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How Fribourg supports its growing start-up scene: Fri Up

Created in 1989, Fri Up is one of Switzerland’s oldest start-up support organizations. It has recently enhanced its service offering and established fruitful partnerships with Seed Capital Fribourg and Startupticker.ch.

Fribourg and Poya bridge
Fribourg offers fertile ground for start-up creation and growth.

Fri Up fosters entrepreneurship and innovative young companies in the canton of Fribourg. It focuses on start-ups addressing a new market or a new need and provides them with professional coaching and mentoring, access to high-end infrastructures and support in finding potential clients and partners.

In 2017, Fri Up initiated a collaboration with Seed Capital Fribourg in order to provide additional resources to new entrepreneurs. Thanks to this partnership, the start-ups selected by Fri Up and Seed Capital Fribourg are now able to apply for seed funding to finance the realization of a prototype or a feasibility study.

To increase the visibility of the start-ups it coaches and to attract new companies to the canton of Fribourg, Fri Up has now become an official partner of online news portal Startupticker.ch. The platform provides daily information on the Swiss start-up scene, from company results and the launch of innovations, to events and award tenders.

Good conditions for start-ups

The Fribourg ecosystem offers fertile ground for start-up creation and growth. 13,000 students are enrolled at the University of Fribourg and the University of Applied Science. The canton is home to a number of innovative SMEs and global companies including Alcon Pharmaceuticals, UCB Farchim, Liebherr, Ladurée and Maxwell Technologies. Fri Up fosters collaboration and synergies between established firms and start-ups.

Among the start-ups supported by Fri Up is Nanolockin, the first spin-off from the Adolphe Merkle Institute in Fribourg. Launched in February 2018, it aims to commercialize a novel characterization method to help optimize the design of nanoparticles.

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