11. June 2021 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Willkommen Lumiform

We are very happy to welcome Lumiform, a Berlin-based startup in our portfolio. Lumiform's goal is to become the #1 inspection application across industries! zu werden!

Who is Lumiform?

Lumiform is an inspection app that helps companies digitize pen and paper-based inspections with its intuitive and easy-to-learn application. They also help companies streamline quality management processes through personalized workflows. On their website, Lumiform already provides more than 12,000 templates for a wide variety of inspections that can be customized based on the quality manager's needs. Line workers and managers have uncomplicated access to the templates with the app. In this way, inspection times can be halved and documents can be prepared ready for auditing. aufbereitet werden.

What makes Lumiform interesting?

As serial entrepreneurs, the founder-brothers Lukas and Philip Blasberg have already carried out a successful exit. Lumiform has a unique and automated lead generation. Through several thousand landing pages, they have achieved a particularly high inbound rate. Lumiform, with its very user-friendly and at the same time comprehensive software, counts companies such as adidas, Aldi, BMW, Siemens and other industry leaders among its customers.

We look forward to support the strong team in their further growth.

22. April 2021 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Willkommen rready

Today we give a warm welcome to our newest family member in our portfolio. rready has already convinced well-known companies such as Siemens Energy, Roche, Implenia and SBB with its first product "KICKBOX". In an interview, the CEO of rready, Dave Hengartner, presents the innovation platform.

What is rready?

rready is an innovation-as-a-service platformthat helps companies implement and scale Intrapreneurship and Innovation The first product KICKBOX was initially developed under the brand GETKICKBOX under Swisscom. When we rolled out the Kickbox methodology 3 years ago, we noticed that there was a high demand in this area. To become Category Leader in Corporate Innovation, we need to complement the existing product with additional products and services to establish ourselves as a global innovation player. That is why we established the umbrella brand rready As a result, GETKICKBOX, as KICKBOX has been integrated into the product range with the new products IMPROVE and FEEDBACK. eingegliedert.

What are the products KICKBOX, IMPROVE and FEEDBACK?

“KICKBOX” is like the name already says, the kickboxing method. The Kickbox method is a well-known innovation concept, that we have developed further. Employees receive a physical toolbox and access to the platform.
Here you can find more information about "KICKBOX"

For our new product"IMPROVE" we have developed an app for improvement management. This program gives the opportunity to optimize the processes of the company for its employees as well as for the zu customers.
Here you can find more information about "IMPROVE".

“FEEDBACK” is a tool to test ideas and prototypes easily and quickly. Innovators are offered the opportunity to collect feedback from members of their organization in a decentralized and fast way. von Mitgliedern ihrer Organisation zu sammeln.
Here you can find more information about "FEEDBACK".

Are there any other products planned?

Our goal is to establish the 3 products first, but we already have an idea for a 4th product in the area of Open Innovation, for the collaboration of companies with startups. Furthermore, there are also further development opportunities for existing products, such as KICKBOX requests for ideas for specific problems in the public or at universities. As an example, Swisscom could not only look for ideas for 5G internally, but also externally. Or Siemens is currently promoting their challenges at universities via our software.

What is your vision with rready?

Our vision is to build an innovation ecosystem that enables cross-industry collaboration by allowing people to work together across companies through the software. This is currently happening at Switzerland Tourism and SBB, who have launched a joint sustainability initiative using our software. Our goal is to become the leading SaaS platform for automating innovation processes in large enterprises.

The rready team has impressed us from the beginning with their ambitious mindset and great drive. We are happy to support rready in bringing and establishing intrapreneurship and innovation in large organizations.

7. April 2021 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Financing round: Futurae

Futurae closes oversubscribed Series A financing round!

We are pleased to announce that our portfolio company Futurae has completed an oversubscribed Series A financing round in the amount of 5 million. As one of the high flyers in our portfolio, which has performed very well over the last years, we were also able to participate in this round. The Series A is led by the new investor Euroclear and and Co-Investors such as AXA Venture Partners and ZKB. The fresh capital gives Futurae the opportunity to accelerate its international expansion. and product development zu beschleunigen.

