FONGIT COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER 
December 2016 - January 2017

Welcome to our final newsletter of the year. We have exciting news about the startups in Fongit's community. Have a good read! 

Fongit Ventures & Projects

• We celebrate a great 2016 year with:
  • 11 new companies joining Fongit - iKube Design, Agua Blue, iFluenz, Hovve, TwentyGreen, Gmelius, Expedismart, Alohi, FlickUp, SkeletonCAD, IPStock
  • About CHF 20 Million funds raised by our companies - Prodibi, Multiwave, PlanetIntus, GoodWall, Orbiwise, TVP Solar (see the whole community here)
• Energy Management announced the acquisition of the cleantech engineering company Raymond E. Moser.  They were founded at Fongit in 2010 and have grown into a sustainable cleantech SME. Congratulations on their successful graduation from our incubator! Read more about this great example of startup evolution here.
• Gmelius unveiled the benefits of combining blockchain and Gmail to address the challenge of digital identity at the annual Forum Economie Numérique: "No need to reinvent new platforms for insuring your digital identity, just use your current inbox!". If you use Gmail - Gmelius is the best way to customise your inbox, protect your privacy and boost your email productivity. You can install it for free here.
• The State of Geneva will deploy 1000 Orbiwise sensors to track and combat road noise in Carouge! An interesting application for the Smart Canton project included in the 2030 developement strategy of the Geneva Canton (for more details read here).
• InvestGlass shared recently their insights on the trends in fintech at Nipconf and SIBOS conferences. They have been interviewed in 4 interesting articles and on RTS. If you want to learn more about Fintech, we can warmly recommend their Financial Technology Switzerland Meetup events.
• ProtonMail, the encrypted email service, completely sold out their lifetime subscriptions offer for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. They were even reviewed by Fortune Magazine! Find out why Hillary wishes she had used their service here.
• Send your christmas gifts in a new, smart way! Discover how Expedismart are disrupting the postal service: in the TTC TV show on RTS.
• Fongit celebrated Global Entrepreneur Week with 3 events hosting more than 150 people. The highlights included: 
  • TVP Solar's presentation of their journey to create and commercialise a revolutionary energy source
  • 70 members of the life science community discovered the innovation space at Geneus.ch and Campus Biotech Innovation Park, with great pitches from 8 startups
  • We were proud to have coached 3 winers of concours de la meilleure idée - best pitching practices deliver results!
  • Our special Fongit Academy: How to network for success? Claire Lecoq from LHH trained 50 startup leaders and visitors on how to create a connection with someone within 90 seconds or less. You can find her insights on our social media here.

Coming up in December and in the new year

• This year our team of 10 Fongit runners has completed the Escalade Race around the old town in Geneva. Innovation and tradition run together!
• We will be awarding the 2016 Fongit startup prize on the evening of 6th December during the end of year cocktail jointly organized with OPI, UIG and FAE. For more details, please contact events@fongit.ch. 
• How to be more productive in 2017? Our next Fongit Academy is about Time Management and will be held on Wednesday 1st February from 12:00-13:45. Mirjam Mekhaiel will show how you can create more time, enhance your productivity, and even schedule time for the unexpected! You will leave with 3 ready-to-use action points for a successful start to 2017! This event is part of our unique program of monthly workshops that is tailored for leaders of growing startups and is presented by international thought leaders and experts. This event is open to Fongit startups and Geneva entrepreneurs. Sign-up on events@fongit.ch, places are limited!
• Our end of year "Espresso and Panettone" community event is on Wednesday 14th December at 9h30-10h15 at Fongit; this is the best occasion to meet entrepreneurs and have updates of our startups and the incubator. You are all welcome to join!

Interesting Publications and Insights

• The 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Index rated Switzerland as number 2 worldwide for favourable conditions for entrepreneurs to start and scale new businesses. "The rise of Switzerland to 2^nd place is primarily driven by the aspiration index with very strong scores in high-growth firms, product innovation and process innovation." The area to improve on is Networking - so be sure to attend our events in 2017! Read more here.
• Startup spirit is contagious: while working as Project & Event Manager at Fongit, Charlotte Chenu has co-founded: Videco. You can even sign up to win prizes in their advent calendar here.