From location promotion to location promotion: House of Winterthur roadshow for the Canton of Zurich location promotion agency

Fabian Streiff has been head of location promotion for the Canton of Zurich since the beginning of the year. In May, we organized a small roadshow for our colleague and his deputy Anita Martinecz Fehér as well as his boss Dr. Andrea Engeler from the Office of Economic Affairs and Employment. On this occasion, we showed our guests why Winterthur is one of the strongest business locations in Switzerland.

Our group started in the Valley in the early afternoon. This is the name of the development area in Kemptthal, which lies between Zurich and Winterthur in our member municipality of Lindau. This is where Julius Maggi started his internationally successful company with the production of food and flavors.

Much has changed since the days of Julius Maggi. Today, several ETH spin-offs are working and producing in the former Maggi factory. One of these is planted, whose vegan meat substitute releases significantly fewer greenhouse gases during production than real meat.

Innovation and sustainability at Givaudan in Kemptthal

"Sustainability is also a key issue at Givaudan," explains site manager Stefan Giezendanner. The Swiss company is the global market leader in the areas of taste and well-being as well as fragrances and beauty and employs over 500 highly qualified employees in Kemptthal.

Natural products are increasingly finding their way into bathrooms and fridges. "With this in mind, our research team developed a novel biotechnological process for the production of an important fragrance. The starting raw material is obtained from sugar cane, which means that the fragrance can be produced sustainably," explains Markus Gautschi from the Zurich Innovation Center (ZIC) in Kemptthal.

The ZIC is one of Givaudan's most important research and development sites. "And a clear commitment to the Economic region. After all, the investment in it amounted to CHF 120 million and is the largest the Group has ever made in research," adds Giezendanner.

At the Home of Innovation on the Rieter site

After an hour, we set off again. Our next stop is the Rieter site, the headquarters of the Home of Innovation. Raphael Tobler and Alessa Vöge welcome us here. They have been running the Home of Innovation since the beginning of 2020 with around 25 rented start-ups whose CEOs are all between 25 and 35.

The "young and wild" as our director, Samuel Roth, likes to say. The rental price includes an "all-round carefree package" with high-speed Internet, meeting room, cleaning, energy drinks, snacks, printer, after-work beer, etc. This service enables young entrepreneurs to focus entirely on their business.

"The biggest time wasters for start-ups are administrative tasks and unnecessary visits to the authorities that don't add any value," emphasizes Tobler in conversation with the location promoters. This is exactly where you have to start if you want to improve the framework conditions. Home of Innovation is doing its part by offering legal hours and soon HR services, for example, but the authorities also need to consider how to make life easier for start-ups by simple means. What is also missing in Winterthur are startup investors.

In the Technopark Winterthur on the former Sulzeareal site

Thomas Schumann, Managing Director at Technopark Winterthur, is already expecting us at 4.15 pm. Thomas has already accompanied many companies from "startup" to "grownup". One of these success stories is called Scewo.

Founded in 2017, the ETH spin-off manufactures the world's only electric wheelchair that combines driving on two wheels with climbing stairs. Scewo is growing rapidly. In 2018, it even won the Job Creator Award, which House of Winterthur regularly presents to companies that have created a particularly large number of jobs in their category. At this point, Mike Künzle, Mayor and President of House of Winterthur, also joined our group.

The importance of design for the success of an industrial product was presented to us by industrial designer Wolfgang K. Meyer-Hayoz from the company of the same name, which has already received numerous awards for its work.

Runway - the ZHAW's early stage startup incubator

Finally, our group visited the Runway Incubator, which is also located in the Technopark. Here, Prof. Dr. Adrian Müller from the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the ZHAW explained to us how the Runway, in cooperation with the Technopark and ZKB, supports young start-ups in further developing their business ideas.

Ideally, a young company moves into its own office after its time in the Runway Incubator, for example in the Technopark or the Home of Innovation. A well-known example of this is Vatorex. The start-up is fighting against bee mortality and even made it onto the well-known TV show "Die Höhle der Löwen".

At the closing aperitif, we reviewed the informative and exciting afternoon in a stimulating discussion. We agreed that cooperation between established companies and start-ups holds great potential for the Economic region .