Each year the top 100 startups in Switzerland are named and celebrated in Zurich at the “Top 100 Swiss Startups” event. This year, as has been the case every year, IMD has strong ties to a high proportion of the best Swiss startups.
Each year since 1999, participants in IMD’s MBA and EMBA programs have provided input and support to Swiss entrepreneurs with early-stage companies to improve their chances of funding and success, chosen through the annual IMD Startup Competition.
Thirty-one of the top 100 this year have worked with IMD, and school’s impact was particularly noticeable at the top, where six of the top 10 (and 3 of the top 5) have collaborated with IMD students and Faculty. Seventeen of the ventures worked with IMD EMBAs and accompanied them to Silicon Valley to pitch their business plans to leading investors in the region. The remaining companies worked on business projects with IMD’s fulltime MBA students (three of this year’s winners will be travelling with IMD EMBAs to Silicon Valley this month). In addition, one of the co-founders of the Number One company this year, Ava AG, previously worked with IMD while heading a separate venture.
Another of the award-winning startups, Privately, coming in at number 95, was founded by an IMD MBA alumnus, Deepak Tiwari, and he’ll be contributing next month to IMD’s Building on Talent program, together with several other Swiss ventures, such as Cash Sentinel, 7 Peaks, Carcodex and Komp-Act.
“I’m not sure if it is the magic of how IMD chooses the startups each year, or the value of the collaboration with our students that allows ‘IMD graduate startups’ to do so well year after year. In the end it is probably an equal combination of both selection and support that contributes to this continued success,” said Dr. Jim Pulcrano, who oversees the IMD Startup Competition that selects the young companies with which the school works.
The ranking is limited to companies that are five years old or less. The top 100 list is available online at www.startup.ch/top100
