The Canton of Fribourg presented the results and future outlook of its agri-food strategy Fribourg Agri&Food at the School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg (HEIA-FR). State Councillors Olivier Curty, Didier Castella and Sylvie Bonvin-Sansonnens highlighted a unique ecosystem in Switzerland, where business, education and research work hand in hand to strengthen innovation, sustainability and the economic impact of the agri-food sector.

Fribourg Agri&Food lies at the heart of the cantonal agri-food strategy and works in close complementarity with key pillars of the Fribourg ecosystem. Alongside Agroscope, the national centre of excellence for agricultural research, AgriCo, an innovation and establishment campus for agri-food companies, and the Food Research and Innovation Center (FRIC) of the University of Fribourg, an interdisciplinary centre dedicated to food sciences, Fribourg Agri&Food helps connect research, education and innovation.

This dynamic is driven by the collaboration of three cantonal directorates — Economy, Employment and Vocational Training (DEEF), Institutions, Agriculture and Forests (DIAF), and Education and Cultural Affairs (DFAC) — which combine their strengths to stimulate innovation, reinforce sustainability and energise a key sector of the Fribourg economy.

State Councillor Didier Castella, Director of Institutions, Agriculture and Forests, emphasised: “Agri-food is a pillar of our economy, and thanks to Fribourg Agri&Food, we are strengthening the canton’s competitiveness and attractiveness while positioning Fribourg as a leader in Swiss agri-food.”

Two instruments to support innovation

Fribourg Agri&Food deploys two complementary levers to support agri-food stakeholders:

• Funding through Innovation Vouchers (up to CHF 15,000 to test or prototype an idea) and Systemic Project Calls (up to CHF 150,000 to support high-impact collaborative projects).
• Services, offering a comprehensive set of tools designed to create a living laboratory, supporting farmers, entrepreneurs and project leaders from idea through to market launch.

Innovative projects transforming Fribourg’s agri-food sector

Three recent projects supported by Fribourg Agri&Food illustrate how innovation is concretely transforming the canton’s agri-food sector. Each highlights one of the programme’s key thematic areas:

• Wheydrogen (Biomass Valorisation): transforming whey, a by-product of the dairy industry, into green hydrogen and sustainable fertilisers.
• Rumex Fork (Agriculture & Industry 4.0): eliminating dock weeds without herbicides through artificial intelligence and electrification. The machine was presented on site during the press conference.
• ALI IMPACT (Consumers & Innovation): identifying and testing new psychological and marketing levers to encourage healthier and more sustainable food choices in collective catering.

State Councillor Olivier Curty, Director of Economy, Employment and Vocational Training, stated: “Agri-food innovation transforms challenges into opportunities: it opens up new prospects for our companies and strengthens the vitality of the Fribourg economy.”

State Councillor Sylvie Bonvin-Sansonnens, Director of Education and Cultural Affairs, noted that: “The strength of these projects lies in bringing together researchers and agri-food economic actors from Fribourg, who combine their expertise to create concrete solutions.”

Following the 2025 systemic project call, three new systemic projects have recently been selected. Full details are available here: www.fribourg-agrifood.ch/projets-soutenus  

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Scale-Up Vaud celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with the announcement of 44 labelled scale-ups, highlighting the depth and consistency of Vaud’s innovation ecosystem and its ability to generate concrete economic impact in Switzerland and internationally.

Seven new companies join the 2026 community: Atinary, Corintis, Destinus, Enlightra, Nu Glass, Oculis, and Voltiris. Among them, Atinary sees the label as both recognition and a lever for global expansion: “Being recognized as a Scale-up Vaud company is a proud moment for Atinary. This label confirms our growth trajectory and deepens our roots in Switzerland’s premier innovation ecosystem as we scale our Self-Driving Labs® solutions globally” Said Hermann Tribukait, CEO of Atinary.

Economic impact: jobs, capital and exits

The contribution of the 44 labelled companies is reflected in job creation and investment. Collectively, they have created 2,822 jobs in Switzerland and 5,102 jobs in total. In 2025, the cohort raised CHF 689,000,000 in publicly announced fundraising rounds, demonstrating sustained investor confidence in Vaud-based scale-ups.

The year also confirmed the ecosystem’s capacity to support companies through to major outcomes, with two exits in 2025: Nexthink and Doppl.

