IMD business school startup competition winners

Switzerland's International Institute of Management (IMD) has announced the winners of this year's startup competition.

The winners qualify for consulting and coaching compliments of students enrolled in Master of Business Administration program.

Four of the winners emerged from the Technopark PSE Lausanne: Gollian Interactive SA and Neocast SA will travel to Silicon Valley with a group of Executive MBA students for a tour and networking opportunities, while IR Microsystems SA and Wavecall SA will receive workshops with the MBA students from IMD.

The aim of the IMD’s competition is that a select group of Swiss early stage companies improve their chances to get funded and grow by enlisting the help of some IMD’s MBA and Executive MBA students.

Every year, with the help of the Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne, IMD Executive MBA students work closely with high-tech, high-growth companies. The process gives the future MBAs a “hands-on learning experience in entrepreneurship and new ventures.”

The contest requires that the startups have a solid chance of market success, led by teams that are curious and willing to interact openly with IMD program participants. Professor Andrew Boynton, Director of the IMD EMBA Program, says of the fourth annual Start-up Competition that it is of “real value to all those who take part.”

How well are IMD’s past winners doing?

The competition organizers list in a press release past winners of the contest. The winners include Dartfish, SmartData, Shockfish, 2C3D, KeySoft, AmmA Interactive, 4DigitalBooks, IP01 and XO3. A quick survey of the past winners makes it clear that technical innovation is a Swiss strength, but the survey begs the question, can the startups be turned into a financial success.

“Innovation will get you a head start, but sales and marketing has to follow immediately to create the need in the market and to fulfill it,” Simon Meier, Head of Investment Management at Galli, Schneider & Lehner SA, an early investor in XO3 SA, one of the past winners.

Just a few weeks ago, XO3 went into liquidation after being unable to convince investors to pony up cash for a second round of financing. It picked the wrong business model, trying to emulate Netscape’s “give it away free and then make money on support and professional updates later on”, plus once it changed the model it still had too many technically trained staff and too few sales and marketing types.

Keysoft, a wireless technology startup, was acquired by an Australian company after receiving early stage funding from HPI Holding SA.

With exception of XO3, the rest of the firms are all still in business and some are showing signs of growth. Dartfish has signed a number of pilot contracts and gained venture funding from top tier VCs. Venture-funded SmartData has a Bluetooth product launched for the wireless market. And Shockfish and 4DigitalBook (AmmA Interactive) both gained publicity by winning awards announced in a recent special edition of the Wall Street Journal journal. Whether or not that will lead to revenues and investor interest is still up in the air.

The other startups, IP01 has signed some pilot contracts and 2C3D, a company that wants to make surgical systems that rely on its 3D visualization software just won a prestigious European award, are still looking for investors.

by Valerie Thompson