Startup Events in Zürich

Let's meet at the CNC meetup on Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, at 15:00 CET. Location: VSHNtower, Neugasse 6, 8005 Zürich Agenda: 14:30 – Door Opening 15:00 – Welcome, Intro, & Announcements 15:05 – How to: securing your clusters, Benjamin Koltermann, cenroq AG 15:35 – 5 minutes pause 15:40 – Paddelbuch – How Kiro Changed the Game, Chris Bingham, CTO Switzerland, Fujitsu 16:10 – 5 minutes pause 16:15 – A swiss, cloud-native Alternative to Vercel and Heroku - Christian Blättler, zeitlos.software 16:45 – Final words, networking & apéro \-\-\- Talk 1: Benjamin Koltermann, cenroq AG How to: securing your clusters Everyone wants secure Kubernetes clusters. Almost no one can achieve this. In this talk, we’ll show how Kubernetes can be attacked despite seemingly secure configurations, and how these security gaps can be identified and closed. \-\-\- Talk 2: Chris Bingham, CTO Switzerland, Fujitsu Paddelbuch – How Kiro Changed the Game In 2024 I presented the history of paddelbuch.ch - serverless geospatial information system built on AWS to support the Swiss paddle sports community. Then Kiro arrived! So what happened next? What did I accomplish with Kiro? And how did one, unexpected, conversation at AWS re:Invent 2025 massively change the technical underpinnings of Paddelbuch? All these questions and perhaps more will be answered in this session. \-\-\- Talk 3: Christian Blättler, zeitlos.software A swiss, cloud-native Alternative to Vercel and Heroku Vercel and Heroku make it easy to deploy your apps but hard to leave. Lucity is my open-source take on the same developer experience, built on standard Kubernetes and Helm, with one hard constraint: you can eject at any time and keep running without it. I'd like to go deep on these decisions that are driven by the ejectability constraint of Lucity: – why Lucity has no Database and how it derives its entire state from Kubernetes and it's surrounding systems. – why Lucity discovery state lucity.dev/\ labels instead o

Claude in Financial Services At this event, our speakers will show you how they use AI in their daily work today. Expect concrete, real-world examples from the Swiss financial industry – and a few possibilities you may not have considered yet. Who this is for: decision makers and practitioners in Swiss financial services who want real-world Claude use cases from banks, insurers and fintechs. Who this is not for: students and people still exploring AI in general. This evening assumes you work in or for the finance industry. Timeline 18:30 — Doors open & registration 19:00 — ADNOVUM – Introduction 19:05 — Stefania Stan, AI Academia Strategy & Research, UBS – Claude in Financial Services: From Adoption to Business Value 19:25 — Andreas Janoschek, CEO, Gerevest.AI – A framework for Architecture, Build, Operations 19:45 — Dean Marti, Development Platforms, SIX – Claude Code and AI in Software Engineering 20:10 - Networking drinks 20:30 - Close By attending, you acknowledge that the event may be photographed and recorded. Images and footage may appear in promotional content. Your registration data is used solely to manage attendance and will not be used for marketing purposes. Join a Claude Community Event, organized by local Claude enthusiasts for everyone who loves building with Claude!

Hosted by Nebius, Balderton Capital, NVIDIA September 17, 2026 · Zurich Robotics is moving out of the lab and into the real world. Join Nebius, Balderton and NVIDIA in Zurich for Momentum, an evening bringing together the founders, researchers, engineers, investors, and industry leaders building the next generation of robotics and embodied AI. Zurich sits at the heart of one of Europe’s most exciting robotics ecosystems — combining world-class research, exceptional engineering talent, and a growing community of companies turning advances in AI into intelligent systems that can perceive, reason, and act in the physical world. Momentum is designed to bring that community together. Expect candid conversations with leading robotics founders, rapid-fire spotlights from emerging companies, live demos, and plenty of time to meet the people building and backing the future of Physical AI. Agenda 6:00–6:30 PM — Doors Open, Drinks & Networking Meet fellow founders, researchers, engineers, and investors from across the Zurich robotics ecosystem. 6:30–6:45 PM — Welcome & Opening Remarks Brief remarks from the Nebius, Balderton, NVIDIA teams 6:50–7:30 PM — Building Robotics Companies at Scale A conversation with later-stage robotics and Physical AI founders on building, deploying, and scaling companies at the intersection of hardware and AI. Moderated by James Wise, Partner at Balderton Capital. 7:30–8:00 PM — Founder Spotlights Three to four emerging robotics or Physical AI founders, jointly moderated by NVIDIA and Nebius. 8:00–9:30 PM — Robotics Demos, Food, Drinks & Networking See technology in action, meet the teams behind it, and connect with founders, researchers, investors, and industry leaders from across the ecosystem. Who Should Join Momentum is for people actively building, researching, deploying, or investing in robotics, embodied AI, Physical AI, autonomous systems, computer vision, simulation, and adjacent technologies. We’re particularly excited to meet early-stage

