The Swiss Post plans to increasingly invest directly in startups relevant to its operations. In order to do so, it recently entered into a cooperation with investiere.ch. The obvious goal is to invest in startups which fit well with Swiss Post’s strategic business development areas and offer potential for Swiss Post’s core competencies to make a key contribution to their future success. Through targeted investments, Swiss Post also wants to participate in technological development in an effort to counter the displacement of logistics companies by technology companies.
Swiss Post is particularly interested in startups in the following sectors: e-commerce, mobility, digital financial services, digital trust (e-post), cross-channel communication, business process outsourcing, and sales and solutions for major business customers.
In return for an investment, Swiss Post requires only a minority interest. This allows the startups to continue to develop with agility in the market. This corporate venture capital initiative is long-term in nature and enjoys the full support of the company’s leadership team.
When selecting and assessing the startups, Swiss Post works with investiere.ch, a venture capital specialist, provider of an investment platform, and one of the most active startup investors in Switzerland. As part of the collaboration, Swiss Post has already made an initial investment in a robotics startup.
Founded more than 160 years ago, the Swiss Post has long relied on the innovation of more than 61,000 employees in-house and conducted innovative projects with startups. In light of the challenges posed by digital transformation, Swiss Post is now additionally strengthening its capacity for innovation with targeted investments in startups.
investiere.ch is one of the leading online startup investment platforms in Europe. The investiere community, which currently counts 10,000 members, independently identifies the most promising startups, which are then carefully vetted and selected by industry experts and the investiere team. To date, investiere.ch has successfully concluded more than 50 rounds of financing. investiere.ch was launched in 2010 and has offices in Baar, Zurich and Geneva.