Swiss technology company Bühler has taken a bold step in bridging industrial challenges with innovation through Scale-Up Day, held during Bühler’s Networking Days. On June 25, the Scale-Up Day brought together 21 carefully selected, high-impact scale-ups—mature start-ups with proven technologies—to connect directly with Bühler’s global customers, partners, and investors. With companies focused on food system transformation, climate mitigation, and sustainable materials, Scale-Up Day created a platform for building partnerships and multiplying real-world solutions.
“Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. These companies are solving problems our customers face today or will face soon. By giving them this platform, we hope to spark new partnerships, fresh ideas, and real business opportunities.”
– Thierry Duvanel, Director of Innovation at Bühler North America.
The aim of Scale-Up Day was to help solve real problems facing Bühler’s customers. By carefully selecting companies that address defined industry challenges in food, sustainability, and climate solutions, the event created opportunities for synergies, partnerships, and concrete action. Whether that’s joint go-to-market, deployment with customers or access to financing, this global network offers huge potential for multiplication—enabling scale-ups to grow their businesses while multiplying the impact of their solutions.
Scale-Up Day was more than a showcase. Each scale-up had access to the decision-makers attending Networking Days, encouraging in-depth conversations and potential collaborations.
“We wanted our customers to walk away with not just inspiration, but action points and real partnerships that lead to real deployment. At the same time, the scale-ups had a unique opportunity to connect with potential multiplication partners—those who can help grow their businesses while scaling the impact of their solutions.”
– Thierry Duvanel, Director of Innovation at Bühler North America.
Mature start-ups, ready for impact
Mature start-ups selected for this year’s Scale-Up Day offer proven technologies—not just early-stage ideas. Many are already operational, funded, and scaling, with strong teams, validated solutions, and a clear industrial fit. Over a rigorous six- to eight-week selection process, Bühler collaborated with leading venture capital firms and partners—including Big Idea Ventures, SOSV, the Swiss Entrepreneur Fund, Synthesis Capital, ICOS Capital, and the MassChallenge Switzerland start-up accelerator—to identify candidates with traction, relevance, and the capacity to grow.
“We look for big ideas that, if we can make them a reality, will completely transform the world. We believe that working with the best start-ups and bringing them together with the best corporations allows us to scale up these technologies that are going to have a positive global impact.”
– Andrew Ive, founder of Big Idea Ventures.
The selection process resulted in a curated group of companies delivering tangible solutions across three innovation fronts: food systems transition, including novel ingredients, fermentation, alternative proteins, and food processing; climate change mitigation, encompassing industrial decarbonization, energy systems, and circularity; and sustainable materials, focused on biomanufactured and low-impact materials ready to scale.
A bridge to industry partners
The Scale-Up Day took place as part of Bühler’s Networking Days 2025, a global industry platform that convened over 1,200 decision-makers at the company’s headquarters in Uzwil. Held every three years, the event brings together stakeholders from the food, feed, and sustainable mobility and materials sectors. With the 2025 theme “Multiplying impact together,” the event’s focus was on the solutions available today that build successful businesses and create positive impact at scale. Within this context, the scale-ups were provided with a unique opportunity to present their solutions to an audience of leading players in relevant industries.
“We came to the Scale Up day because we want to connect with partners in the food industry who could use our products and food tech companies who could help us develop our range of ingredients. We also want to engage with industrial partners who can help us scale up and multiply our technology around the world.”
– Yonatan Golan, CEO and co-founder of Israel-based Brevel.
Brevel produces food ingredients using a unique illuminated fermentation process that allows it to work with microalgae and strains of bacteria that need light to thrive. The company has already commercialized a process to produce a functional protein that can replace eggs in a wide range of applications.
Rondo, based in California, US, has developed a heat storage battery that converts excess electrical energy from wind or solar generation into high-grade heat for industrial processes. The technology uses refractory bricks heated to more than 1,000°C, which offer an energy storage density higher than lithium batteries.
“At the Scale-Up Day, we are interested in meeting users who could use our plug-and-play technology in their operations. And in working with partners to explore the way their processes could be adapted to use clean renewable heat.”
– John O’Donnell, Chief Innovation Officer.
Farmtory, from Suzhou, China, has built a flexible, low-cost biomanufacturing system to produce peptides. The company has already commercialized a peptide-based sweetener based upon brazzein, a sweet-tasting protein that occurs naturally in oubli, a fruit from Central Africa, as well as a range of peptides that increase taste sensitivity to salt, allowing food producers to reduce the salt content of their recipes.
“We are here to talk to anyone who might benefit from our peptide production capabilities. And we are also looking for partners to help us meet our ambition of producing a comprehensive range of dairy-replacement proteins at large scale.”
– James Wu, CEO and co-founder of the company.
Bühler recognizes that the challenges industry faces are too big to be tackled by any one company. The Scale-Up Day is part of its ongoing commitment to develop and nurture a global innovation ecosystem of start-ups, accelerators, incubators, and investment funds.
“What makes our approach unique is our culture of innovation, experimentation and openness, and our willingness to share our ecosystem with our customers. The Scale-Up Day had the potential to create powerful, lasting partnerships—connecting companies in our customer base, which have big supply chains and global reach, with a curated group of smaller businesses with great ideas and proven technologies. That’s the sort of marriage that creates multiplication.”
– Ian Roberts, CTO at Bühler.