Coding agents have moved fast, and most of us are figuring them out as we go. Some things work well. Some quietly create problems that only show up weeks later. A few short talks, then open discussion. The focus is practical: how to ship agentic code efficiently, what the pipelines around it look like, which tools hold up under real use, and what we can learn from each other. Speakers: - Boris Paskalev CEO, and Mark Müller, CTO, LogicStar AI - Marc Willhaus, Head of Software, optohive AG - We still have a speaker slot available if you'd like to share slides or a live walkthrough of your setup - 20 minutes or less. Everyone in the room is building something. Founders, technical co-founders, engineers and researchers whose hands are on the code. Places are limited, so we confirm registrations individually. If you have something you would be up for sharing, even informally, let us know in the form. It does not need to be polished. War stories are as useful as success stories.

The monthly morning run for Zurich-based builders, founders, and operators. Hosted by Daniel, ironman and founder of athletedata, the Builders Run series is about combining a solid workout with meaningful conversations: keeping the pace sporty, but relaxed enough to actually talk, connect, and exchange ideas. The route: We start quick warm-up to start (last chance for latecomers), then out towards Saffa Insel for a 8k at conversational pace: ~5:30–6:00 min/km, and we may split the group. Coffee after at newly opened Yappa Cafe for anyone with time, which is usually where the real catching-up happens, then back to building. Meeting point: Central.

The Sunday hike for Zurich-based builders, founders, and operators. Hosted by Simon, builder and future founder, the Builders Hike series is about swapping the desk for a day in the mountains: long enough to get past small talk, easy enough that nobody is out of breath while doing it. The vibe: No summit to conquer, no pace to keep up with, nowhere we need to be in a hurry. Just a long, easy day in the mountains with good company and time to actually talk. Some of the best conversations and thoughts happen away from screens when contemplating life and staring at the beautiful Swiss mountains. The route: We are heading into the Schwyz pre-Alps: a traverse over the Ibergeregg to Holzegg, right at the foot of the Grosser Mythen, with wide views over Lake Lucerne and the Mythen most of the way. Roughly 14.5 km and 750 m of climbing on well-marked, well-cleared trails, nothing technical and no scrambling. Trail shoes or sturdy trainers and you are set. Full route on komoot. We leave the city by train (two connections and a postbus), spend the day up top, and roll back into Zurich HB in the early evening. A couple of mountain inns along the way from around km 9 if we feel like a stop, but plan to carry lunch so the day stays on nobody's schedule but ours. Meeting point: Zurich HB, platform 12, at 07:00. Our train leaves at 07:12 and will not wait, so come a few minutes early. We are back at Zurich HB likely sometime between 17:00 and 18:00. Don't buy your train ticket yet; we may have to grab a group ticket to reserve space on the postbus. ⚠️ Important: Bring water, snacks, layers for the weather up high, and proper sun protection (Sonnencreme nicht vergessen, the sun is no joke up there). If you're daring, leave your phone and all other tech behind.

Cookie deprecation, ad blockers, and tightening privacy regulations have made one thing clear: the old way of tracking is breaking down. Server-side tracking (SST) is quickly becoming the answer, but what does it actually take to implement, and what does it really deliver? In this roundtable, we'll introduce the topic and share how we evaluate server-side tracking, and how we implemented it together with HEKS/EPER, one of Switzerland's largest relief organizations. Our partner Taoufik Alami, Team Leader for Public Fundraising at HEKS, will share why reliable, privacy-compliant tracking is absolutely fundamental in a fundraising environment, where every donor touchpoint counts, and what SST now allows them to accomplish that wasn't possible before. We'll then hear from JENTIS, the SST tool behind the HEKS implementation and our partner in this project. They will share where they see the future of tracking heading over the next few years. You'll leave with a real-world case study of server-side tracking done right, a clearer picture of the trade-offs involved, and a sense of where tracking technology is headed next. The Analytics Roundtable will take place at the Advance Metrics office in Zurich, Heinrichstrasse 267A. And as always, there will be complementary drinks and snacks.

