Kickfund

Yesterday’s Vi Partners CEO Day at UBS Grünenhof in Zurich was truly inspiring.   A big thank you to our friends at Vi Partners – Olivier Laplace, Gaetano Zanon, Arnd Kaltofen-Ehmann, and Diego Braguglia – for the kind invitation and a great event.   It was fascinating to hear SpaceX veteran Lauren Lyons share how SpaceX drove down the cost of sending 1 kg of payload to space from up to USD 72,000 to just USD 2,700 (or even around USD 10 with Starship!) – enabling an entire space economy, highlighting the Swiss edge, and calling for more “Ph-Dos.”   Also inspiring was Philipp Spycher, co-founder of Araris Biotech (a Venture Kick alumnus), reflecting on his journey from founding to successful exit – the acquisition by Taiho Pharmaceuticals for USD 400 million upfront, plus up to USD 740 million in milestone payments.   The afternoon closed with Gaetano Zanon’s remarks on the launch of Vi Partners’ next fund, before a nice apéro over canapés.

Neology closes the first part of its financing round to provide green energy for off-grid and industrial applications! The Lutry-based startup joined our portfolio in June 2024, and we were happy to make a follow-on investment in this latest financing round. Neology develops ammonia power generators to replace diesel as an energy source in off-grid situations, such as ports, mining, and agriculture. Congratulations to Aris Maroonian, Ruben Feldman, CFA, and the entire team!

a-metal has been part of our portfolio since May 2024, and we were happy to make a follow-on investment as part of this oversubscribed round led by QBIT Capital! Congratulations to the team!

How does a young deep-tech company scale up production? This was the topic of our recent Kickfund Founders’ Dinner, where a small group of our portfolio founders from hardware-heavy startups got together. Our two expert speakers led the conversation. DECTRIS COO Silke Traut warned  that you shouldn’t look at production as isolated from the rest of your company's growth; you need to build your finances and company culture to support your manufacturing. Serial entrepreneur Kynan Eng shared some wild stories from his past ventures, demonstrating that even the greatest growth plan must adjust to shifts in global politics and market conditions. This dinner was one of many more Kickfund founder events to come! As a result of our co-investment strategy and close collaboration with Venture Kick, in less than two years we already have the largest early-stage deep-tech portfolio in Switzerland. This is an impressive group of companies and people behind them, and we intend to give our founders opportunities to connect and learn from each other. Wanja Humanes, CFA Thomas Möller

Kickfund backs you now 🤝 and doubles down later 💪 Kickfund doesn’t just write a first cheque and walk away. As CEO Wanja Humanes, CFA explains, their first investment is a signal of long-term support: and the odds of a follow-up round are very high. For founders, that means fast capital today and a committed partner for the journey ahead. 🎧 Catch the full episode with Wanja Humanes, available on our website and wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was co-produced with Kickfund, a VC fund investing in the most promising Swiss deeptech startups. Check out the link in the comments learn more about them! 

How do you turn cutting-edge Swiss research into global companies, and fund them all the way to Series A? In this episode, Kickfund CEO Wanja Humanes, CFA shares how Venture Kick and its follow-on investment fund create a seamless path from lab to market: 🤝 Why a flexible co-investment strategy beats rigid VC theses 💸 How graduates of Venture Kick can access fast, founder-friendly capital 🔑 Quality Stamp of Venture Kick: How 1,000+ pre-vetted startups de-risk early investment 🎧 Catch the full episode with Wanja Humanes, available on our website and wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was co-produced with Kickfund, a VC fund investing in the most promising Swiss deeptech startups. Check out the link in the comments learn more about them! 📸 The cover portrait was edited by smartportrait.

Are you curious about Kickfund’s investment philosophy? Do you want to understand how Kickfund builds on top of Venture Kick? Are you determined to know all about the deep-tech startup ecosystem in Switzerland? Do you wonder who the three musketeers of Kickfund are? If you said yes to any of the above, this might be for you. Our very own CEO and managing partner, Wanja Humanes, CFA, joined Merle Zur for a conversation in the latest Swisspreneur podcast episode. This is the first in a five-part series we’re co-producing with Swisspreneur – the later episodes will introduce founders from our portfolio companies. Thanks for the conversation, Merle and the rest of the Swisspreneur team! https://lnkd.in/efNPP-jd

DPhi Space offers a platform that makes it easy for anyone to deploy software in space or send hardware into orbit. So many things in our daily lives rely on information sent from space down to Earth, and DPhi solves two current bottlenecks: integrating instruments onto satellites and downlinking data. We interviewed DPhi Space founder Aziz Belkhiria about the challenges and rewards of building a space-faring company. Long time horizons are one such challenge, but the company has also shown it can be quick. DPhi Space was incorporated in January 2024, it graduated Venture Kick in March, joined the Kickfund portfolio in December, and launched its first mission into space in March 2025. Nomen est omen: DPhi Space has already defied space. Read the interview: https://lnkd.in/gF_VUx6z --- This article is the third part of a follow-up series with Kickfund portfolio founders, whose companies were highlighted in the Swiss Deep Tech Report 2025. We give you a chance to learn more about the people and ideas behind some of the numbers and future success stories.

Switzerland shouldn't copy Silicon Valley: we need to build on our own strengths. This was one of the sentiments from yesterday's Swisspreneur Scale Up Cruise, where we had a great evening connecting with many peers while enjoying one of the season's last mild nights on Lake Zurich. Péter Fankhauser from ANYbotics shared the unique challenges of scaling beyond 200 employees. We've also seen how Switzerland's startup environment has changed dramatically in just five years, as top global investors have turned their attention here for deep-tech opportunities. Deep tech is what we're good at, so we need to trust ourselves and focus on it instead of trying to mimic Silicon Valley. Many thanks to the Swisspreneur team for organizing such a well-run event – already looking forward to the next edition!

Congratulations to the Top 100 Swiss Startups - particularly the 29 in the Kickfund portfolio! At yesterday's #top100ssu award ceremony, Beat Schillig shared some back-of-the-envelope calculations about the financial returns of the companies that made it to the ranking during its 15-year-long history. The conclusion: you should invest in as many of the mentioned companies as possible. This is also the Kickfund philosophy, which is why we were proud to see that 29 of our current portfolio companies made it to the list! This year's list includes 46 first-timers, and ten of these rookies got to make a short pitch at the awards. We were particularly happy to see our Andrada Muntean from NovoViz, Alexander Kübler from RoBoa, Imad Abdallah from RTDT Laboratories, and Gallus K. from Tethys Robotics! Special congratulations to WattAnyWhere and Alexandre Laybros for winning the popular vote in the cleantech category! And of course we have the full list of Kickfund portfolio companies that made it to the Top 100: 6: Tethys Robotics 7: BTRY 9: Seprify 11: DPhi Space 21: Adiposs 28: RoBoa 46: viboo 50: NXI Therapeutics 54: FimmCyte 55: Neurosoft Bioelectronics 64: WattAnyWhere 66: NovoViz 71: CellX BioSolutions 72: metaLead Therapeutics 73: RTDT Laboratories 77: Nerai Bioscience 79: Aukera Therapeutics 80: Verretex 82: AlpinaSana 83: Scanvio Medical 85: IMAI MedTech 86: qCella 87: Tandem Therapeutics 88: irmos technologies 90: HeroSupport 91: Perovskia Solar 94: Grensol 95: biped robotics 97: flowbone Venturelab