Sandra Tobler, CEO of Futurae, said:
“The customer authentication market is stuck with insecure and unusable solutions that dampen user engagement and break the digital journey. The main driver of our rapid growth, besides the high usability and ease of integration, is the fact that we help our customers to massively reduce their high support costs”

Since our first investment in 2018 we have been able to build a trusting relationship with the founders of Futurae and we particularly appreciate the professional and smooth cooperation. In the past years, the team has been able to convince with a highly competitive and scalable product and grow strongly. and stark wachsenThe coronavirus pandemic in particular created new challenges for companies as they had to adapt to an operating model where working from home has become the "new normal". The crisis accelerated the trend of digital transformation, and cybersecurity must now be a key issue. Demand has increased significantly, especially in the financial and healthcare industries. The ETH spin-off was able to convince with its authentication suite, that modular solutions that can be implemented easily and quickly for the individual needs of the companies.

We are looking forward to our joint journey with the Futurae team and are pleased to welcome Euroclear as a strong co-investor on board.

Click here for the full press release.

12. March 2021 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Come together 2021 “Wine & Cheese”

On March 5, 2021, we celebrated our annual “Come together” in the the unique “Wine & Cheese” format – and for the first time in virtual form. Despite the circumstances, the online event was a great success.

For the “Come together” gives our portfolio startups the stage to introduce themselves to the entire EquityPitcher network and to connect with each other. This is where our founders, advisors, investors and members of the EquityPitcher family meet.

You can get further insights in the video below, where we have summarized all the highlights for you:

Highlights

Welcome

Like in every «Come together» eröffneten Hermann & Sascha opened the event and gave insights into the past year, the current status as well as the outlook for the coming year with EquityPitcher.

Portfolio Showcase

In the Portfolio Showcase Andrea & Lukas presented our portfolio startups Navus, Cormo, iLocator, Xatena, AirConsole, YukkaLAB and Opinary and their highlights from 2020 as well as the development for the coming year. For the Ask & Needs of the startups, the entire EquityPitcher network was activated on this occasion.

Q&A

In an interesting Q&A session, the founders of the startups (Beelinguapp, Guuru, vestr, ROOMZ & viselio) that raised a funding round in 2020 gave us an insight into their industries and activities.

Keynote

FDP National Councilor Andri Silberschmidt provided exciting entertainment with his keynote speech on the topic of "Political Agenda for the Startup Ecosystem". Among other things, Andri gave an insight into where there is currently potential for improvement and what concrete proposals for solutions look like that are being discussed in the parliament.

Panel

The panelists Dr. Torben Antretter (RightNow,), Fredrik Isler (ANYbotics.) and Philipp S. F. Wustrow (OnlineDoctor) shared with us their experiences on "growth funding during COVID-19."

Despite receiving great feedback for the event, we would be very happy to have the "Come together" 2022 physically again!

26. January 2021 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

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! war!

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! hat!

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! von Online Doctor haben!

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! zu steigern!

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,, den 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. erhalten hat.

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,, die 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

18. December 2020 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Financing round: OnlineDoctor

OnlineDoctor closes oversubscribed Series A funding round of 5.5 million!

The founders Dr. Tobias Wolf and Dr. Philipp Wustrow of the internationally award-winning Swiss telemedicine startup OnlineDoctor AG were able to attract further renowned new investors in this financing round. The Swiss health insurance company CSS which invested in digital health startups with Swiss Health Ventures AG , took the lead in this round. In addition, with Mutschler Ventures and the US investor PilotRock Ventures, further significant new investors were acquired.

Already in 2019 EquityPitcher Ventures joined OnlineDoctor and now participated again in this financing round together with other existing investors such as Forty:one and various angel investors, such as Dr. Ole Wiesinger, former CEO of the Hirslanden private hospital group, played a major role in the capital increase.