Imagine Switzerland not just as a hub for local startups, but as Europe’s playground for innovation – a place where startups from all over Europe can establish, scale, and validate their technologies in a highly supportive environment. With this unprecedented new division of roles between the EU and Switzerland, innovation and regulation no longer clash – they co-evolve. Governance by Design – A New Paradigm for the European continent. Agenda: 15:00 – 15:05 | Opening words (5min) 15:05 – 15:25 | Presentation of concept by Daniel Naeff (ETHZ) and Christian Hugo Hoffmann 15:25 – 15:45 | Guest contribution from Christian Wenger 15:45 – 16:00 | Break 16:00 – 16:45 | Panel 16:45 – 17:00 | Closing statement 17:00 – 18:30 | Networking apéro +++ This event is part of the Zurich AI Festival, taking place from September 28 to October 3, 2026. Zurich AI Festival unites the minds building the future - visionary founders, bold investors, and tech leaders shaping tomorrow. Connect to tomorrow! Zurich AI Festival is a flagship initiative presented by ETH AI Center, Greater Zurich Area, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, and Zurich Tourism, and supported by leading partners from academia, industry, government and the broader AI ecosystem. We look forward to welcoming you soon! Zurich AI Festival Team

Most organizations are no longer experimenting with AI - they are trying to scale it. And this is where things start to break. Despite strong models and successful pilots, many AI initiatives fail to deliver real value. Not because the technology doesn’t work, but because success is not well defined, measured and managed in real-world conditions. In this interactive session, participants will step into a simulated AI transformation scenario, making decisions under real constraints such as data limitations, cost pressure, user behavior and governance requirements. Through this exercise, we will uncover why AI systems that “work” in demos often fail in reality and what it actually takes to build systems that are measurable, reliable and worth scaling. +++ This event is part of the Zurich AI Festival, taking place from September 28 to October 3, 2026. Zurich AI Festival unites the minds building the future - visionary founders, bold investors, and tech leaders shaping tomorrow. Connect to tomorrow! Zurich AI Festival is a flagship initiative presented by ETH AI Center, Greater Zurich Area, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, and Zurich Tourism, and supported by leading partners from academia, industry, government and the broader AI ecosystem. We look forward to welcoming you soon! Zurich AI Festival Team

What does the future of surgery look like when AI and augmented reality become part of surgical practice? Join us for an immersive evening in the OR-X exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping the operating room. Through interactive discussions and live demonstrations, participants will gain insights into developments in AI-supported surgery, augmented reality, surgical data science and digital workflows in the OR. This event brings together leading voices from research, industry, and surgery. +++ This event is part of the Zurich AI Festival, taking place from September 28 to October 3, 2026. Zurich AI Festival unites the minds building the future - visionary founders, bold investors, and tech leaders shaping tomorrow. Connect to tomorrow! Zurich AI Festival is a flagship initiative presented by ETH AI Center, Greater Zurich Area, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, and Zurich Tourism, and supported by leading partners from academia, industry, government and the broader AI ecosystem. We look forward to welcoming you soon! Zurich AI Festival Team

Zurich's quarterly gathering for the people building AI — capped at 250 people. 250 people in one room: founders, operators, big tech engineers, researchers, and the city's most ambitious students. Hosted at Google's Zurich HQ on Europaallee. This is the AI meetup in Zurich. It runs quarterly, and it's built around one thing: meeting the people actually doing the work. The vibe: 🍕 Free food & cold drinks, all night 💰 Presentation of the newly funded AI startups in town 💬 A panel session you actually want to hear from 🤝 Plenty of time before and after to connect Who's been in the room: Past editions have brought together engineers and researchers from Google DeepMind, NVIDIA, Anthropic, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, IBM Research, Prometheus, teams from Hugging Face, ElevenLabs, Isomorphic Labs, Poolside, Databricks, and Exa, and founders and operators from across the Zurich scene like Lakera, nunu.ai, Cerrion, Flexion, mimic, Cradle, LogicStar, Lightly, Rapidata and more, plus a deep research bench from the ETH AI Center, as well as ETH Zurich professors. If you're building in AI in Zurich, this is your room. Important: Curation is what makes the room work: registration is open, but approval isn't automatic. We read every request and prioritise people building or researching in AI, up to venue capacity. If you're here to sell services or source deals, this isn't the room. Agenda: 6:30 PM — Doors open, drinks & networking 7:15 PM — Intro + what happened in Zurich AI this quarter 7:45 PM — Fireside chatJeff Hawke, Co-founder and CTO at Odyssey Alex Stöckl, GP at Founderful (moderator) 8:30 PM — Food & networking 9:30 PM — End Organizers: A Founderful × Google Cloud event, organized by Edo and Gian, in collaboration with Wenger Vieli.

