Through the Founder-Calls, the Innovation Program supports market, social or cultural entrepreneurial projects in the context of digital transformation.
The Founder-Call contributes to the creation of spin-offs and start-ups in the for-profit and non-for-profit sectors by employees and students of the DIZH universities; importantly, the spin-off or start-up must not yet have been founded. Due to its explicit focus on early-stage financing of a start-up idea, this type of call in the DIZH Innovation Program differs from other funding instruments for existing start-ups or spin-offs.
The basic idea of the Founder-Call is to provide low-threshold and early-stage start-up financing to advance the start-up process. This is to be achieved by financing the step from the pure start-up idea to the proof of feasibility of the project idea in the sense of a “proof of concept”. The aim is to show that a conceptually developed project can also be implemented in practice. The successful implementation of this step should convince participants, partners and investors that pursuing the start-up idea is promising.
Projects for the 2nd Founder-Call can apply for a maximum of CHF 75’000 in funds from the DIZH special loan and can run for a maximum of 12 months from the start of the project.