Kickstart Accelerator: Combining innovation with entrepreneurship

Projekt completed

The statistics say Switzerland leads the world for innovation. One reason is its many institutes of technology: they develop technical innovations and funding projects mean they have close ties with the private sector. But Switzerland is not exactly renowned for entrepreneurship, prompting many of the innovations developed here to look abroad for marketing.

Strengthening collaboration

Kickstart Accelerator wants to change all that. With the support of the Migros Pioneer Fund as one of its founding partners, the project aims to become a first port of call for start-ups. Kickstart Accelerator wants to help them fine-tune their ideas and and bring them onto the Swiss market. A platform helps to connect start-ups, businesses, municipalities, non-profit organisations and universities with a view to forging partnerships and speeding up deep-tech innovations.

Kickstart Innovation: a firm fixture since 2015

The objective is to make sure innovations stay in Switzerland and to bind a culture of entrepreneurship into this homespun innovation. The project evolved into Kickstart Innovation in 2015; it now ranks among Europe’s largest cross-company accelerators and is operated by Impact Hub Zurich.