Join us in Zurich for an evening built for the local robotics and physical AI community. Gravis Robotics and Foxglove are teaming up to get the local robotics crowd in one room for real technical content and good conversation. Gravis will take the stage on rebuilding a robot's nervous system — moving beyond ROS2 toward a scalable, safety-certifiable open-source stack, while keeping the machine operational at every step of the migration. Foxglove joins on how you keep watch while you rewire a robot mid-run. Two teams, one belief: robots have to work outside the demo, not just in it. This is an invite-only evening, and registration is subject to approval. Space at the Papiersaal is limited, so apply early. Agenda 18:00 — Doors open. Grab a drink, meet the room. 18:45 — Welcome from Gravis and Foxglove. 19:10 — Gravis takes the stage: ‘From ROS 2 to iceoryx2: Rebuilding Middleware Under a Live System.’ 19:45 — Live Q&A. Bring your hardest questions. 20:10 — Networking and apéro until 22:00. Speakers Benjamin Rippel — Software Engineer, Gravis Robotics. Benjamin tackles high level architecture decisions for the excavators at Gravis, currently dealing with the middleware migration. Peter Siegel — Software Engineer, Gravis Robotics. Peter works on the perception pipeline architecture and hardware-accelerated edge pipeline deployments for autonomous heavy machinery. Who should come Robotics and physical AI engineers, founders, and researchers who are eager to push beyond current robotics paradigms — especially anyone who's wrestled with middleware, real-time systems, or getting robots to work in the real world. It's also aimed at the people making the technical calls, like CTOs and tech leads. Good to know Food & drinks — drinks all evening, plus a vegetarian and vegan menu. By train — the venue is in Sihlcity, about 5 minutes from Zürich HB to Zürich Saalsporthalle (SZU Sihltal line, every 20 min), then a short walk. Trams 5 and 13 also stop at Sihlcity. By car — park i

Learn AI skills alongside your local developer community. Agenda ⏰ 18:25: Doors open - please arrive on time ⏰ 18:55: Doors close (late entry may not be possible due to time constraints) ⏰ 19:00: Welcome - Erin, Rachel (organizers) ⏰ 19:05: Talk 1 – TBD ⏰ 19:30: Talk 2 – TBD ⏰ 20:05: Networking & Apéro – Supported by Google Cloud, Zencore, ABB, and Datwave We invite developers and technologists, from beginner to advanced, to connect, learn, and grow with Google's technologies and experts. Google Developer Groups (GDGs) bring together local developers and technologists, from beginner to advanced, to connect, learn, and grow with Google's technologies and experts. Join our community: https://gdg.community.dev/gdg-cloud-zurich/ +++ This event is part of the Zurich AI Festival, taking place from September 28 to October 3, 2026. Zurich AI Festival unites the minds building the future - visionary founders, bold investors, and tech leaders shaping tomorrow. Connect to tomorrow! Zurich AI Festival is a flagship initiative presented by ETH AI Center, Greater Zurich Area, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, and Zurich Tourism, and supported by leading partners from academia, industry, government and the broader AI ecosystem. We look forward to welcoming you soon! Zurich AI Festival Team

Ab 17:30 Uhr hast du die Gelegenheit, die vielfältigen Demos des AI+X Summit zu entdecken, innovative Anwendungen auszuprobieren und mit Forschenden, Entwicklern und Unternehmen ins Gespräch zu kommen. Um 18:30 Uhr startet unser Bühnenprogramm, moderiert von Damita Pressl. Freu dich auf inspirierende Beiträge von Nadine Bienefeld (ETH Zürich) und dem Künstlerduo AATB – Andrea Anner & Thibault Brevet - und weitere spannende Programmpunkte. Den krönenden Abschluss bildet die Siegerehrung der KI Challenge 2026, bei der junge Talente aus der Schweiz für ihre innovativen KI-Projekte ausgezeichnet werden. +++ This event is part of the Zurich AI Festival, taking place from September 28 to October 3, 2026. Zurich AI Festival unites the minds building the future - visionary founders, bold investors, and tech leaders shaping tomorrow. Connect to tomorrow! Zurich AI Festival is a flagship initiative presented by ETH AI Center, Greater Zurich Area, the City of Zurich, the Canton of Zurich, and Zurich Tourism, and supported by leading partners from academia, industry, government and the broader AI ecosystem. We look forward to welcoming you soon! Zurich AI Festival Team

