Early-Stage Startup Accelerator (Switzerland)

Deadline: 5 March 2025

MassChallenge has launched the Early-Stage Startup Accelerator, which accepts startups from any industry, in addition of 3 industry-specific tracks: Sustainable Food, Sustainable & Efficient Industry, and HealthTech.

Tracks

In 2025, Switzerland’s tracks include:
- Sustainable Food Track: Brings together the largest multi-national food corporations, world-class mentorship from food experts, and tailored curriculum focused on sustainability, food and packaging to accelerate the impact of startups working in agriculture, food, biotech & animal feed.
- Sustainable & Efficient Industry Track: The corporate partners are searching for ways to make their businesses more sustainable and efficient. Combined with the expert specialist mentors they seek to support startups reduce energy and/or water consumption, minimize & treat waste, employ new materials and utilize new technologies/AI to enhance both physical and digital operational efficiency.
- HealthTech Track: Leverages Switzerland’s strong heritage in med-tech, life sciences, social-care and education to help startups improve their propositions in this sector.

Program Benefits

By design the program makes businesses sustainable – both financially and for the climate & nature. They only accept startups whose solution will add value to society (for example, Millions of Tones CO2 eq. removed/avoided, Millions of Litres of water saved, lives saved), and all startups in the accelerator will be advised about how to make their business climate responsible and must intend to offset their emissions or actively reduce GHG to be considered. They’ve asked the cohort if they would recommend the program to other startups; in 2024, the average score was 9+ out of 10, from 99 responses.
To maximize their benefit from the program, Startups will need to travel and be present in Switzerland 2 times: for the Bootcamp and Halftime activities. These events generate connections and facilitate collaboration with the partners, mentors and investors. The remainder of the program operates online.
Participants gain access to:
- Unrivaled access to 15+ global corporate partners including Bühler, Givaudan, dsm-firmenich, Louis Dreyfus Company, Omya, Südzucker, SIG Group, PMI, SMC, ServiceNow – totalling over CHF 260 billion in revenue;
- World-class mentoring from 400+ experts and tailored programming provided with no equity taken in return;
- Comprehensive curriculum of lectures and workshops, featuring 50+ leading entrepreneurs, VCs, and experts;
- The opportunity to compete for up to CHF 1M in non-dilutive cash prizes and other in-kind awards;
- For Food and Climate focused startups, an additional cash prize of CHF 100k no-strings-attached for the Louis Dreyfus Company Climate Resilience Prize;
- Switzerland-specific advice on regulations and tax, easy access to the EU market, and strong trade links;
- A proven model that has helped more than 65% of finalists raise funds during or immediately after the program.