At S-PRO, we’re happy to play an active part in bringing the tech and startup community together in Switzerland. We work with founders and product teams every day, so we see how much faster ideas move when people talk openly about what they’re building, what they’ve tried, and what they want to do next.
Over time, the same thought kept coming up in conversations with clients and partners: it would be useful to have a regular place to meet in person, swap experience and ask the hard questions, not only share success stories. That’s where the idea for Startup Talks started.
Startup Talks is our way to make that idea real. It’s a series of live events that brings people into one room and lets discussions move out of separate calls and project threads into a shared, open space.
What Startup Talks is for
We started the series with a simple observation. Founders and people around them have access to a lot of content, but they rarely have time and space to compare their experience live with others facing similar challenges.
You may be someone building an early-stage company, thinking about discovery, testing a concept, shaping an MVP, or planning a fundraising round. You might be a tech expert discussing AI or blockchain use cases with your team, or trying to decide how far your first version can go before you need to rebuild. If so, many others around you are thinking about the same questions – but in different offices, different chats, different meetings.
The mission behind Startup Talks is to bring these threads together. As S-PRO, we wanted to create a regular, offline point of contact where founders and their ecosystem can:
- hear real stories about strategy, execution and pivots,
- understand how investors look at early-stage companies,
- see how technology decisions play into product and growth,
- connect with each other and with us as a long-term tech partner.
We see Startup Talks as a community-building effort as much as an event series: a way to turn scattered discussions into an ongoing, shared dialogue.
How the Meetups Look Like
Walk into one of these evenings and it feels closer to a big group conversation than to a formal event. There’s a main theme for the night, a few people on stage to kick things off, and a room full of guests who are there not just to listen, but to compare notes.
The structured part of the evening is quite short. A keynote gives everyone a shared starting point – a story, a set of questions, sometimes a sharp opinion. Then the mood shifts into a talk, interview or panel discussion. People on stage don’t just recite slides; they react to each other, challenge assumptions and add examples from their own teams and portfolios.
The best part usually happens after the microphones go quiet. Someone picks up a detail from the discussion and turns it into a question. Another guest adds their own version of the same problem. Small groups start to form around the room – near the high tables, by the bar, next to the snacks. People talk with a drink in hand, swap stories, compare what they’ve heard with what they are building and, more often than not, stay longer than they planned.
S-PRO is there as the host and tech partner, but the centre of the evening is the room itself – the mix of people, their questions and the very practical problems they bring with them.
Who Speaks at Startup Talks
Startup Talks only works if the right people hold the mic. We don’t bring in generic conference speakers. We invite people who spend their days deciding where money goes, what ships next, and which risks are worth taking.
In one evening, you usually hear at least 3 different perspectives in the same conversation. Investors talk about what they actually see in early-stage companies: how they read a deck, which signals feel solid, and when a “great idea” still isn’t investable.
Founders speak from inside the process rather than from a highlight reel. They share how they raised while the product was still changing, which bets on markets or features paid off, and where they had to correct course.
Capital and tech partners, including S-PRO leadership, add the long-term view. They connect funding structures with architecture and roadmaps, and show how those choices behave a year later, not just at launch.
In the first 3 editions, this mix came from:
- Vlad Tsapko – Entrepreneur & Startup Advisor, Partner, Next Billion Capital
- Lucky Bassi – CEO & Co-Founder, JobDone
- Adina Krausz – Founding Partner & CEO, InnoSource Ventures
- Igor Izraylevych – CEO & Co-Founder, S-PRO
- Sebastian Salomon – COO & Co-Founder, oneBanking
- Sascha Horrig – Founding Partner, EquityPitcher
- Samuel Brun – COO and Co-Founder at JobDone
- Antoine Chiron – Founder at Collabri
The result is a room where venture, founder, operational and technology views meet at the same table. Instead of high-level advice, you hear about real deals, product calls and turning points – details you can quietly check against your own plans on the way home.
We are sincerely grateful to all the founders, investors, and advisors who have shared their valuable time and candid stories from the stage.
