Democratization of venture capital is in full swing

In Switzerland, a growing community of private investors is about to change the game of startup financing. Through the platform investiere.ch, already three startups were financed in a totally new fashion.

investiere.ch, an open platform for Swiss early-stage venture capital investments launched this spring, has successfully co-financed its second startup with a third closing soon to be announced.

__Private investors in search for tangible businesses

investiere.ch adduced evidence that it is actually possible to finance startup companies from a wide range of industries through direct investments from even less affluent private investors. With equity investments starting at CHF 6’000 (about EUR 4’500), many private investors became co-owner of innovative startup companies that previously went through investiere.ch’s due diligence and selection process.

"We know from our clients and partners, that an increasing number of people share the view, that investing in a young company they believe in, is much more tangible than placing a bet on the stock market" comments Laura Regazzoni, partner of Verve Capital Partners, the venture capital startup that developed and operates investiere.ch.

__Innovative funding of Swiss innovations

While most venture capital firms have long ago moved out of early-stage investments and battle for the more profitable and less risky later-stage deals, investiere.ch’s co-founder Steffen Wagner underlines, that investiere.ch will continue to focus on the seed and early stage: “the innovation potential of Switzerland’s startups emerging both, from its renowned universities, but also from entrepreneurs outside of academia, is one of the biggest in Europe yet largely untapped; we give a broader society the chance to diversify its portfolio with investments into this new asset class”.

Prof. Christoph Müller, heading the University of St.Gallen Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence, comments: "Crowdfunding has been much discussed in the recent past as a solution to the problem of early-stage financing. investiere.ch however has demonstrated for the first time how it can actually be done." He adds: "given the relevance of such new and more agile forms of startup financing to an economy’s innovative strength, it can only be beneficial if more people take the plunge and contribute capital and expertise where it creates most value".

__Rigorous selection and standardized investment process

Wagner adds: “We’re proud, not only of these first success stories, but also for two other reasons: Firstly, the fact that all startups presented on investiere.ch could be successfully funded is also revealing of our investors’ appreciation of our rigorous selection and due diligence process; secondly, our business model allows to mitigate current market inefficiencies by significantly lowering deal acquisition and transaction costs of early-stage investments”.

He continues: “These cost savings are not only achieved by the use of an internet platform as a market place and to automate the process, but through a standardization of investment models and processes and by leveraging our active network of entrepreneurs and experts for our deal sourcing and due diligence process”.

__Wide range of startups from nanotech to e-commerce

Having contributed to financing rounds in various fields such as medtech, search technology and nanotech, on September 21st, investiere.ch has published a new investment proposal in the area of e-commerce: The Geneva-based founders of ShopAlive have built a technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way we do online shopping - globally.

ABOUT VERVE CAPITAL PARTNERS

Verve Capital Partners is based in Zurich (Switzerland) and was founded in December 2007 with the aim to develop and implement innovative financing concepts for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and to enable private investors to get access to direct investments in SMEs.

Since February 2010, Verve Capital Partners operates investiere.ch - a new, agile form of financing, leveraging the internet, social networks and the growing interest of private investors to invest in innovative SMEs with tangible business models.

Verve Capital Partners delivers its services together with its strong network of entrepreneurs, investors, experts and partners.

Steffen Wagner
Co-founder, Managing Partner

Verve Capital Partners
Zollikerstrasse 44
8008 Zürich
Switzerland

phone: +41 44 3802935
email: steffen.wagner@verve-capital.com
web: http://www.investiere.ch
twitter: investiere_ch

This release was published on openPR.