The authors are involved in building MEDKAP, KAPSLY, and the Healthechpark. This article describes the rationale behind that work.
Why Ecosystems?
Innovation used to happen inside large organizations. Bell Labs, IBM, DuPont: companies built internal research departments and kept the results to themselves. That model no longer works for most industries. Knowledge travels faster, talent moves more freely, and startups can bring products to market that once required the resources of a multinational.
The consequence is that corporations increasingly look outside for new technologies. They acquire startups, license solutions, or run pilot projects with early-stage companies. Startups, in turn, need more than funding. They need customers, regulatory guidance, and introductions to the right people.
The problem is that these two groups struggle to work together on their own. Corporations operate in quarterly cycles, with procurement processes designed for established suppliers. Startups move fast, break things, and rarely fit into those processes. The result: promising collaborations stall, pilots drag on, and both sides walk away frustrated.
This is where ecosystems come in. MIT researchers Phil Budden and Fiona Murray have shown that innovation works best when five groups operate in concert: research institutions, entrepreneurs, corporations, investors, and governments. No single group can replace any of the others. The returns come from how they connect.
Venture Clienting: Customers Beat Investors
One of the most effective ways to connect startups and corporations is the venture client model, developed at BMW in 2015. Instead of investing in a startup, the corporation becomes its early customer. It identifies a business problem, scouts for startups that might solve it, runs a pilot, and, if it works, buys the solution. No equity changes hands.
BMW’s Startup Garage, the first dedicated venture client unit, used this approach to adopt ten times more startup technologies than through its previous corporate venturing setup. The 2024 State of Venture Client Report (a global survey of corporates and startups by 27pilots, ETH Zürich, INSEAD, and the University of Passau) confirms the pattern: companies with dedicated venture client units complete a first purchase order within 12 weeks, versus 26 weeks or more through standard processes. Their pilot rates are nearly three times higher.
For startups, a paying customer is worth more than an investor who writes a small check and then waits. Revenue validates the product. A corporate reference opens doors to the next customer. And unlike equity investment, venture clienting does not dilute the founders.
Why Sector Focus Matters
The bridge between startups and The bridge between startups and corporations is easier to build when the people involved share a common language. A generalist investor can write a check, but a HealthTech specialist can read a regulatory filing, spot a reimbursement risk, and introduce the founder to a hospital procurement team over lunch.
This is not just intuition. Research on venture capital firms shows that teams with specialized investment professionals significantly outperform generalists, both in selecting better companies and in supporting them after investment. The angel market is moving in the same direction: healthcare-focused angel groups have been among the fastest-growing segments in the US and Europe over the past decade.
In a heavily regulated field like health technology, where a startup’s path to market runs through clinical validation, CE marking, and reimbursement negotiations, sector expertise is not a nice-to-have. It is the difference between useful advice and generic encouragement.
How MEDKAP, KAPSLY, and the Healthechpark Work Together
The Canton of Zürich is home to roughly 30 to 40 percent of Switzerland’s digital health companies, drawn by ETH Zürich, the University of Zürich, the University Hospital, and a dense cluster of medtech and pharmaceutical firms. The infrastructure is strong. What has been missing are the connective structures that turn proximity into collaboration.
Three organizations are working to fill that gap. They are not the only players in Zürich’s HealthTech landscape, but they are designed to work as a unit.
MEDKAP is a non-profit angel investor club focused exclusively on HealthTech. Its members are healthcare executives, entrepreneurs, physicians, and experienced investors who bring deep domain knowledge in medtech, diagnostics, and digital health. Investments are syndicated: members contribute from CHF 5,000 per deal, bundled into rounds that are meaningful for the startup and clean for future investors. Some members invest passively alongside an experienced lead. Others take active roles as advisors or board members.
KAPSLY is a service company that connects HealthTech startups with specialized providers: regulatory strategy, clinical studies, product development, commercialization. Early-stage HealthTech companies typically need this expertise but cannot afford it at market rates. KAPSLY enables flexible arrangements, including service-for-equity, so startups can access professional support without burning through their runway. KAPSLY also runs venture clienting services for corporates and SMEs, helping them identify and pilot startup solutions faster.
