With the creation of the Biopôle Start-up Fund, Biopôle confirms its eagerness to support life sciences entrepreneurs and give them firm foundations in the canton of Vaud.
In 2018, the campus launched StartLab, the first incubator of its kind for life sciences start-ups in Switzerland. In 2019, it created the Digital Health Hub, where companies striving to develop digital solutions can work together and share experiences.
The new Biopôle Start-Up Fund, with an annual budget of approximately CHF 500’000, aims to help accelerate the innovation of start-ups established at Biopôle and active in any area of the life sciences, be it biotech, medtech, pharma, digital health, nutrition or any other related field.
The initiative is intended to support projects that promote the life sciences in their initial innovation phase. Applications are welcomed at any time from start-ups that are established at Biopôle, have been in existence for less than 5 years and have raised less than CHF 5 million in funding.
Biopôle’s management team will be supported by an independent Scientific Advisory Board in evaluating and selecting the best and most promising applications, taking into account scientific excellence, the relevance of the business model and the quality of the founding and management teams.
No strings attached financing for promising start-ups
Nasri Nahas, CEO of Biopôle, explains that the fund’s primary goal is to encourage start-ups that show scientific impact and growth potential: “We at Biopôle are always eager to help our entrepreneurs in their innovation journey. With this new fund, we aspire to help our most promising start-ups to focus on their scientific contributions and on serving their clients and stakeholders. That is also why we have devised our Start-up Fund not as equity investment or a traditional loan but as a source of no-strings-attached financing. Only the most successful companies will be asked to reimburse their funding to help give back to the Biopôle community.”
