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ETH ZURICH

EPFL startups raise record funds in 2016

Business is booming for Switzerland’s startups, if the latest figures from federal technology institute EPFL are anything to go by.

Published: 14 December 2016 12:09 CET
EPFL startups raise record funds in 2016
Lausanne's EPFL is at the forefront of innovation in Switzerland. File photo: Alain Herzog

Companies  linked to the Lausanne-based tech university raised 397 million francs ($393m) in 2016, smashing the previous record set in 2014, of 242 million francs, EPFL said in a statement.

The funds were raised by spin-offs created as a result of technology developed in an EPFL lab or created by a campus researcher, as well as companies located within EPFL’s Innovation Park, a tech community on the EPFL campus that hosts over 120 start-ups and 23 large companies including Intel, Logitech and Siemens.

A huge 100 million francs was raised by one company alone, EPFL spin-off Mindmaze, which specializes in rehabilitation for brain injury survivors through virtual reality.

AC Immune, a start-up that has developed a vaccine for Alzheimer’s, was the second biggest fundraiser, attracting 42.7 million francs.

The amount raised this year is a clear sign of the solid health of EPFL’s business ecosystem, said the institute, adding that many of the 15 or so start-ups created each year manage to find investors quickly.

“While total funds didn’t surpass 50 million francs before 2010, they have regularly exceeded 100 million francs ever since,” said Hervé Lebret, head of a fund that helps EPFL companies get off the ground.

The expansion of Innovation Park and the creation of more assistance to startups has helped such businesses in recent years, added the statement.

In the past three years half of funded startups found their funding in Switzerland, a quarter in Europe and the rest from the US and Asia.  

Established in its current form in 1968, EPFL is the sister school to Switzerland’s other technology institute, ETH Zurich.

Both are regarded as among the leading technology universities in the world. Earlier this year EPFL was declared the fourth most innovative university in Europe in a global ranking by Reuters, with ETH Zurich coming in at number ten.

Several startups incubated at EPFL have made headlines in recent months, particularly BestMile, which developed a fleet management system for driverless buses launched in Sion.

In August Switzerland was once again declared the most innovative country in the world in a ranking backed by UN agency the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

READ MORE: Swiss rush to support 'sexy' startup trend

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STARTUPS

Swiss students break world record for electric car acceleration

From zero to 100 km/h in less than a second: a racing car built by students has broken the world record for electric vehicle acceleration, a Swiss university said Tuesday.

Published: 13 September 2023 08:49 CEST
Swiss students break world record for electric car acceleration

Students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences designed and built the “Mythen” vehicle that achieved the feat, ETHZ said in a statement.

“Now, Guinness World Records has confirmed that Mythen broke the previous world acceleration record for electric vehicles,” it said.

Covering a distance of 12.3 metres (40.4 feet) at the Switzerland Innovation Park in Duebendorf, opposite the students’ workshop, the car was powered from zero to 100 kilometres an hour (zero to 62.15 miles per hour) in 0.956 seconds.

“This beats the previous world record of 1.461 seconds, set in September 2022 by a team from the University of Stuttgart by more than a third,” ETHZ said.

According to the statement, around 30 student members of the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ) had spent the better part of a year on the project.

All the components, “from the printed circuit boards (PCBs) to chassis and the battery, were developed by the students themselves and optimised for their function”, it said.

The vehicle weighs just 140 kilogrammes (309 pounds) and boasts 240 kilowatts of power, or around 326 horsepower.

The vehicle’s driver was named as Kate Maggetti, a friend of students involved in the project, who was “selected due to her light body weight” and “willingness to take on the challenge”, Yann Bernard, head of motor at AMZ, told AFP.

“Working on the project in addition to my studies was very intense,” Bernard added in the statement.

“But even so, it was a lot of fun working with other students to continually produce new solutions and put into practice what we learned in class,” he said. “And, of course, it is an absolutely unique experience to be involved in a world record.”

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