Swisspreneur Show Swisspreneur

Timestamps:

5:15 - Having a co-founder pass away

10:33 - Drug resistance and cancer patients

18:24 - Clinical development

23:17 - Raising a series A as a biotech

26:43 - Striking partnerships 



Check out the LinkedIn event for our livestream with Aurelio Perucca on May 22nd.



About Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual:

Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual is the co-founder and CEO at TOLREMO Therapeutics, a biotech startup on a mission to prevent non-genetic cancer drug resistance. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Translational Biomedicine from ETH and worked there as a Postdoctoral Researcher before starting TOLREMO in 2017 together with Wilhelm Krek, who has since tragically passed away. 

There is no shortage of cancer therapies in biotech and medtech, and one common problem that they face is drug resistance: even if a certain therapy is at first successful in reducing the tumor’s size, patients sometimes develop a resistance to it, whether it be genetic or non-genetic, and the therapy stops working. To use a tech metaphor, genetic drug resistance is akin to a hardware problem, whereas non-genetic drug resistance is more similar to a software malfunction. Since non-genetic resistance is much more dynamic, it’s harder to measure and combat — this is what Stefanie and her fellow researchers have been studying for the past few years. They discovered a pivotal mechanism that governs critical transcriptional resistance pathways, i.e., that stops cancer drug resistance as it emerges without interfering with cancer-unrelated pathways.

TOLREMO recently completed its Series A financing, bringing their total amount raised to USD 39M. Their ultimate goal is to prove the efficacy of their treatment and join forces with a larger pharma company.

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Timestamps:

1:45 - Leaving Batmaid for Holistiq

8:52 - Holistiq’s incredible traction

10:05 - The healthcare market

12:10 - Hiring the right people as a startup

13:58 - Raising funds through the Swisspreneur Syndicate



Click here to apply to join our 2024 Lausanne Scaleup Cruise. 



About Eric Laudet:

Eric Laudet is the founder and CEO of Holistiq, a startup offering an organic and personalized approach to healthcare which aims to solve health issues at their root, instead of just treating symptoms. Eric holds a master’s degree in Business Management from HEC Paris, and previously co-founded Batmaid and was active for 6 years as its CFO before starting Holistiq in 2022.

Holistiq’s approach combines different healing systems to create natural therapies that are tailored to the needs of patients and backed by research, lab tests and data science. They operate a digital platform and urban health centers with a team of complementary medicine therapists, life & health coaches, nutritionists, and functional medicine doctors, to support the healing of chronically-ill patients and help others find optimal health.

During his chat with us, Eric placed Holistiq’s offering between that of regular doctors, which are in his opinion currently better suited to treat acute disorders than chronic disorders, and the offering of longevity startups, which often only help people with the prevention of disease, not with treating existing diseases. He also criticized longevity startups for sometimes tracking biomarkers which do not move the (health) needle, merely for publicity’s sake. Eric added that Holistiq’s offering is partly covered by health insurance, and is meant for the masses, not just for the wealthy few.

Despite being in operation for only 2 years, Holistiq already has impressive traction: CHF 400K in revenue (with a 50% gross margin), 1000 paying patients, and both offline and online offerings. They are currently raising a seed round of CHF 3M, CHF 250K of which they’ve already raised from business angels, and CHF 250K which they expect to raise through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. The remaining CHF 2.5M will be raised from healthtech VCs. Click here to learn more about the deal.

Timestamps:

1:42 - The food industry

11:20 - Ensuring quality across suppliers

16:41 - Maintaining a high shelf life

26:10 - Markets Planted is tackling next

33:20 - Small pivots over time



About Pascal Bieri:

Pascal Bieri is the co-founder of Planted, a startup creating healthy plant-based meat alternatives. He holds an MA in Informations-, Media- and Technology Management from the University of St Gallen, and previously worked in companies like SweetWorks Confections and DeepTech Capital AG before starting Planted in 2019. He also co-founded the Green Liberal Party in Lucerne when he was 21, but the slowness of politics soon dissuaded him from getting further involved. 



So what’s wrong with livestock farming?

From a cold, technocratic point of view, not taking into account the environment, animal well-being or workers’ rights, current livestock farming practices were great for the meat industry, since they allowed it to achieve a fantastic production ration, super efficient supply chains, pay almost no taxes and deliver very low margins to everyone involved. Meat became cheap and accessible to almost everyone. However, this came at the cost of…


Destroying acres and acres of land to build livestock operations;


Establishing intensive monoculture farming operations which deplete soils of nutrients in order to feed livestock, which requires 25x the amount of those crops than we do to meet their nutritional needs;


Emitting 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is about the same as the amount emitted by the entirety of the transportation system.



