Meet the future – Investing in start-ups

A presentation event with Vontobel and the StartAngels network

Meet the future! Investors were invited to attend a presentation event on this theme, as guests of Vontobel and its partner StartAngels Network. Four or five start-ups present their business ideas, hoping to impress investors with their ideas so that they can fund the development of their products and market them successfully. There are many interesting and very innovative business ideas just waiting to generate future benefits for companies or private individuals.

Once a year Vontobel joins its network partner StartAngels in providing a platform for a few start-up companies, enabling them to present themselves and their business ideas. Investors are invited as guests of both partners to the presentation event in Zurich, entitled “Investing in start-ups – Meet the future”. The aim is for the start-ups to appeal to investors, so that they are prepared to fund their business ideas. These investments are venture capital investments (private equity) and investors have to be aware that they involve a risk of failure. For that reason they should only make up a small proportion of an investor’s total assets. To enable the representatives of the start-ups and the prospective investors to get to know one another better and to have some questions answered, there is a discussion session followed by a cocktail party with heavy hors dóeuvres where they can get down to the nitty gritty. Many a successful start-up has emerged from a presentation of this type, or has even been awarded a prize.

On this particular sunny Monday evening, all the participants were warmly welcomed by Dr. Zeno Staub, CEO of Vontobel. This was followed by an introductory presentation by Dr. med. Erich Platzer, President of the StartAngels Network. At 6:00 p.m. the preselected and invited start-ups had ten minutes each to introduce themselves and to present their business ideas. Then at the cocktail party there were intensive discussions between the participants, to gain more insights and to flesh out the impressions made by the start-ups.