Zurich startup directory
Explore startups, investors, and ecosystem operators in Zurich, Switzerland.
Showing 21–40 of 61 Zurich · Switzerland
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ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) is one of the world's leading technical universities, consistently ranked in the global top ten for engineering, computer science, and natural sciences. Founded in 1855 by the Swiss federal government, ETH Zurich has produced 22 Nobel laureates and is the academic origin of many of Europe's most important deep-tech companies, including Scandit, Planted, and Araris Biotech. Its Technology Transfer Office (ETH Transfer) manages IP licensing and supports spin-out creation, having enabled over 500 spin-off companies. ETH Zurich's Pioneer Fellowship and Student Project House programmes provide early-stage support to founders still on campus. For founders in the Swiss ecosystem, ETH Zurich is the deepest single source of engineering talent, research partnerships, and institutional credibility across fields from quantum computing and robotics to materials science and food technology.
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Flavio Pfaffhauser
Co-founder of Beekeeper, the Zurich-based frontline workforce platform he co-founded in 2012 with Cristian Grossmann. Pfaffhauser contributed to Beekeeper's technical architecture and product development, helping build the platform now used by over 1,000 enterprise clients globally. The company raised over $100 million and became one of Zurich's leading enterprise SaaS success stories.
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Italian Tech Forum - Swiss Market Edition 2026
Networking forum at the Swiss Stock Exchange in Zurich showcasing Italian startups and fostering cross-border partnerships between Italy and Switzerland. Features pitch sessions, investor panels, and structured B2B meetings. Valuable for Italian tech founders seeking Swiss capital, distribution partners, and access to the DACH market.
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Jörg Sandrock
Co-founder of Neon, the Zurich-based Swiss challenger bank he co-founded in 2018 with Julius Krieg. Sandrock previously held roles in banking and payments before launching Neon, which grew to over 200,000 customers. Neon operates as Switzerland's leading mobile-first bank, running on a banking-as-a-service partnership with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg.
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Julius Krieg
Co-founder of Neon, the Zurich-based Swiss challenger bank he co-founded in 2018 with Jörg Sandrock. Krieg led product and growth for Neon, helping the app reach over 200,000 Swiss customers with free everyday banking accounts and integrated savings products. Neon operates through a banking-as-a-service partnership with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg.
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Kevin Powell
Web development educator behind Embrace the Cascade, widely known for teaching CSS and modern frontend techniques to developers worldwide. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 ZurichJS Conf in Zurich.
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Klaus Hommels
Founder and Chairman of Lakestar, the Zurich-based venture capital firm he founded in 2012, which manages over 2 billion euros across early- and growth-stage funds. A German venture capitalist, he was an early backer of Skype, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Revolut, Klarna and Coinbase, and also founded the NATO Innovation Fund.
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Lakestar
Lakestar is a Zurich-headquartered venture capital firm founded in 2012 by Klaus Hommels, one of Europe's most prolific and publicly visible technology investors, whose pre-Lakestar angel track record included early bets on Skype, Spotify, and Facebook in Europe. The firm runs a multi-stage strategy spanning early-stage funds, growth funds, and public/crossover vehicles, with offices in Zurich, Berlin, London, and Zug. Notable portfolio companies include Revolut, N26, Mister Spex, Blockchain.com, GetYourGuide, FlixBus, and Opendoor. Lakestar manages over EUR 2 billion across funds and has been a vocal advocate at the EU level for scaling up European technology sovereignty, having been involved in initiatives like the European Tech Champions Initiative and the Scale-Up Europe pledge. It is one of the few continental European VCs that operates across the full venture lifecycle at significant scale.
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Lars Mangelsdorf
Co-founder and CEO of Yokoy, the Zurich-based AI-powered spend management platform founded in 2019. Mangelsdorf led Yokoy through a CHF 80 million Series B in 2022 led by Sequoia Capital, one of the largest Swiss fintech rounds of that year, and expanded the company from DACH into the UK and the Netherlands, building deep integrations with SAP and Oracle for enterprise finance automation.