‍

Planted makes meat alternatives mainly out of pea protein, which can be grown locally and gives great taste.  In 100 g of planted.chicken Nature, for example, there is 23.7 g of protein, which is about the same amount as found in conventional chicken meat. planted.chicken Nature consists of no more than four natural ingredients and a healthy portion of vitamin B12. What scares Pascal in the meat alternative market is not companies trying to produce equally healthy and tasty alternatives, but the companies making unhealthy products that taste terribly, which deter people from ever trying out a vegan product again. 



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Timestamps:

3:49 - Startups & IP rights

8:56 - Trademarks and patents

17:45 - Startups getting into IP trouble

25:58 - Protecting your IP globally

33:34 - Open source code



This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place this year on May 30th 2024. Click ⁠here⁠ to purchase your ticket.



About Matthias Kaech & Adrian Riedo:

Adrian Riedo is the founder and owner of RNX, short for Riedo Networks, a provider and distributor of energy monitoring and control solutions which began back in 2005. Matthias Kaech is a Senior IP Trainer at the Institute for Intellectual Property. 

Matthias and Adrian have a few IP recommendations for startup founders:


Never discuss (the intricacies of) your (tech) invention in public. Once the information is leaked, your patent may be ruined;


Look into the different types of IP protections and figure out which one is best for your company: patents for tech, trademarks for services, copyright/trademarks for software/apps, design rights for luxury products, etc..


If you want to file for a trademark, the only register you have to be in is the National Trademark Register. Any other registers that contact you are private registers, and you’re not required to be listed on them, so don’t waste your money;


Figuring out IP protection early on will give investors a positive view of your startup, partially because they know your product/service is protected, and partially because they see you took the trouble to make sure you had freedom to operate, and this shows competence;


You have to apply for IP protection in each and every country. As a resource-constrained startup, you should think about which countries are your main markets and where your main competitors operate, so that you don’t waste money.



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Timestamps:

1:48 - Getting into the insurance business

8:47 - The potential of digital insurance solutions

19:50 - The health insurance market

29:24 - Collaborating with other insurance companies

32:57 - Convertible loan over equity rounds



Check out the LinkedIn event for our livestream with Aurelio Perucca on May 22nd: https://www.linkedin.com/events/makingmoneyfromalternativeinves7191374767680057345/theater/



About Anina Lutz:

Anina Lutz is the co-founder and CEO of Calingo Insurance AG, a digital insurance company. She holds a MSc in Business & Economics from the University of Basel and previously worked at Helvetia before starting Calingo in 2020. 

As a digital insurance company, Calingo offers personalized insurance coverage at the point of sale in a hassle-free and digital way, for your home, your pets or your business. Their home insurance offer is 25% cheaper than market average, since they do not charge high commissions and have easy, low cost operations. Their pet insurance comes at a higher price at first, but since the premiums remain constant regardless of the pet’s age, the lifetime value ends up cheaper than other pet insurances.

They’ve partnered up with insurance companies like SwissRe to have them as risk carriers. Thus far they’ve decided not to delve into health insurance, since it is a rather saturated market. Instead they plan to use next year's series A funds (provided that the round closes successfully) to set up a system of vet video calls and bring their services to Germany.

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Timestamps:

1:25 - Starting a business with your twin

5:19 - The PetTech market 

9:46 - From prototype to finished product

15:33 - Building a startup as a student

19:00 - Fundraising through the Swisspreneur Syndicate 



Click here to apply to join our Founders Dinner in Bern on May 30th.



About Oliver Widler & Denis Widler:

Denis Widler is the co-founder and Head of Business Relations at Flappie, a startup building an AI-powered cat door with integrated prey detection. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Innovation from HSG. Oliver Widler is Denis’ twin brother and the co-founder and Head of Technology at Flappie. He holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from ETH. 

Denis and Oliver started Flappie together in 2022 motivated by their personal experience growing up with furry friends who would bring “gifts” home. This got them thinking about a product that could prevent such unpleasant surprises, and with his engineering background Oliver devised a cat door which immediately recognizes when your cat tries to bring presents (e.g., mice, birds) into the house. Once recognized, the cat door locks automatically, and the cat (including the prey) stays outside until it returns with no prey.

The Widler brothers think the time is ripe for their product, considering that ⅓ of households globally have cats and that 81% of Gen Z live with cats. It seems they’ve been proven right: their product has been featured in over 200 media outlets since inception. 

They’re currently raising CHF 1M in funds, 500K of which they already have in soft commitments, and 50K of which are being raised through the Swisspreneur Syndicate. Check out our deal flow page to learn more.

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