MassChallenge network in Europe is a no equity and not-for-profit platform that helps early-stage entrepreneurs all over the world.

Since it creation in 2010, more than 1200 young entreprises have been supported. More than  1,8 billions of dollars have been raised with a cumulative turnover of more than 700 millions of dollars and more than 60’000 employments generated. In Switzerland, MassChallengeSwitzerland was launched in February 2016 as a major start-up friendly accelerator platform in the country.

Our SwissCompanyMaker alumni have some great wins in the MassChallenge 2016 event: SwissDeCode and TwentyGreen won  50’000$ dollars each. Congratulations!

SwissDeCode brought a technology from the University of Geneva and the NCCR Chemical Biology (Winssinger lab) and shaped it to market needs. DNAFoil start-up offers a DNA-based on-site food authentification kit for professionals and transforms a time-consuming laboratory test into a portable, hand-held kit that gives actionable results in minutes. Since SwissDeCode joined  the MassChallenge program 4 months ago, they have engaged with 18 companies and won two revenue contracts to develop additional rapid DNA tests for specific applications in the food industry.

TwentyGreen addresses the huge societal challenge of meeting growing world demand for protein by offering a solution to animal feeding that is at the same time more beneficial for the farmed animals, more profitable for the farmer, and more sustainable for our environment.The start-up produces a new probiotic feed supplement for sustainable animal farming, exerting several beneficial effects simultaneously. Our product is based on research in intestinal health at EPFL in Switzerland where we have identified a naturally occurring group of micro-organisms that enhance the quality of the gut ‘microbiota’, a consortium of symbiotic organisms colonizing the gastro-intestinal (GI) tract that are essential for metabolizing food and activating natural immune defenses. TwentyGreen produces a natural animal feed probiotic that provides a combined solution for today’s three major animal farming problems: 1. Feed cost 2. Disease burden 3. Ecological impact.