with the Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association (SECA) and startup.ch.

Highs were recorded both nationwide, with CHF 3.1 billion invested in 2021 (versus CHF 2.1 billion in 2020), and in Vaud Canton, where venture-capital funding amounted to CHF 604.6 million in 2021 (versus CHF 409.1 million in 2020).

“This record fundraising performance for both Vaud Canton and Switzerland as a whole is a very good sign for our economy,” says Patrick Barbey, the Director of Innovaud. “It provides further proof that our innovation ecosystem has remained robust and resilient despite the pandemic.”

Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, ecoRobotix, made it into the top ten funding rounds in Vaud Canton. The cleantech startup raised CHF 13.2 million in their Series C funding round in June last year to develop their AI-based ultra-high precision farming solutions.

Many other Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley members were similarly successful in securing the funds needed to scale their innovations in 2021. Plant-based meat alternative startup, Planted secured CHF 17 million in a series A round in March, before closing a CHF 19 million pre-Series B round in August. Farmer connect raised CHF 8.3 million in their series A round in March. AgroSustain, Axino Solutions, Foodetective, Luya Foods and Vivent also closed successful seed and early stage rounds.

Download the full Swiss Venture Capital Report 2022. 

About the Swiss Venture Capital Report
For the past ten years, the Swiss Venture Capital Report has provided a round-up and analysis of all publicly disclosed venture-capital investments in Swiss startups. This report is prepared by Swiss news portal Startupticker.ch together with Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association (SECA) and startup.ch

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B’ZEOS: Using Science and Seaweed to Tackle our Plastic Pollution Problem

Jan 21, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member Highlight

B’ZEOS: Using Science and Seaweed to Tackle our Plastic Pollution Problem

B’ZEOS is working to replace single-use plastic with natural and sustainable solutions. We caught up with Founder, Guy Maurice, and Technology Lead, Adriana Kyvik, to find out how they’re using seaweed to shake up the packaging industry.

Describe your company in a single sentence.
B’ZEOS develops innovative seaweed-based packaging solutions, which are home-compostable, bio-based as well as bio-digestible.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The fact that we’re tackling such a big problem: plastic pollution. Around 275 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated each year and only 14% of that is currently recycled. 

What are you and your team working on at the moment?
We’re currently working on pilot scale production of a flexible film which is seaweed–based. We believe that seaweed is a great biomass source because it’s very efficient at sequestering carbon, it grows very quickly and doesn’t require fresh water or pesticides. We’re also busy working on other applications to extend our product portfolio, like using our formulation for paper coating applications.

What’s your company’s primary goal?
We want to replace petroleum-based plastics in applications where using home-compostable materials make sense. This might be food packaging or other types of protective packaging. We’re particularly targeting materials that end up in landfill or being incinerated – or where materials are contaminated by food or simply too small to be recycled. The main component of our materials are seaweed biopolymers, but we also add functional additives and plasticisers – all bio-based – to tailor the final material properties.

Tell us about one of your open innovation success stories.
We just finalized our second collaboration with fellow Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, Nestlé. We first partnered with them in 2019. Back then, we worked on adapting the formulation of an edible straw into flexible packaging. As part of this new collaboration, we’ve been working on optimizing the material properties and on pilot scale production. We’ve also been in touch with a number of other Swiss corporations. 

How do you support the Swiss ecosystem beyond your core business offer?
We’ve been helping to connect stakeholders in the field across different entities, and sometimes even within the same organisation. While collaborating with Nestlé, we helped to connect people and departments working towards common goals within the company itself.

What support could the SFNV community offer to help you achieve your goals?
We’re really excited about strengthening our industry connections through our membership of Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley. This will allow us to accelerate our business growth and amplify our network within Switzerland. 

Tell us something we don’t know about your company.
Our name often throws up questions! B’ZEOS is actually an acronym. B stands for bio-based, Z stands for zero waste, E stands for edible, O stands for marine origin and S stands for soluble. And if you’re wondering how to pronounce it, it’s: “Bee-ze-os!”

Find out more about the B’ZEOS team’s work on their website.

