Topic
Swiss deep tech funding: what technical founders need to prove
Three guests look at deep tech funding from different seats. Max Vogt invests in technology companies at Swisscom Ventures. Enzo Wälchli runs Operator Circle, an operator-led fund, after helping build the commercial organisation of ANYbotics. Raffael Kellner works with researchers who want to start companies through Venture Kick and Venturelab.
Their answers overlap in one place: technical strength is the starting point, not the proof.
What do investors need to see?
Max Vogt uses face-to-face meetings to understand the founder as a person: their motivation, how they listen and how they work with others. The market can be studied afterwards. His advice to technical founders is to fall in love with the problem and stay willing to change the solution.
Enzo Wälchli argues for operator-led investing because people who have scaled a company themselves understand that leading one usually means facing a problem: growing too slowly or growing too fast. Operator Circle invests at Series A and Series B, but he wants to meet founders earlier.
How do hardware timelines and margins differ?
Enzo Wälchli's point is that hardware cannot be judged like software. A hardware company has to prove everything a software company proves, plus long-term reliability, and it cannot simply ship a patch. Software gross margins of 90% and above set the usual benchmark, while hardware at 50 to 60% is respectable, and an investor with a software lens can mistake that for a broken business.
Max Vogt adds the investor's timescale: he describes a fund aiming for around six new investments a year after looking at hundreds or thousands of companies, and judged in the end by the money returned to its investors.
How does research become a business?
Raffael Kellner's advice is to validate the idea with real customers before building the final product, however strongly a team believes the world needs it. He sees resilience as an advantage scientists bring, and perfectionism as a risk when an elegant solution ignores scalability or the user. The journey can take a decade, and he encourages Swiss founders to look at fast-growing Asian markets early.
Max Vogt sees strong founder talent coming out of ETH, EPFL and frontier research teams, and the same advice applies: keep the problem fixed and the product open.
Episodes on this topic
Why Great Tech Isn’t Enough: Robotics, Startups and VC
Episode 11 · Max Vogt · Swisscom Ventures
Why Robots Can Backflip but Struggle With Real Work
Episode 10 · Enzo Wälchli · Operator Circle
Building World-Class Startups at Venturelab
Episode 3 · Raffael Kellner · VentureLab