This makes a total of more than CHF 8 million in venture capital that has flowed into the company.

Click here for the full press release.

16. December 2020 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Financing round: RightNow

RightNow receives EUR 8.5 million in Series A financing round from VR-Ventures and Schwarzwälder Bote

VR Ventures and the Family Office of Schwarzwälder Boten invest EUR 8.5 million in our LegalTech portfolio company RightNow,. With the fresh capital, the company aims to "further advance its product development and build the leading consumer receivables purchasing company." RightNow was founded in 2017 by Dr. Torben Antretter, Phillip Eischet and Dr. Benedikt Quarch. The young company focuses on so-called consumer claims purchasing and buys legal claims from customers in full.

Dr. Torben Antretter, co-founder and CFO of RightNow, said:

“With this investment, we have a solid financial basis for further growth. Our focus is now on further developing our products to make it easier and easier for existing and future customers to deal with legal claims.”

More about RightNow's funding round can be found here.

15. December 2020 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Willkommen Beelinguapp

It's that time again, the EquityPitcher family has a new addition! Beelinguapp, our latest venture, revolutionizes the language learning experience with a strong founding team.

Beelinguapp is a language learning application that allows you to learn a new language or improve your language skills by naturally consuming your daily real-life content such as favorite books, music, lyrics, or news. Texts are displayed in the native language and in parallel in the language to be learned as well as played back acoustically. So you don't just learn the classic ABCs or how to make small talk in French, but you internalize exactly the vocabulary you need to talk about your interests. This gives the learner the security and confidence to apply what he has learned directly in his personal everyday life.

Beelinguapp won the Editor`s Choice Award from Google Play and the WeWork Creator Awards in Germany. In the Apple and Play stores, Beelinguapp already has over 3.5 million downloads without any marketing spend and serves over 250,000 paying active users per month. We are convinced that Beelinguapp will differentiate itself from other language learning apps and revolutionize the language learning process. We are happy to support the multilingual team on their way.

You can Download the App here

9. December 2020 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Financing round: ANYbotics

ANYbotics closed CHF 20 million Series A financing round!

Our portfolio company ANYbotics. was a spin off from the Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich(ETH).The company has developed ANYmal, a four-legged robot that can see, hear and move around in challenging environments. In the future, it will inspect and monitor industrial plants or canalizations, for example, as well as take on dangerous maintenance tasks. Today, the ANYmal has already worked autonomously in Zurich's canalization system and carried out fully autonomous monitoring missions on offshore oil platforms. ANYbotics also cooperates with companies from the construction and energy industries, as Péter Fankhauser, co-founder and CEO of ANYbotics, explains.

To accelerate the large-scale rollout of its robotic solution, ANYbotics is entering into another round of financing with a group of well-known investors. The round is led by Swisscom Ventures and co-investors including us, EquityPitcher Ventures and Ace & Company as well as others.

We are proud to have been one of the first venture capital investors to recognize the potential of ANYbotics' cutting-edge technology prior to Series A and look forward to further collaboration with the ANYbotics team.

You can find out more in the video below.

24. November 2020 Uncategorized by kmoeller 0 Comments

Financing round: Guuru

Guuru closed USD 7.9 million Series A financing round!

Our Swiss SaaS start-up company GUURU Solutions Ltd. announced today that it has completed a USD 5 million expansion of Series A, bringing the total Series A financing to USD 7.9 million. The funds will be used to expand market reach in Europe and support GUURU's ambitious growth plans.

Guuru offers cloud-based services that allow brand ambassadors to provide live chat support to new and potential customers of a company. The solutions enable companies to outsource customer service and sales support. Companies can save up to 50% on costs compared to traditional customer service functions. Companies decide independently who will be appointed as Guuru. For each question asked, a proprietary algorithm finds the appropriate Guuru within a very short time. Well-known brands like SKY, brack.ch, Freitag or Intersport already rely on Guuru. Wir freuen uns auf die Zukunft und die weitere Zusammenarbeit.

Find more information here.