A new generation scaling faster and earlier

This 2026 intake points to a new generation scaling earlier and faster. Over the last three years, the seven newcomers increased their number of full-time employees by an average of +58%, compared with +27% for last year’s new entrants. They are also significantly younger: 4.4 years old on average, versus 8.8 years for the previous year’s newcomers. Across the full labelled community, the average age is 9.5 years, stable year-on-year – an indicator of a robust pipeline that continually produces mature, investable scale-ups. 

A crucial step

Moving from startup to scale-up is a critical step, full of challenges and potential pitfalls. Doubling the workforce, welcoming new investors, and making numerous strategic decisions— how can one avoid missteps?

LeadiNNg to Scale-Up is a program jointly offered by Innovaud and IMD, designed to support CEOs through this transition. Four editions have already taken place, featuring startups that have since evolved into scale-ups. « Once again, we have a few companies getting the Scale up Vaud label for the first time who have been part of the LeadiNNg to Scale up Program.

Not only do they come more prepared to get the most out of the community but they also know how much the peer exchange they experienced during the program will increase as the Scale up Vaud community is bigger and will benefit the rest of their C-level team” commented Charlotte Ducrot, Head of Scale up Vaud “We look forward to getting the whole community together in the coming weeks, introducing the new companies and integrating them into this amazing network who goes way beyond than just a Label”.

Meet the Valley Scale-ups

Voltiris SA: Voltiris’ innovative spectral filtering solution transmits all light frequencies needed by the crops into the greenhouse and transforms the remaining radiation into renewable power. Crop and energy production don’t have to compete, they complement.

Atinary: The pioneer of Self-Driving Labs®, builds intelligent solutions that unite AI, robotics, and human expertise to accelerate the development of molecules and materials. Atinary reimagines the laboratory space to unlock limitless science, for a healthier and more sustainable future.

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Valley partner, OneAgrix, a Swiss- and Singapore-headquartered trusted trade infrastructure company, holds patent-pending status with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its agentic artificial intelligence infrastructure designed to support regulated global food and FMCG supply chains.

Trade in Halal, Kosher, and Vegan categories operates across dozens of import jurisdictions, hundreds of certification bodies, and overlapping regulatory regimes. At ecosystem scale, verification and compliance workflows remain fragmented and non-interoperable, with supplier eligibility, certification integrity, and trade readiness still dependent on manual coordination across disconnected systems.

Regulated food and FMCG trade represents over ten trillion dollars in annual global trade flows, spanning developed and emerging markets and operating across complex regulatory and certification regimes.

The patent-pending architecture addresses these structural constraints. Rather than functioning as a marketplace or point solution, OneAgrix is designed as a central intelligence layer that coordinates eligibility determination, verification workflows, and trade readiness outputs across stakeholders, geographies, and regulatory environments. The system is manufacturing-integrated infrastructure, embedded into existing production and compliance workflows rather than introduced as a new system of record.

The architecture produces structured trade readiness handoff packages. These are machine-readable and auditable determinations that can be consumed directly by existing enterprise systems, including ERP platforms, quality management systems, certifier portals, customs brokers, and buyer procurement environments. This approach reduces adoption friction while strengthening auditability and regulatory continuity.

While initially developed with Halal trade as a primary focus, the infrastructure is extensible to other regulated categories including Kosher and Vegan, reflecting shared verification and eligibility requirements across values-governed supply chains.

“Regulated trade at scale requires infrastructure that can operate across jurisdictions, certification authorities, and rule systems without fragmentation. This filing reflects years of work building systems where trust, governance, and compliance continuity are designed into the architecture from the outset,”said Diana Sabrain, Founder and CEO of OneAgrix.

OneAgrix’s work has been referenced in the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Deployment Toolkit and the company has partnered with the International Trade Centre (UN/WTO) to support export readiness and regulated trade workflows for African member states. OneAgrix has also been recognised by COMCEC, the economic cooperation body of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation representing 57 member states, alongside global supply chain operators including Cargill and Kerry Group, as a model for cross-border food provenance systems.

The company has worked with government, trade-linked, and academic institutions across Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia on regulated food and agricultural trade initiatives.

About OneAgrix

OneAgrix is a Swiss- and Singapore-headquartered trusted trade infrastructure company building compliance-first systems for regulated global food and FMCG supply chains. The company supports verification, eligibility determination, and cross-border trade readiness across Halal, Kosher, and Vegan categories. OneAgrix holds USPTO patent-pending status for its agentic AI trade infrastructure.

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