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Ledgy
Ledgy is an equity and compensation management software company founded in 2017 in Zurich by three physicists who met at ETH Zurich. Its platform helps companies manage cap tables, employee share and option plans, funding rounds, valuations, compliance and investor relations, positioned as a European equity-management platform for high-growth international startups as well as larger and public companies. The company maintains offices in Zurich and London and reported reaching profitability in 2025.
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Lightrock
Lightrock is an impact-focused growth equity platform backed by LGT Group, the private banking and asset management group owned by the Princely House of Liechtenstein. Founded in 2019 as a spin-out from LGT's direct private equity activities, Lightrock deploys growth equity tickets of €10–50M into companies demonstrating measurable positive impact across climate, health, and financial inclusion. The firm operates from London with offices in Basel, New Delhi, São Paulo, and other cities, giving it an unusually broad emerging-market reach alongside its European portfolio. Notable portfolio companies include Bima, Karma Kitchen, and Proxona. Lightrock occupies a distinctive position in European impact investing: it combines the balance sheet credibility of a century-old royal banking group with a focused mandate, operational on-the-ground presence, and a willingness to invest in geographies and sectors that conventional growth equity skips. For Swiss and European founders building in healthcare access, climate solutions, or financial inclusion, Lightrock is one of the few growth-stage investors that evaluates impact metrics alongside financial ones.
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Liz Theophille
Chief Digital and Information Officer at Sandoz, a global generics and biosimilars company, with a career leading large-scale digital transformation across pharmaceutical and technology organizations. She is an announced keynote speaker at the 2026 #wetechtogether Conference in Zurich.
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Mark Erikson
Senior engineer at Replay.io and a maintainer of Redux, the widely used state-management library for JavaScript and React applications. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 ZurichJS Conf in Zurich.
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Matheus Albuquerque
Staff software engineer at Medallia focused on web performance and the React and JavaScript ecosystem, and an active conference speaker on frontend engineering. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 ZurichJS Conf in Zurich.
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Metafuels
Metafuels is a Swiss company developing new, more affordable sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) technology under its aerobrew platform, aiming to power air travel with a lower carbon footprint. It was founded by three co-founders who worked together in the energy sector for decades before starting the company.
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Neon
Neon is a Zurich-based digital bank founded in 2018 by Julius Krieg and Jörg Sandrock as one of Switzerland's first challenger banks. Operating on a mobile-first model with no branch network, Neon provides Swiss residents with free everyday banking accounts, a Mastercard debit card, and integrated savings and investment products. The app launched in 2019 and grew to over 200,000 customers, carving out a position in Swiss consumer banking against incumbents like UBS and competing with European neobanks like N26 that do not hold a Swiss banking licence. Neon operates under a banking-as-a-service model through a partnership with Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, which holds the banking licence. It is a benchmark for digital-first financial services built from within Switzerland.
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Nextesy
Zurich-based AI-first enterprise operating system for SMEs and freelancers that automates invoicing, accounting, payroll, and document management in a single platform. Built on ETH and HSG research. Connects all operational processes with AI as the core layer rather than an add-on module.
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Oviva
Oviva is a digital health company that helps people with weight-related and metabolic conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and hypertension, improve their health through medical nutritional therapy. Its model combines a medical-device-certified smartphone app with clinical teams of doctors, dietitians, and behavioural specialists, with patients logging meals, activity, and weight while receiving tailored remote support from their dietitian. The company describes itself as Europe's leading digital health provider for weight-related conditions, with care reimbursed as a certified DiGA in Germany, delivered in partnership with the NHS in the UK, and integrated into Swiss public healthcare. It is headquartered in Zurich.
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Pascal Bieri
Co-founder of Planted, the Zurich-based alternative protein company he co-founded in 2019 as an ETH Zurich spin-out. Bieri contributed the food science foundation that underpins Planted's wet extrusion platform. Planted's products — planted.chicken, planted.pulled, planted.kebab — are sold in leading Swiss and German retailers and food service chains.
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Philippe Sahli
Co-founder and CTO of Yokoy, the Zurich-based AI-powered spend management platform founded in 2019. Sahli led the technical architecture of Yokoy's AI engine for expense reports and invoice automation, helping scale the platform to enterprise customers across Europe after the company's CHF 80 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital.