A technical evening exploring how retrieval, vector search, reranking, and generative models are evolving for the age of AI agents. Join senior engineers, researchers, and technical leaders from Nebius, NVIDIA, Tavily and the wider search community for a practical discussion about the systems behind modern agentic search — from low-level search primitives on modern GPUs, through advanced retrieval and ranking, to the latest developments in agents for search workloads. The evening will feature four technical talks, followed by networking, drinks, and bites. Who Should Join The event is primarily designed for senior-level technical professionals: ML engineers and AI researchers AI agent developers Infrastructure, platform, and database engineers Anyone interested in information retrieval and search performance in the agentic era Let's meet in person! Agenda 17:00 — Doors open and registration 17:30 — Welcome and opening remarks 17:40 — Vector Search & Indexing 18:00 — Rethinking Evaluation for Multi-Turn, Tool-Using Search Agents 18:20 — Break, drinks, and bites 18:50 — Reranking in the Age of Search Agents: From Document Relevance to Task Utility 19:10 — Optimizing Generative Models for Search 19:30 — Networking, drinks, and bites 20:00 — Event ends Join us in Zurich for the first Nebius Agentic Search event, bringing together engineers eager to explore and shape this rapidly evolving field. About Nebius The Nebius AI Cloud brings powerful full-stack infrastructure for AI developers and practitioners across startups, enterprises and science institutes to build and deploy generative AI applications and rapidly deliver scientific breakthroughs by training and running ML models within a secure, high-performance, and cost-optimized cloud environment. Privacy Notices By submitting, you acknowledge that your personal data will be processed in accordance with the Nebius Privacy Policy. For information on how we process the personal data you provide when registering, pl

Zurich's quarterly gathering for the people building in robotics and physical AI — capped at 250 people. 250 people in one room: founders, operators, big tech engineers, researchers, and the city's most ambitious students. Built for real conversations and meaningful connections. This is the robotics meetup in Zurich. It runs quarterly, and it's built around one thing: meeting the people actually doing the work. The vibe: 🍕 Free food & cold drinks, all night 💰 Presentation of the newly funded robotics startups in town 💬 A panel session you actually want to hear from 🤝 Plenty of time before and after to connect Who's been in the room: Past editions have brought together engineers and researchers from Google, Meta, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Sony AI, IBM Research, Disney Research, Intrinsic, Circus Group, Skydio, Neura Robotics, Hexagon, Maxon, founders and operators of from ANYbotics, Flexion Robotics, mimic robotics, RIVR, Gravis Robotics, Laelaps, Ascento, microAGI, Voliro, Wingtra, plus research labs including ETH's Robotic Systems Lab, UZH's Robotics & Perception Group, the ETH AI Center, the RAI Institute, the ETH Robotics Club. If you're building in robotics in Zurich, this is your room. Important: Curation is what makes the room work: registration is open, but approval isn't automatic. We read every request and prioritise people building or researching in AI, up to venue capacity. If you're here to sell services or source deals, this isn't the room. Agenda: 6:30 PM — Doors open, drinks & networking 7:15 PM — Intro + what happened in Zurich Robotics this quarter 7:45 PM — Panel session:Oier Mees, MTS at Prometheus Marc Tuscher, Co-founder and CTO at Sereact Yves Albers, Co-founder and CTO at Roboto (moderator) 8:30 PM — Food & networking 9:30 PM — End Organizers: A Founderful × Roboto event, organized by Edo and Yves, in collaboration with Wenger Vieli and Google Cloud.

Let's meet at the CNC meetup on Tuesday, November 17th, 2026, at 15:00 CET. Location: Open Systems AG 3rd floor Räffelstrasse 29 8045 Zürich Agenda: 14:30 – Door Opening 15:00 – Welcome, Intro, & Announcements 15:05 – Talk 1: tbd (submit your talk proposal via https://cnc-meetup.ch) 15:35 – 5 minutes pause 15:40 – Talk 2: tbd (submit your talk proposal via https://cnc-meetup.ch) 16:10 – 5 minutes pause 16:15 – Talk 3: tbd (submit your talk proposal via https://cnc-meetup.ch) 16:45 – Final words, networking & apéro \-\-\- The event will be recorded and made available on VSHN's YouTube channel: https://vshn.tv. Subscribe to stay notified of updates. We expect all participants to abide by VSHN's Conference Code of Conduct: https://www.vshn.ch/en/code-of-conduct/ If you would like to share your cloud-native projects at the CNC Switzerland meetup events or sponsor future events, just send us your talk suggestion here: https://cnc-meetup.ch. We look forward to hearing from you!