« Es gibt noch ein paar Stellschrauben »

Interview mit Pascal Mathis, Mitgründer und ehemaliger COO von GetYourGuide

Wer bist Du? 

Ich bin Mitgründer und ehemaliger COO von GetYourGuide. Heute stecke ich all meine Energie in die Zusammenarbeit mit Startups, sei es als Business Angel, Mitglied im Verwaltungsrat oder mit meiner neuen Firma Wingman, welche Jungunternehmer coacht. Davor habe ich bei Google als Industry Manager gearbeitet. Studiert habe ich Elektrotechnik an der ETH Zürich.

Was war die Idee hinter GetYourGuide und wie hat sich die Firma entwickelt?

Unser ursprüngliches Motto war: „Be a local everywhere you go.“ GetYourGuide ist eine Webplattform, wo Touristen Sightseeing-Aktivitäten, Touren und andere lokale Erlebnisangebote buchen können, wobei über 30’000 Angebote zur Auswahl stehen. Heute zählt die Firma über 300 Mitarbeitende. Die meisten davon sitzen in Berlin, 30 Mitarbeitende mit primär technischem Hintergrund sind in der Schweiz.

Wieviel Funding habt ihr erhalten und – falls öffentlich bekannt – wieviel davon kam aus der Schweiz? 

Wenn man alle Finanzierungsrunden zusammenzählt, hat GetYourGuide bisher CHF 90 Million eingesammelt. Dabei stammt ein kleinerer Betrag von Schweizer Investoren. Der Rest, also der Grossteil, stammt von ausländischen Investoren. Auch waren bei allen grösseren Finanzierungsrunden jeweils die Lead-Investoren aus dem Ausland. Abgesehen von der Seed-Finanzierungsrunde sind die Schweizer Investoren jeweils als Co-Investoren eingestiegen.

Wenn Du GetYourGuide nochmals gründen könntest, würdest Du wieder in der CH starten?

Ja, das würde ich. Ich finde die Schweiz ist ein sehr guter Standort für eine Firmengründung. Wir verfügen über einen grossen Talentpool. Zudem stehen wir auch für Werte wie Verlässlichkeit und Durchhaltevermögen; solche Werte braucht es, um eine Firma zum laufen zu bringen. Wo wir uns jedoch noch verbessern könnten ist beim Zugang zu Wachstumskapital und beim Umgang mit dem Scheitern. Es sollte nicht sein, dass man jemanden, der sich als Unternehmer versucht aber scheitert, gleich abstempelt.

Was ist Deine Vision für die Zukunft?

Ich möchte mit meiner Firma Wingman Startup-Gründern helfen, dass sie beim Firmenaufbau jene Fehler vermeiden, die wir bei GetYourGuide gemacht haben. Das Schweizer Startup-Ökosystem ist schon in vielerlei Hinsicht gut unterwegs, aber es gibt noch ein paar Stellschrauben, wo Potenzial brach liegt. Mit meiner Erfahrung möchte ich etwas zurückzugeben und so einen Beitrag zu leisten, dass Startups aus der Schweiz in Zukunft noch mehr grossartige Erfolgsgeschichten schreiben.

« Switzerland is one of the best places for technological innovation »

Interview with Cris Grossmann, Co-founder and CEO of Beekeeper

Who are you? 

I’m Cris Grossmann, Co-founder and CEO of Beekeeper. I’m a chemical engineer by training, but these days it’s people and not molecules that I try to bring together.

How do you do that?

Beekeeper is where tech meets people. Our vision is to digitize the non-desk workforce within organizations around the world. We typically work with companies with a considerable number of non-desk workers that often don’t have corporate email addresses. There are so many apps, operational systems, and communications platforms that clutter the corporate landscape. Beekeeper simplifies workflows by integrating multiple operating platforms within one secure and intuitive environment that everyone in the organization can easily access, even if they aren’t given corporate email addresses or company devices.

Using technology, we optimize human interaction by enabling two-way communication so management can also receive messages from employees in an engaging way. This promotes a culture of connectedness that allows everyone to operate as one and helps every single employee realize how they fit into the organization.

How much funding have you raised and did you find your investors in Switzerland or abroad?

So far we have raised $13M. Our ambition has been always to build a global company. investors come from Germany, London, Switzerland and Silicon Valley.

How did you experience the fundraising process?

The interest in what we are doing as an organization has been overwhelming, not only from investors but even more importantly from the market. The anticipated growth in the Workstream Collaboration segment within technology has created sizeable opportunities for both emerging and established vendors. Gartner is anticipating that end-user spending on workstream collaboration (WSC) was estimated at $171 million for 2016 and will grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 96% to reach $4.931 billion. This makes fundraising easier.

If you could start the company all over again, would you startup in Switzerland?

I would. The Swiss government’s investments in exceptional education establishments like ETH and EPFL has created an environment where ideas and innovation thrive. While I have great appreciation for Silicon Valley, I believe Switzerland is one of the best places in the world for technological innovation. Coupled with the access to private equity, family offices, VC’s, and angel investors as well as initiatives like the Pro Zukunftsfonds Schweiz Foundation that are working to increase the availability of growth capital, Switzerland is a great starting point and I would do it all over again.

What are your plans for the future?

As the Beekeeper platform evolves, our clients are constantly finding new uses for the platform which has inspired a number of new features and integrations with other operational systems. The new marketplace that has been created through our innovation will help us scale rapidly. To accommodate the anticipated growth, we are scaling our teams in San Francisco, London, and Berlin, in addition to some major partnerships that will be announced in the coming months.

How many employees does Beekeeper have?

Currently, Beekeeper employs 60 people, and we’re fastly growing towards 100+ for next year (2018).

www.beekeeper.io

« The pressure during fundraising can reach unhealthy levels »

Interview with Rico Chandra, CEO & Co-founder of Arktis.

What do you do?

We detect radiation signatures from shielded nuclear materials such as plutonium and uranium. Our technology enables you to detect and differentiate weak radiation signature from the natural background radiation. That’s very important in the field of security. If you are not good at making that distinction you have a lot of false alarms.

How did you get to do what you are doing today?

I studied physics at ETH and later completed my phD at CERN where I worked on a technology for studying dark matter in the universe. This technology lies at the heart of Arktis radiation detectors.

Who are your customers?

We started out as a security pure-play; our clients include the US Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment. Recently we have also expanded into private industry. For example, we just installed a radiation portal monitor at a steel mill in Europe. The private industry is increasingly going to be a growth-market for us.

How much funding have you raised and did you find your investors in Switzerland or abroad?

In our last financing round we raised $10m. A significant fraction of our funding comes from Switzerland.

How did you experience the fundraising process?

I experienced raising financing as a very time consuming process. The pressure experienced by an entrepreneur during fundraising can reach unhealthy levels.

If you could start the company all over again, would you startup in Switzerland?

For the the industry we operate in, there are several reasons why the US would be the location of choice. That said, Switzerland offered us many advantages, including access to talent and cutting edge research centers like CERN and ETH Zurich.

What’s the vision for Arktis?

We want to make the world a safer place. We want to do this by providing the detection technologies that enables not just governments or professional specialists to detect nuclear radiation, but also everyday users. We see it as one big market and we want to take a leadership position in it.

www.arktis-detectors.com