The Lausanne-based start-up Monito has won the Strategis Prize 2018, which was awarded at the University of Lausanne on Monday April 30, 2018. The Prix Strategis is an entrepreneurship competition that has been awarded for the last 25 years by the students’ association HEC Espace Entreprise, which is attached to HEC Lausanne. The winners receive a check for CHF 50,000 at the ceremony. Since the award was launched, most of the winning start-ups have gone on to become leading lights in the Swiss economy.
Monito, winner 2018
The Strategis adventure began eight months ago for the 70 start-ups that registered to compete for the prize. On Tuesday April 17, the Prix Strategis judging panel – made up of experts from various fields and influential figures from the business world in French-speaking Switzerland – decided to award the 2018 Strategis Prize to Monito.
Its decision was based on the criteria for which the Strategis Prize is awarded: innovation, product delivery and capacity for expansion. The judges also felt that Monito offered potential for the Swiss economy.
A Lausanne-based start-up formed in 2015, Monitor provides a platform for comparing and evaluating money-transfer services, with the aim of increasing transparency in the funds-transfer market. The start-up compares and analyzes over 450 transfer providers to find the best option for each international transfer. “We formed Monito because we believe that sending money around the globe should be quick, simple and cheap,” explains François Briod, CEO of Monito and a graduate of the Master’s in Information Systems program at HEC Lausanne in 2015.
Other prize winners
Second place in the 25th Prix Strategis went to Eyeware. This Valais-based start-up develops software that tracks eye movements and allows PC and smartphone cameras to analyze human attention. Third place went to SamanTree Medical, a start-up from EPFL. It has developed the HistoScanner, which allows surgeons to test tissues that have just been removed from a patient directly in the operating theatre, in just a few moments.
HEC Lausanne congratulates the teams of all three start-ups that won the various prizes and wishes them every success in the future!