SEF.Growth Best Practice Event with UBS

From Start-up to Scale-up: Overcoming the Hurdles of Growth.

This stimulating event will explore the challenges faced by entrepreneurs as they grow their Start-ups into thriving Scale-ups. Alongside the inspiring success stories from uniqFEED SA and Yokoy SA, participants will gain valuable insights into overcoming common obstacles during the scaling process, including securing funding, building teams with the necessary skills, expanding market reach and navigating operational complexities. Participants will also learn how UBS supports Scale-ups through this process with financing tools and its network.

19 September 2023

Bahnhofstrasse 45, 8001 Zurich

Best Practice Sharing for Scaling Companies Internationally

Before going into the scale-up phase, we should seize the opportunity to learn from start-up founders who are facing the challenges that comes with rapid growth. Lars Mangelsdorf, Co-Founder and CEO of Yokoy, generouslyshared his first-hand experiences when scaling up and mastering growth.

Over 100 entrepreneurs assembled at the elegant Zurich headquarters of UBS Switzerland. Everyone was curious to learn what successful scale-ups can share about the challenges of growth. The guests were especially eager to listen to the two rapidly growing start-ups Yokoy and UniqFEED: "I am inquisitive about what Lars will say about handling company culture in a rapidly growing team," says Levent Künzi, Co-Founder and CEO of Properti during the welcome drink. Interesting to learn that the culture topic was not among the main growth challenges Lars Mangelsdorf, Co-Founder and CCO of Yokoy, would specifically mention.

5 pieces of advice from Yokoy's rapid growth experience 

  1. The speed of software development was one of our biggest hurdles: We had one person developing the product, that ended up being the bottleneck in the company.
  2. After raising our series A (26 million USD) and series B (80 million USD), we faced the challenge of deploying the capital efficiently: The investors pushed us a lot to grow the team to scale the company massively.
  3. Nothing is more important than processes that work smoothly when the team and market traction grow drastically. Therefore, question every process with regards to its scalability.
  4. As a result of the changing investor sentiment and macroeconomic challenges, the company needed to transition from growth at all costs to a more sustainable growth path. Ask yourself if you really need a much larger number of employees to reach the company’s goals.
  5. Do what your business needs, not what your ego tells you to do. This includes stepping back from a role if someone else can fulfill it better than you.

President of UBS Switzerland opened the event

To the event's guests, speakers, and organizers, it was a great honor to welcome Sabine Keller-Busse, President UBS Switzerland, for the opening speech. She talked about her keen interest in meeting and exchanging with companies and start-ups. And she reassured everyone of UBS' commitment to continue to support Swiss start-ups and scale-ups. Over the past years more than 170 million growth capital was deployed to rapidly growing Swiss start-ups thanks to the SEF.Growth, the initiative that UBS founded together with SEF. Keller-Busse's presence at this event underlines the importance of the Swiss startup ecosystem for UBS. Lars Mangelsdorf from Yokoy and Olivier Fernandez from UniqFEED backed this with their experience in working together with UBS.

Lukas Frösch, Director of Entrepreneurship at Swiss Economic Forum, summarizes the evening with three points. "Regarding the event: It was great to meet in person and inspire each other; regarding the speakers: even our most successful founders are still easy-going and down-to-earth people and regarding the business: Adaptability is crucial."

Text by Alyssia Kugler

Programme for 19 September 2023

Time

Description
18.00Door opening & refreshments
18.30Welcome Note by UBS Senior representative and by 
Lukas Frösch, Director Entrepreneurship, NZZ Connect
18.40Introduction to the topic and presentation of the Start-ups
18.45

Keynote on the growth story of the scaled company by:

  • Lars Mangelsdorf, Co-Founder & CCO at Yokoy SA
19.05

Introduction of the company in the scaling process, uniqFEED SA and Panel discussion by Tanya König, Moderator & Founder, KÖNIG LLC, with:

  • Olivier Fernandez, CFO & Company Secretary, 
    uniqFEED SA
  • Lars Mangelsdorf, Co-Founder & CCO at Yokoy SA
  • Lukas Reinhardt, Head UBS Growth Advisory
19.30Closing words by SEF.Growth and UBS
Networking-Apero
22.00Door closing

Moderator

Tanya König

Moderator & Founder, KÖNIG LLC

Tanya König is a multilingual moderator, anchor, broadcast journalist, and founder of KÖNIG LLC. She produces interviews for the platform finance.swiss, that highlights the latest goings-on in the country’s financial landscape, presented the first episode of the TV-show «Next in Business» with a focus on entrepreneurs, and she is an anchor of the program Gesichter & Geschichten on SRF.

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Speaker

Person 1
Olivier Fernandez

CFO & Company Secretary, uniqFEED SA

CFO and Company Secretary of uniqFEED SA, a young Swiss Sportstech business developing computer vision-based virtual advertising solutions. Olivier is responsible for Finance, Human Resources, Investor Relations and Legal Affairs. He has 15+ years of experience across the finance disciplines in international businesses and helped deliver due diligence processes and an IPO. Olivier is Chartered Expert in Financial and Management Accounting and Reporting and holds a Bachelor in Business Administration.
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Person 1
Lars Mangelsdorf

Co-Founder and CCO at Yokoy SA

Lars Mangelsdorf is the Co-Founder and CCO of Yokoy, an AI-powered spend management solution. Passionate about simplifying traditional industries through digitization and automation, Lars aims to incorporate Yokoy's solution in European companies and enhance Switzerland's innovation reputation. He is an active angel investor and was recognized in Forbes' 30 under 30 list in 2021.
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Lukas Reinhardt

Head UBS Growth Advisory

Lukas Reinhardt leads UBS Growth Advisory, guiding fast-growing Swiss companies in financing and equity fundraising. With a strong understanding of the venture capital and start-up landscape, Lukas is well-connected in the field. He joined UBS in 2006, specializing in M&A and capital markets. Lukas has extensive experience in private placements, M&A, IPOs, and strategic consulting. He holds an MBA from the University of St. Gallen, is a CFA charter holder, and is pursuing a Global Executive MBA at INSEAD.
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