3 Events, 3 Perspectives
In the first run of Startup Talks in 2025 we held 3 meetups in Zurich. Each one zoomed in on a different part of the journey: going global, finding the right capital and turning an idea into a product people can actually use.
1. Global-Ready: Swiss Startup Meetup
The series opened with Global-Ready: Swiss Startup Meetup in May.
The evening started from a simple idea: building a company isn’t just about having the right idea. It’s about execution, strategy and knowing when to pivot. The discussion revolved around a few direct questions: what separates startups that grow from those that fade, how investors evaluate early-stage companies, and where technology – AI, blockchain and more – really fits in the current environment.
The focus was on the journey of Swiss startups moving through the local landscape and out into emerging and global markets. On stage, founders and investors spoke about international growth, how “global readiness” shows up in a pitch, and how technology keeps reshaping what is possible.
The event began with a keynote from a partner at Next Billion Capital, sharing their mission to invest in companies that support inclusive and sustainable growth in emerging markets and how local teams can position themselves for global expansion. After that, a joint conversation between founders and investors brought both sides of the table together: real stories about navigating growth, entering new markets, reading investor expectations and using AI and other emerging technologies in day-to-day strategy and operations.
The night closed with open networking over drinks and snacks – plenty of time for people to keep talking and connect around what they had just heard.
2. Cracking the Fundraising Code: Smart Strategies for Startup Success
The second event in July grew naturally out of the first one. After the May meetup, one topic kept coming up in follow-up conversations: funding.
The next edition went straight into that. The idea was clear: raising capital isn’t just about having a neat pitch deck. It’s about choosing a path that fits your company, understanding the investor on the other side of the table and, at times, breaking the usual pattern.
The July meetup focused on real stories around fundraising strategies being used right now: hybrid capital models, tokenization, investor red flags and lessons learned on both sides. It was relevant both for founders planning their first round and for those looking for a smarter route to capital.
What made this evening stand out was the format. Alongside a keynote session and on-stage interview, we introduced Speed Networking. Instead of a classic panel, guests sat at small tables led by a “table captain” – a founder or investor who either sees dozens of pitch decks a week or has pitched themselves.
With just around 5-6 guests per table, conversations stayed focused and honest. People could bring their own rounds into the discussion, ask direct questions, compare approaches to structure and negotiations and hear what actually happens when an investor gives feedback. Because space was limited and everyone registered in advance, the room stayed compact and relevant, with people who deal with funding decisions in real life.
3. Bridging the MVP Gap: From Idea to Launch
The third event in September shifted the focus to product and the gap between a first idea and something real in the market.
This edition of Startup Talks was built to show what lives inside that gap. On stage, founders shared how they took bold ideas, turned them into MVPs and then grew them into companies. The format combined candid presentations, live interviews and stories from the front lines of building and shipping.
Speakers walked through how they shaped their first versions, found early adopters, refined their products and made decisions under real constraints. It wasn’t about a perfect “before and after” slide. It was about the messy middle that many people in the room recognised.
The evening ended with our speed networking format – short, fast-paced rounds in small groups that was well received during the 2nd edition of Startup Talks. Guests moved between founders, product experts and tech specialists, asked sharp questions, tested ideas and left with new contacts and concrete next steps. This format was definitely a hit among the attendees and let them naturally connect and explore potential collaborations.
What’s Next for Startup Talks in 2026
With 3 events behind us, Startup Talks has gone from an idea to a steady rhythm for the community. We have seen how much it helps when people who build, fund and support products share what is really going on in their work.
Future meetups will follow the same principle, not a fixed script. Topics will grow out of ongoing work with teams and the questions we keep hearing – the ones that are easier to work through together than alone.
We’ll announce new dates and themes through the Startup Talks Series 2026 and LinkedIn events, so you can quickly see what fits your current stage. If you have already joined one of the evenings, you are part of this story. If not, this page is your starting point. Next time Startup Talks shows up on your calendar, we’ll be glad to see you in the room – with your questions, your experience and your next idea.