Kickstart Innovation marks 10 years and 400 deals as Switzerland’s open innovation engine accelerates

Kickstart Innovation celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, marking a decade of collaboration between startups, scaleups, and major Swiss organizations. During the 2025 edition of its annual program, held in Zurich, the open innovation platform announced more than 20 new partnerships, reinforcing its role as a central connector in Switzerland’s innovation landscape.

Founded in 2015, Kickstart Innovation has supported more than 500 startups and scaleups. Across that period, the organization reached 400 innovation deals with leading domestic and international companies. Participating ventures raised more than CHF 3.1 billion (US$3.5 billion) in funding for solutions spanning sustainability, energy transition, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence. The program marked the milestone by looking ahead to a new phase centered on responsible and human centric AI.

Katka Letzing, CEO & Co Founder of Kickstart Innovation, said the anniversary reflected both the longevity of the program and the growing demand for collaborative development. “Celebrating 10 years of Kickstart means celebrating hundreds of collaborations that have turned ideas into impact,” she said. “Our mission has always been to bridge the gap between startups and established organizations to co create meaningful solutions. The demand for responsible, technology driven, and scalable innovation is greater than ever and we’re proud to see Switzerland playing a leading role in this transformation.”

The 2025 cohort included startups from 14 countries offering solutions across fields such as deepfake detection, preventive health, and AI powered retail technologies. Kickstart reported that 95% of the new solutions integrated artificial intelligence, signaling a strong shift toward what it described as AI for Good, or AI designed to be sustainable, transparent, and human centered. To support this approach, Kickstart co initiated Swiss {ai} Weeks earlier in the year. The national platform brought together researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to encourage dialogue about ethical, inclusive, and sustainable AI, positioning Switzerland as a hub for responsible artificial intelligence.

Several major Swiss companies again served as program partners, including AXA, the City of Zurich, Coop, la Mobilière, MSD, and PostFinance. Swisscom and other established institutions also contributed through pilots, research collaborations, and commercial projects. Andreas Schönenberger, CEO of Sanitas, said the program helped established companies test approaches quickly while meeting changing customer needs. “Over the past decade, Kickstart has built a bridge between the entrepreneurial spirit of startups and the market expertise of established organizations,” he said. “This collaboration model allows us to test and scale solutions faster, addressing evolving customer needs while contributing to Switzerland’s innovation leadership.”

The long view of Kickstart’s work showed how these collaborations unfolded across industries. Early partnerships included Planted working with Coop and decentriq collaborating with PostFinance. More recent examples involved ventures in fintech, healthtech, and climatetech, including Fini and Pacifico Biolabs. The program’s alumni now included several high profile Swiss and international startups such as KernTec and Multimodal.

As part of its anniversary year, Kickstart expanded Mission 2050, the long term initiative launched in 2023 to help organizations innovate toward a more sustainable and equitable future. Partners such as IKEA Switzerland and Mondelēz used Mission 2050 to advance both technological and environmental solutions. IKEA Switzerland highlighted its work on circularity, including efforts to recycle operational wood waste. “One of our highlights was the global scouting for innovative startups with Kickstart Innovation. We worked with one of the finalists, Lixea Sweden, on a lab scale project and we are delighted to announce the continuation of this proof of concept with them,” said Monika Wülser, Sustainability Business Partner at IKEA Switzerland.

Kickstart also continued to scale its Academy, which offered hackathons, innovation sprints, expert sessions, and intrapreneurship programs. The Academy aimed to strengthen internal innovation within large companies and foster more entrepreneurial thinking across teams.

Among the 2025 pilots were several collaborations in the Food and Retail vertical. Circly GmbH and Halba Swiss Chocolates worked together to test automated demand forecasting for Halba’s product portfolio. Halba and Kokomodo partnered to explore opportunities to develop and test a cell cultivated cacao proof of concept, assessing functionality, sensory properties, and scalability in industrial chocolate applications. Coop partnered with FruitfulAI to evaluate an AI based quality control system at Eisberg’s Dällikon facility, with the proof of concept focused on integrating automated label and content verification into packaging processes. Coop and Pacifico Biolabs also collaborated on the development of mycelium based meat alternatives across several product areas with the goal of improving the quality of sustainable protein options.

Letzing said Kickstart would continue to strengthen the model that shaped its first decade. “Ten years ago, Kickstart was born out of a belief that collaboration is the key to systemic change,” she said. “Today, there is a shift in innovation driven by maturity of the ecosystem and that belief is stronger than ever and we look forward to the next decade of innovation, partnership, and progress.”

The organization closed its tenth edition by emphasizing continuity alongside expansion: supporting responsible innovation, enabling practical pilots, and fostering long term partnerships that bring new technologies to market in Switzerland and beyond.