Newly founded foundation «HSG START Accelerator» supports startups in Eastern Switzerland
The “HSG START Accelerator” foundation supports national and international startups in the professionalization of their companies with a special funding program. The founding partners are the HSG, START Global and Switzerland Innovation Park Ost, or SIP Ost for short. On June 26, 2024, the three foundation board members signed the founding document. The foundation for entrepreneurs, located in SIP East, is now in action.
The “HSG START Accelerator” aims to become the leading accelerator program in Europe and to accompany strong technology-oriented startups on their growth path. In autumn 2024, the organisers will test a three-month intensive programme with a so-called “pilot batch”. The first regular batch will start in spring 2025. The program prepares national and international start-ups specifically for the growth phase and helps them to increase their chances of survival and their attractiveness, especially for venture capital investors.
St.Gallen as an attractive location for young entrepreneurs
The canton of St.Gallen wants to establish itself as an attractive location for young entrepreneurs. Therefore, the government of the canton of St.Gallen would like to support the joint project “HSG START Accelerator” of the University of St.Gallen together with the Switzerland Innovation Park Ost (SIP Ost) and START Global with 5.4 million francs. At the same time, 4.6 million francs will be made available to financially strengthen the existing “Startfeld” foundation .
The Cantonal Council discussed the matter in its first reading during the summer session. The second reading is scheduled for the autumn session of 2024.
The joint project arose from the request of the Canton of St.Gallen’s location promotion agency to develop a startup strategy for the canton . The accelerator program will sustainably strengthen the regional start-up scene and close a supply and financing gap. Such an offer is currently missing in St.Gallen. During the founders’ summit “START Summit” at the end of March 2024, it was announced that the foundation would be established in June 2024.
Three foundation board members with startup experience
The board of trustees of the accelerator program is made up of three active and committed members in the St.Gallen startup scene:
Prof. Dr. Dietmar Grichnik (Presidium):
“With the HSG START Accelerator, we are joining forces to promote our entrepreneurial talents with the aim of making a contribution to society and the economy in the region.”
Prof. Dr. Dietmar Grichnik is Vice Rector for Innovation and Quality, Professor for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Institute for Technology Management (ITEM-HSG) at the University of St.Gallen. As founder and director of the Center for Entrepreneurship (Startup@HSG) and the Global Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, he is committed to promoting HSG spin-offs and the Swiss startup ecosystem. As a coach and investor, Dietmar Grichnik is involved in fast-growing companies such as First Stop Health, an Inc. 500-listed telemedicine company, and CareerOS, an EduTech startup from the USA. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation Switzerland Innovation and the Board of Directors of the Switzerland Innovation Park Ost (SIP Ost). Dietmar Grichnik is one of the TOP 100 leading entrepreneurship professors worldwide.
Dr. Cornelia Gut-Villa (Vice-President):
“Thanks to the HSG START Accelerator, an instrument is created to enable startups to develop the skills for international scaling and successfully implement their business models on global markets.”
Dr. Cornelia Gut-Villa graduated from the University of Zurich and has 20 years of experience in banking, strategy consulting and startup coaching. She is, among other things, managing director of the Startfeld Foundation, which finances young entrepreneurs in the seed phase, and is responsible for investor relations at the Switzerland Innovation Park Ost (SIP OST). Cornelia Gut-Villa is also active on the board of the Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC), the first point of contact for technology start-ups based in Switzerland that are looking for financing through “smart money”. She is a member of the Board of Directors of various companies (including Egonym AG and Signifikant AG) and a member of the Board of Directors of Swiss VR. The SECA (Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association) has elected Cornelia Gut-Villa as the 18th “Business Angel of the Year” in 2021. At the HSG she is a member of the scientific advisory board .
Andreas Göldi (Member of the Board of Trustees):
“Europe produces groundbreaking technological innovations, but when it comes to commercialization in startups, we are lagging behind other parts of the world. The new accelerator program aims to make a significant contribution to advancing this topic in the St. Gallen region.”
Andreas Göldi has been a partner at the venture capital firm b2venture since 2019 and is an enthusiastic technologist, serial entrepreneur and investor with over 25 years of experience. In the 1990s, while still studying at the University of St.Gallen, he founded his first startup, Namics, a digital consulting company, which was acquired a few years later.
The company built several groundbreaking websites in German-speaking countries in the early days of the Internet. After 2004, Andreas Göldi founded several other companies in the areas of online media, social media analytics and video marketing. The St. Gallen native spent twelve years in the Boston region, first as a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and from 2007 as an entrepreneur. His two US-based startups were early adopters of machine learning and cloud infrastructure.
