Tamedia : supports leading Swiss start-up competition (18 January 2016)

Zurich, 18 January 2016 - The Swiss media group Tamedia is the new media partner of 'venture', the leading Swiss start-up competition. More than 200 coaches and experts at 'venture' are supporting young entrepreneurs in establishing their own company in connection with the competition: The contestants are provided guidance in developing their own business idea or in preparing a business plan. To date, over 2,500 participants have taken part in the competition, over 650 companies were founded and approximately 6,000 employees are working at 'venture' alumni start-ups by now. This year's competition begins on 9 February in Lausanne and on 10 February in Zurich.

'As a media group with a digital focus, it is a pleasure to support the leading start-up competition in Switzerland. The successful development of Tamedia was achieved by commitment and increasingly also by technical innovation', said Pietro Supino, Publisher and Chairman of the Board. 'We would like to encourage young talents with innovative ideas to do the same.'

Winners in the category Business Plan will receive a prize of CHF 120,000, while the contestants with the best business idea will be given a start-up consultation by McKinsey & Company Switzerland and prize money of CHF 10,000. Some successful companies have emerged from past competitions, such as Sensirion, a leading manufacturer of high-quality sensors and sensor solutions to measure and control humidity and the flow rate of gas and fluids, or the current Tamedia investment Olmero, a former spinoff of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, which simplifies construction processes, among other things. Represented on the Advisory Board, in addition to Tamedia Publisher Pietro Supino, are more than 20 leading Swiss and international companies already as well as universities and institutions. The start-up competition is an initiative of the ETH Zurich, McKinsey & Company Switzerland, Knecht Holding, the Committee for Technology and Innovation (CTI) and Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). It will be held for the eleventh time in 2016.