Zurich-based VAULTED, an ETH Zurich spin-off founded in 2023, appointed Carmen Sprus chief executive officer, effective August 2026. She succeeds co-founder Francesco Ranaudo, who moves to the board of directors after leading the company from spin-out through its first large commercial project. In the same week, Coople, the digital staffing platform founded in 2009, named Annette Burgard chief executive officer, a role she has held since January 2026.
Four more companies added women to their senior teams. Basel-based Anaveon, founded in 2017, promoted Laetitia Pouzol to chief scientific officer after she joined as head of immunology in March 2025 and led translational research on ANV200, a PD-1 depleting antibody now in IND-enabling studies. Lausanne-based Corintis, the EPFL spin-off founded in 2022 that builds direct-to-chip microfluidic cooling for AI and high-performance computing, appointed Mindy Pyneeandee chief financial officer; she arrives from HP after nearly 24 years in senior finance roles. RhyGaze brought in Tracy Dowling as chief business officer and general counsel, most recently in the same combined role at AskBio. And ten23 health completed a three-part reshuffle of its own: Felicia Werk became chief people and culture officer on 1 March, Stephanie Knüppel chief operating officer on 1 April and Andrea Wesp chief business officer on 1 May, the latter joining from Siegfried.
At Zurich's ServiceHunter, Marie-Christin Kamann is handing over to a new management team after nearly ten years. She and Arman Margaryan joined in 2016 to rebuild the company and prepare it for international expansion.
Growth, milestones and awards
Geneva's ABILITY Neurotech recorded neural data from a human for the first time. The company, spun out of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in 2025, is developing a sub-scalp brain-computer interface for long-term implantation, capturing high-resolution neural signals and transmitting them over an infrared optical link. The first-in-human procedure took place at the neurosurgery department of the Technical University of Munich's University Hospital.
Clinical programmes also advanced elsewhere. ReproNovo, the Lausanne-based biopharmaceutical company founded in 2021 and led by chief executive officer Jean Marie Duval, dosed the first participant in NORDIC, a European Phase 2 trial of RPN-002 designed to reduce uterine contractility around embryo transfer. Basel-based FloBiotech, co-founded by Florence Clavaguera, signed an agreement with UCLA Health to advance DDL-357 for neurodegenerative disease. Pilatus Biosciences, co-founded by Minyue Dong, received a Certificate for Clinical Trial / Medicinal Test from the Hong Kong Department of Health for PLT012, its lead metabolic checkpoint immunotherapy for advanced solid tumours, and set up a Hong Kong subsidiary at the same time. And HeroSupport, led by chief executive officer Giovanna Dipasquale, enrolled NYU Grossman School of Medicine as the first US clinical site in its SHIELD study, with Naamit Gerber as principal investigator.
On the commercial side, Bern-based LOXO moved from trials to industrialisation. The company, whose co-founder and chief marketing officer is Lara Amini, has entered a strategic partnership with DXC Technology that includes an investment by the US IT services group, pairing LOXO's vehicle-agnostic Level 4 Digital Driver with DXC's systems integration and delivery reach. In Fribourg, LegalTech Neur.on joined forces with Legal 230, Europe's largest human legal-translation specialist, months after transferring its legal NLP team to Germany's Noxtua. In Suisse romande, LD Education sold its majority stake in premium crèche network Bubbles Crèches to Swiss investment company HELVEON as part of a strategic refocus on German-speaking regions; Noémie Benhamou remains at the helm.
Geneva edtech Tortin, founded by Katya Tatarinov and Shahzad Ahmed, converted a run of pilots into institutional deployments, with HEC Lausanne and the University of Geneva in partnership with the UN; paid deployments across Europe and the Gulf are next. St. Gallen-based Humboldt AI, which uses AI to help people rework their CVs, says several thousand people have used the platform since its January 2026 launch, and has started first pilots with institutional partners in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. And 42 Zurich, led by chief executive officer Cristina Bucher, is opening an education campus in Zurich-Oerlikon: from January 2027 the non-profit will offer free training in software development and AI systems, with selection beginning in mid-September — a direct answer to the skills shortage startups keep naming as a constraint.
Consumer brands also found their footing. Matcha and Friends, founded in Zurich in 2024 by Martina Lambaré and Morena Frehner, is now stocked in 53 Coop branches and supplies more than 50 restaurants. Meanwhile, Lion7, co-founded by Amanda Helfenstein, is growing its deodorant made from edible ingredients, and Schwyz-based Tipiog has recorded its first sales of ready-to-use Brazilian tapioca.
Five female-founded fintechs — Delta Labs, relio, ellexx universe, Happy Pot and Schuman Financial — were among the ten startups selected for the Swiss National Startup Team's Venture Leaders Fintech roadshow, which travels to London in October. And AgroSustain, the Renens company behind the edible coating for fresh produce and led by co-founder and chief executive officer Olga Dubey, is one of three scale-up finalists for the Green Business Award.
Funding and investment
The month's largest round went to Aylight, the Zurich photonics company founded in 2025 by Bahareh Marzban and Dmitry Kazakov out of ETH Zurich research. Its EUR 4.5 million pre-seed will take its chip-scale multiwavelength laser from research result to first foundry-manufactured prototypes.
Prodlane, a University of St. Gallen spin-off co-founded by Caroline Maier, closed a EUR 4 million round to scale the German-Swiss business. Lausanne-based Carewell, co-founded by chief human resources officer Soazig Olivin, raised a CHF 1.5 million seed round led by Lucian Wagner for StartAngels Network, with SICTIC, Kickfund and business angels joining. Its platform, used by more than 50 hospitals, nursing homes and home-care organisations, activates an institution's internal staff pool before opening a wider marketplace; Carewell is also the first Swiss startup to complete the full FIT Digital track of grant, seed and growth. ETH Zurich spin-off Treeless, co-founded by chief scientific and technology officer Patrycja Kucharczyk, closed an oversubscribed second round of CHF 1.2 million from business angels and family offices as it builds an automated pilot factory for its microorganism-based materials.
Non-dilutive support went to four more companies. All three startups in the latest InnoBooster cohort are female founded: Foldcast, developing recyclable paper moulds that cut concrete use in construction; Kyra, building AI software to forecast congestion on electricity grids; and Subatron, working on a polymer-based transducer for wireless underwater communication. The three share CHF 450,000 from the Gebert Rüf Stiftung programme, which backs university founders who have reached the second stage of Venture Kick. Separately, female-founded Impli was picked by Germany's Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIN-D) to develop biosensors that continuously measure at least four hormones over seven days, with up to EUR 1.5 million each in stage one.
Finally, MEMBRYX — until now Phantomleaf Textiles — is now majority-owned by Austria's Getzner Textil Group, which raised its stake from just under 30 per cent to 70.5 per cent. The St. Gallen company, founded in 2023 by Annette and Rick van Es, develops protective textile layers and functional surface materials for police, military and rescue services as well as industrial customers.