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The Canton of Fribourg Launches its First Agri-Food Strategy Projects

Jan 17, 2022 | Ecosystem news, Member news

The Canton of Fribourg Launches its First Agri-Food Strategy Projects

In January last year, the Fribourg State Council approved a new Agri-Food Strategy. Now they’re launching three projects to bring their flagship programs to life.

FRIBOURG, January 17, 2022 — Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, the Canton of Fribourg, has a strong agri-food sector ecosystem. Both agricultural and industrial, with a dense network of agri-food SMEs and leading national and international companies, the canton processes nearly a quarter of Swiss agricultural products. Fribourg’s Agri-Food Strategy illustrates the need for a new way of thinking, requiring a profound changes on the part of all actors in the food system to enable us to move towards a more sustainable and a circular economy.

The 3 Flagship Programs
The strategy identified three flagship programs, designed to promote systemic solutions that reflect all local stakeholders’ needs:

  • Flagship program 1: “Food & Farm Living Lab”
  • Flagship program 2: “Biomass Valorization”
  • Flagship program 3: “Agriculture & Industry 4.0”

The approach
Back in September, Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, Food & Nutrition Cluster, organized a participatory co-creation process that brought together academic and private representatives to present ten projects. The project committee (Copro), with representatives from the Food & Nutrition Cluster (CFN), Grangeneuve, the HES-SO Fribourg and the Fribourg Development Agency (FDA), then chose three projects and two sub-projects to bring the Flagship programs to life. Project kick-off meetings will take place in the next few days.

The three projects

Food & Farm Living Lab
I. Setting up the Food & Farm Living Lab
The Food & Farm Living Lab aims to support actors of the agricultural, food and nutritional economy in the canton of Fribourg to develop innovations. The project will be split into two subprojects:

  1. Development of a pilot project exploring links between information and consumer behavior relating to food choices. This project is intended to be global and will also address health and nutrition, innovation and the potential of local production
  2. Creation of an innovation voucher mechanism for agricultural and food actors with a call for projects.

Biomass Valorization
II. Functionalized proteins from biomass and agri-food co-products
This project will aims to increase the attractiveness and sustainability of existing value chains in the canton through innovative intermediate and finished food products, tailored to consumer demand more for healthy and sustainable products.

Agriculture & Industry 4.0
III. Optimized nitrogen fertilization
This project will use of agricultural data and imagery to optimize fertilizer quantities to increase crop yields while reducing nitrogen emissions into the environment.

Find out more about Fribourg’s Agrifood Strategy here.

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Swiss Accelerators+ Round Table

Jan 17, 2022 | Ecosystem news, SFNV updates

Swiss Accelerators+ Round Table

In December, we invited seven Swiss accelerators and startup support organisations to a Round Table event to discuss how we can work together to drive food tech innovation across Switzerland – and beyond.

Navigating the ecosystem
Accelerators are the lifeblood of any innovation ecosystem. They provide the next generation of innovators with the connections, funding and support they need to develop their ideas into viable, scaleable and impactful businesses. But with so much on offer, how can founders and startup teams figure out which platforms are the right fit for their business? And how can accelerators collaborate to ensure that promising startups receive the right support, at the right time, as they grow and scale?

Our round table event – attended by Nadine Lacroix Oggier, Cluster Manager at Cluster Food & Nutrition, Camille Bossel, Co-Founder and COO at FoodHack, Ingeborg Gasser-Kriss, Co-Director at the Founder Institute Food Ecosystems Accelerator, Katka Letzing, CEO and Co-Founder at Kickstart Innovation, Matthew Lashmar, Managing Director at Masschallenge, Lucas Grob, Innovation Manager at Swiss Food Research and Christine Gould, CEO at Thought for Food – was designed to explore these questions and consider how the Swiss Food and Nutrition Valley can help to maximize the reach and impact of these organizations’ work in 2022.

What we heard
A round of introductions helped to identify synergies and potential areas for collaboration. Although each partner has a unique offer and approach, it soon became clear that many attendees also faced similar challenges and opportunities in their work.