The Healthechpark Zürich-Schlieren provides the physical layer. Located next to the established Bio-Technopark, it offers workspace, labs, and regular events that bring together startups, established firms, hospitals, and the Canton’s economic development division, which sits on the Healthechpark board.
What makes these three components useful is not any one of them alone. It is how they connect. A startup that receives funding through MEDKAP can immediately access KAPSLY’s service network for regulatory and commercial support. KAPSLY’s venture clienting arm can connect the same startup with a corporate pilot customer. The Healthechpark puts all of this in a room with researchers, hospital decision-makers, and cantonal officials. And MEDKAP’s European partner networks (Springboard Angels in Germany, Angel Santé in France, Italian Angels for Growth, LSI in Sweden) extend both deal flow and market access beyond Swiss borders.
What Members Get
For someone joining MEDKAP, the value goes beyond individual deals.
- Curated deal flow. MEDKAP’s advisory board screens startups against HealthTech-specific criteria: team, traction, regulatory pathway, competitive position, and fundability. Members see pre-evaluated opportunities in a field they understand.
- Accessible ticket sizes, professional structure. Syndication keeps individual commitments manageable while producing rounds that work for the startup and for follow-on investors.
- A service network that protects your investment. Portfolio companies do not have to figure out regulatory strategy or go-to-market on their own. KAPSLY’s network is designed to accelerate exactly the steps where early-stage HealthTech companies most often get stuck.
- Early customer access. Through KAPSLY’s venture clienting services, portfolio companies can reach corporate and SME customers faster. For an investor, this is the single most important factor: a startup that lands its first paying customer is dramatically more likely to survive.
- A community, not just a portfolio. The Healthechpark’s events, workshops, and informal networks create the kind of cross-stakeholder exchange that no online platform can replicate. Members meet hospital administrators, ETH researchers, cantonal officials, and fellow investors in the same room.
- International reach. European partner networks provide access to cross-border deal flow, co-investment opportunities, and market connections for portfolio companies expanding beyond Switzerland.
In Short
Innovation in HealthTech does not happen in isolation. It happens when investors, startups, corporates, hospitals, regulators, and researchers work in proximity, with structures that make their interactions productive. MEDKAP, KAPSLY, and the Healthechpark are one attempt to build those structures in a sector and a region where the raw ingredients are already strong. The ecosystem is still young. But its design reflects a straightforward conviction: the best way to improve outcomes for startups, investors, and corporates alike is to improve the connections between them.
Closing Remark
Switzerland offers many of the right ingredients: talent, funding, IP strength and regulatory clarity. Yet capitalizing on this moment will take more than favorable trends. Angels, VCs, corporates and public actors must work together to turn scientific and entrepreneurial promise into companies that scale – and stay. The window is open.
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About the authors
Jan Fülscher: Jan is a seasoned entrepreneur and startup expert with over 20 years of experience in building and managing innovation ecosystems. As a mentor, coach, and educator, he empowers founders and fast-growing companies to achieve business success. Jan is passionate about fostering entrepreneurship and supporting the next generation of innovators in Switzerland and beyond. He is a true Business Angel veteran who has scaled Business Angels Switzerland, before co-founding SICTIC. At MEDKAP he brings in his wealth of experience to shape the future of Angel Investing 2.0.
Vincent Irrling: Vincent Irrling is a strategic leader and “ecosystem architect” within the Swiss HealthTech landscape, dedicated to bridging the gap between clinical innovation and commercial success. As the founder of KAPSLY and MEDKAP, and the Managing Director of Healthtechpark Zürich-Schlieren, Vincent has built a unique, integrated infrastructure designed to fuel the future of healthcare. By running these three organizations, Vincent orchestrates a holistic environment where startups can access the capital, clinical validation, and commercial expertise necessary to achieve real patient impact and successful exits.
