Looking back on 2020
Dear EquityPitcher friends, family and partners
What a way to start the new decade! The world has changed so fast that no one could have even imagined it in 2019!
For more than a year now, there is only one dominating topic - COVID-19. Also for us as EquityPitcher, this all-changing, world-wide impact has turned many things upside down! Our thoughts are with all the people who have been hit so hard by this pandemic in terms of health and/or economy. Our thoughts are with those who faced extreme economic challenges during this time and especially with those who lost their loved ones.
We as EquityPitcher were - thank God - mostly spared from all these negative effects. On the contrary; we have to admit that 2020 was by far the most successful year in our company's history to date!
The news that excites us most, of course, is that all (!) of our 16 portfolio companies survived 2020 well. This is by far not self-evident, as we also have companies from the travel and event industry in our portfolio, among others. Furthermore, all of our portfolio companies - like many other companies - were temporarily held back from any sales activities. At the same time, some of them had a financing round coming up, and uncertainty was very widespread at the beginning of the pandemic. Our founders had to think about what to do next, be inventive and agile to keep their young companies, which do not yet have a renowned name, on track.
Portfolio Overview
However, our portfolio companies not only managed to survive the period with a degree of stability, but a majority of our 16 companies even achieved tremendous success in 2020.
"More than 60% of our portfolio actually saw a significant increase in YoY Growth over 2019!"
With RightNow, we have a company in our portfolio that has achieved revenues in the double digit range of millions!
OnlineDoctor has been successful in acquiring the largest German health insurance company, die Techniker, as a customer & partner, which means that 11 million insured people from Germany now have direct access to Online Doctor's services!
Futurae was able to enter a partnership with a very prestigious and world-leading financial services provider, which can definitely be considered as a milestone.
Xatena has managed to increase the purchasing volume on their platform to over CHF 200 million!
Vestr has increased the number of its customers by five times!
With an increase of over 7 million users, AirConsole can clearly be counted among the winners of the pandemic!
Guuru was voted the most customer friendly service provider in the UK and won other big key accounts!
Navus, as an event service provider, actually definite victim of the pandemic, has nevertheless managed to restructure itself in time, organize new financing and is now back on track for growth!
Cormo, iLocator, Opinary, ROOMZ & Yukkalab have all managed to win new customers, further expand their business & set the right course for 2021.
We also had the pleasure of welcoming 3 Newcomer, Anybotics,, Beelinguapp & viselio to our portfolio. The cooperation with viselio already started with existentially threatening challenges. Revenues from their core business, electronic visa creation, dropped virtually to 0 overnight. However, the team was so agile & professional and seized the opportunities that arose during this time. In the meantime, viselio generates monthly 6-digit revenues by selling PCR tests and is one of the leading companies in this field! An absolute beneficiary of the crisis, on the other hand, is our last newcomer, Beelinguapp, which offers a special kind of "language learning". Already over 3.5 million downloads are speaking for themselves!
Last but not least, we have Anybotics, the winner of the Swiss Economic Forum as best high-tech startup 2020, in our ranks. It's nice to mention that we were the first VC to believe in the team at a preliminary stage and accordingly invested in Anybotics even before the recently closed financing round.
"In 2020, over CHF 55 million (!) of fresh capital was invested in our portfolio!"
Financing rounds? Successfully completed financing rounds are an important indicator for the success of a portfolio, as they show that a company has developed well and that other, often larger investors believe in the success of a company.
We are proud to announce that in 2020 alone, more than CHF 55 million (!) of fresh capital was invested in our portfolio! In total, more than CHF 100 million have now been invested in our portfolio companies!
With Swisscom Ventures, the Wyss Foundation, SwissHealth Ventures (CSS), Project A, Mutschler Ventures, Joyance Partners as well as various other professional investors, we were again pleased to welcome new renowned and great co-investors to our portfolio in 2020.
300 created jobs is another key figure that we believe reflects that a Portfolio is moving in completely the right direction.
This is also confirmed by the personal awards that the founders have received in the last year. We are happy to announce that with Benedikt, Philipp & Torben from RightNow we have now 3 Forbes 30 under 30 selected founders in our portfolio. Equally highly decorated was Sandra Tobler from Futurae, who received the award for most innovative entrepreneur of the year.
About EquityPitcher Ventures
Finally, a few words about ourselves. One reason why we are able to announce the above-mentioned successes is that the financial resources we have received enable us to make targeted investments in such promising companies. Many thanks to all investors so far! At least as important as the capital is the fact that we have a great team that makes the selection and support of these companies possible in the first place. In addition to our core team, this includes above all our Board of Directors, our advisors and VP Bank with its highly professional team!
With now more than 50 industry experts, who bring us an invaluable added value through their know-how, it is only possible for us to win such successful startups for our portfolio and to support them in their growth according to all our possibilities! Many thanks for this!
So all that remains for us to say is that we are looking forward enormously to 2021 - to the further development of our portfolio companies,the new startups that will enhance our portfolio, the further growth of the unstoppable growing Swiss venture capital/startup ecosystem, to the people we will meet and the hopefully soon coming end of the pandemic and the personal exchange!
With warm regards
The EquityPitcher Team