A growing number of high-tech companies from a variety of industries have been selected to participate in the third edition of the LeadiNNg to Scale-Up program, which kicked off on 23 January 2024 at IMD. A joint initiative of IMD and Innovaud, the program is designed to propel tech companies from promising startups to fast-growing, international scale-ups.

Sixteen fast-growing high-tech Swiss companies from various industries have been selected to participate in the 3rd round of the LeadiNNg to Scale Up program, which kicked off on 23 January 2024 at IMD.IMD and Innovaud have been supporting startups for many years through initiatives such as the IMD Startup Competition and Scale Up Vaud programs. In 2022, the longtime partner institutions decided to launch the LeadiNNg to Scale Up program to fill a gap in Switzerland’s innovation support ecosystem.The 3rd cohort of LeadiNNG to Scale-up was launched on 23 January 2024. 16 companies represented by their CEOs and co-founders gathered for the first session on the IMD campus. AICA – Baptiste Busch: An adaptable software solution that simplifies industrial robot programming and manufacturing. (Robotics - Vaud). Artifact - Montassar BenMrad: Broad set of expertise in the field of data science and Al services, across several industries. (Al/Data Sciences - Vaud)

Lendity Growth is a new offer in the tech financing scene, providing loans to growing tech startups. More than CHF 60 million in loans have been granted across Lendity’s strategies since 2018, with Smeetz, the provider of an AI-powered pricing system for the attraction industry, being the most recent recipient of a Lendity Growth loan.The dynamics of the venture capital markets are leading to the rise of a new form of fundraising among startups: debt financing has become particularly attractive for growth-stage companies. Lendity, active in the SME lending space since 2018, recently launched Lendity Growth to provide growth-stage companies access to long-term non-dilutive debt funding as a bridge to their next (potentially larger) financing round or to reach profitability. Similar to a venture capital firm, Lendity Growth is backed by limited partners and offers initial debt funding of up to CHF 3 million per company, although the amounts can increase as the companies grow. “From a funding perspective, 2024 will be the reality-check year for Swiss startups since many will need to raise again or go out of business. Unicorn-potential Swiss scaleups with exponential growth will likely accept the adjusted valuations and dilution that come with equity since they need to burn large amounts that other funding sources won’t provide