NEUR.ON

Talking about my mistakes on stage, so you can avoid them. When you scroll through LinkedIn, 97% of all posts talk about success. The upsides, the travel, the smiley networking pictures. (By the way, I'm fully aware I'm doing it, too.) Of the remaining 3%, two are lobbying towards more honest communications about failures and mistakes. And that last one percent ACTUALLY shows the missteps for others to heed and steer clear of. Now, I'm always advocating for learning from our mistakes. If you want to learn from mine, November 14 is a perfect day for that: I'll be speaking at the #DigitalEconomyAward 2024 in the Hallenstadion Zürich, more precisely at their "AI Sandbox" event. From 3pm to 4 pm, Andrea Fossati from Parquery, Cristiano Malossi from IBM Research, and yours truly will discuss what we have experienced during our past ventures. Do send me a quick DM if you're attending, too.

“I like putting my time, energy, and money behind companies that want to build something great.” says growth-focused corporate strategist and #legaltech veteran, Brian F., in this instalment of "Let the investor speak". "First and very foremost, the team and culture are critical. What’s the company’s vision? How well do they understand their customers and the market? Do they believe they can be successful? NEUR.ON has an experienced and hungry team that understands their industry, the customer problem they are trying to solve, and are dedicated to delivering a best-in-class solution. Paula understood the existing inefficiencies in 20 year old translation technology. Why? Because she built her prior, successful business on that very technology! She understood that there has to be a better way, and that AI was going to revolutionize translation. She understood this 2 years ago, before AI became sexy and on every front page. This has given Neur.on a massive head start in the AI race with a fit-for-purpose solution available now. Aside from the incredibly customer-focused and capable team, the thing that gets me most excited about Neur.on is its scalability. This solution is embedded in applications that lawyers, finance professionals, governments use daily. This means that tasks that previously required an outside firm are now at the fingertips of the user … in the application they use for their everyday work. I don’t work for a VC and I’m not in PE, but I do understand software and technology. I have invested in NEUR.ON because I believe in the team, the product, and the opportunity for it to grow into something huge. Neur.on brings Swiss pragmatism together with cutting edge AI technology and I can’t wait to see where it goes in the next few years."

Can you guess the biggest concern of #legaltech and #fintech corporations working with new suppliers? In our experience, it's information security. After all, in the industries named, handling client data according to protocol isn't a gimmicky benefit. It is absolutely crucial. And while our smiling faces won't tell, we're very serious about this subject. So much so that we have achieved the ISO-27001 certification. #iso27001 is an international standard for implementing, maintaining and improving ISMS (information security management systems). Our processes for accessing, storing, and safeguarding information has been thoroughly vetted through an official third party. And as you can imagine, we won't stop there - this t-shirt is only the first in our security-fashionista's wardrobe. More to be printed soon. Because IT safety comes already woven into everything we do.

It's been a pleasure welcoming you all! we are proud to be part of this vibrant community

🎯 NEUR.ON, start-up fondée par Paula Reichenberg et coachée par Robert van Kommer, révolutionne le monde de la traduction juridique avec la création de Corrext, une plateforme de traduction automatique basée sur le Natural Language Processing (NLP). Une gageure dans un monde où la sécurité des données est clé et le vocabulaire extrêmement complexe. Retour sur un succès technologique et humain. 👉 Vers l'article: https://lnkd.in/g6YzdgPr

Neur.on ranked 13th out of the 80 most innovative Swiss companies alongside ROLEX, Victorinox and Swissquote. Plus we rank 2nd place in terms of "innovation culture". Thank you, BILANZ Wirtschaftsmagazin, Le Magazine des PME, and Statista for the accolade! This week truly is off to a great start.

This just out: NEUR.ON will be part of this year's TLTF Summit in Florida. As one of only 24 attending early-stage startups out of a 200+ applicants from all over the world. I'll tell you more about it next week. For now, we pre-celebrate a little bit before getting back to work. In the words of The Legal Tech Fund #TLTF: they're all about bringing the world's most forward-thinking entrepreneurs and experts together to accelerate innovation in the legal world. Sounds to me like a pretty good fit for NEUR.ON. ☺️

Neur.on is looking forward to welcoming all Legaltech aficionados for a gourmet breakfast "à la fribourgeoise" and an animated discussion on current digitalization opportunities and challenges facing legal professions 🥐☕🥖🍊 #fribourg #legaltech

How do these people help me grow? There's an often-cited quote I personally quite like: "If you want to reach new heights, surround yourself with people who already climbed further up than you." A perfect example of such a group of people gathered at the end of last week at Belvoirpark Restaurant in Zurich. All of them are alumni of INSEAD, the one international business school breeding the highest numbers of entrepreneurs outside of the US, based on capital raised. (Highly talented Anat Bar-Gera, the woman on the left of the picture, and her husband Dov Bar-Gera might have added greatly to those numbers, too: they're both as industrious and skilled in building and investing in startups as they are in promoting the school and making others grow.) What were we celebrating? Mainly INSEAD's new Dean, Francisco Veloso's first official visit to Switzerland. And the very positive news that Poets&Quants (basically the go-to reviewers for all things MBA education) ranked INSEAD "best MBA program of the year" – for the 9th time in 14 years, mind you. Poets&Quants argues that INSEAD did a fantastic job revamping their accelerated MBA, writing: "No B-school on Earth has done more to weave sustainability into its programming than INSEAD. This past year INSEAD revamped its MBA curriculum to more deeply incorporate sustainability in its 14 core courses. The change, which takes effect in January, helps INSEAD align with its mission to be a force for good. Even more, it helps the school stay relevant with students and employers who are clamoring for greater understanding in sustainability-related concepts – and the opportunities inherent to the field." It was an invigorating evening filled with inspiring talks and speeches. Big thanks to the head organisers, Mafalda T. and Philippe M. (both in the picture), and Lorenzo Garofano, Anelia Uzunova, Reto Gygax and many others.

Angel investors: yay or nay? Is it better to skip angel investors? To not deal with the time stealing, the high maintenance communication, the pressure angels put on top of an already dense day-to-day? "Go VC or go home" tends to be the go-to position in lots of startup communities. Yet, here I am, singing praise to those angels, clearly sent from above to give startups wings and guide them on their paths to get closer to the sky. Having just closed a bridge round with ALL of our current seed shareholder re-investing, shows how fruitful relationships with angel investors can be. (And leaves me and the team at NEUR.ON very thankful.) Here's three factors that helped us attract the right angels: 1. Specialize: great B2B SaaS solutions are often built by industry specialists. That again attracts angel investors who are well-acquainted with that respective industry. In our case: people who know about the scope and shortcomings linked to legal translation: lawyers, bankers, #LegalTech entrepreneurs etc. 2. Look for complex problems: people who can lessen complexity always attract attention, especially when it concerns a global and profitable niche. In our case: AI-supercharging legal translation and making it both simple and efficient, but also reliable and accurate, caught the interest of savvy VC experts, investing privately as angels. 3. Think internationally: The more culturally diverse your investor pool is, the easier it will be for your to foresee and solve possible hitches in scalability. In our case: beyond Switzerland, we attracted investments from Germany, the UK, the US, Israel, the Bahamas, and Brazil. In short: it's the same with angel investors as it is with any relationship. You first have to make sure you understand who YOU are, before you can attract that perfect match. To all of our perfect matches, I can only extend a heartful THANK YOU for believing in us, and gifting us your time when we ask for advice, introductions, and market insights. You lot are truly angelic. #angelinvestors #vc #startups #entrepreneurs #venturecapital #bridgeround #thankful