Everyone agreed that Switzerland has a really strong offer for attracting international talent – from leading universities and research institutions to the sheer breadth of funding opportunities available. But there is also more we can do in terms of communicating our offer at a national level and ensuring that we retain talent as startups grow and scale.

Discussing and making actions in the office

Christina presented the idea of an “Ecosystem Navigator” – a platform that provides startups with a clear overview of the package of support that Switzerland can offer as a food nation. This would also mean that ecosystem actors are better placed to make the most of existing initiatives, like international startup tours.

The event drew to a close with a brainstorming session. Attendees were invited to share their thoughts on what an Ecosystem Navigator could look like in practice, identify needs and leads per organisation and vote on the key opportunities for collaboration in 2022.

What happens next?
The SFNV team has pulled together the learnings from the sesssion and we look forward to working with attendees to define the next steps. As a starting point, the SFNV team will be connecting with each of the participants to understand their key communication and project milestones for 2022 and consider how we can collaborate to strengthen their joint reach across their existing communities.

Do you work in an accelerator or startup promotion organisation and would you like to be involved in these discussions? Reach out to SFNV team.

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An interview with Yasemin Sharityar, Head of Impact Platforms

Dec 14, 2021 | Ecosystem news, Impact Platforms

An interview with Yasemin Sharityar, Head of Impact Platforms

Over the last four months, SFNV has launched its first Impact Platform on Precision Nutrition. We caught up with Yasemin, Head of Impact Platforms SFNV, to find out more about what’s happened so far and hear about the four additional platforms we’ll be launching in 2022.

What are the SFNV Impact Platforms, exactly?
Impact Platforms aim to unleash purpose driven innovation for better planetary and human health. We come together in different formats to collaboratively discuss and work on impactful ideas. It’s about harnessing the power of the Swiss ecosystem, creating synergies and doing things that none of us can do on our own. In 2021, we’ve held a series of events on the topic of precision nutrition to scope out the first of our five Impact Platforms.

Which events have you held so far?
Our first event brought together all members with a shared interest in precision nutrition. This gave us the opportunity to discuss the fundamentals of the topic. It soon became clear that there’s no established definition of “precision nutrition” or “personalized nutrition” (yet!) and that these terms are often used interchangeably. Our second event was an open invitation Round Table. We invited three expert speakers from Nestlé, Terra Lumina and LOEWI to share the work they’re doing in this space. We then followed up with two Garage events.

What did you do in the SFNV Garages?
The SFNV Garages are where the real work happens! Supported by McKinsey & Company we organized two Garages. In Garage #1 members defined a broad, common vision for the Impact Platform and identified current challenges and gaps. Then, in Garage #2, we transformed these into opportunities. The session identified 15 concrete project ideas, ranging from a cohort study and digital apps to the creation of a nutrition registry. We were thrilled that more than 20 members from a diverse range of backgrounds got involved. There was so much energy in the (virtual) room! Everyone was eager to collaborate and find new ways of moving the needle on this important topic.

What are your plans for 2022?
In January, we’ll be holding a series of project kick-off meetings with members who have expressed an interest in leading, contributing to or supporting the identified projects. We’ll work together to define what success would look like, assess potential project impact and agree key milestones. When the projects have started to take form, we plan to invite all SFNV members to a pitch event to give project teams feedback and share the skills, knowledge and resources to make them a success.

Building on these learnings, we’ll also be launching four more Impact Platforms later in the year on Sustainable Proteins, Food Systems 4.0, Future of Farming and Sustainable Packaging and working alongside members to create collaborative innovation projects around these verticals.

How can SFNV members and the broader Swiss food ecosystem get involved?
You can find out more about the SFNV Impact Platforms here. We’ll be sending out e-invites to members-only events, but we’ll also be organising some sessions that are open to all ecosystem actors. Follow us on LinkedIn to get the latest updates. If you’re looking to develop a project in one of our areas of focus or have knowledge or expertise to share, please do get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.

Would you like to know more about the SFNV Impact Platforms?

Get in touch!

Yasemin Sharityar

Head of Impact Platforms
yasemin@sfnv.ch

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