Swiss Technology Award 2026

Apheros is a finalist for the Swiss Technology Award 2026

We're one of three finalists in the Start-ups (Rising Stars) category of the Swiss Technology Award 2026. The award is run by NZZ Connect and has three categories: Inventors, Start-ups (Rising Stars) and Industry Innovation. Its partners are CSEM, Helbling and Innosuisse.

The winners will be announced on 25 November at the Swiss Technology Award Night at Google Zürich. We're sharing the shortlist with Edwatec and Voltiris, which is good company to be in.

What we're bringing to the stage

Apheros is an ETH Zürich spin-off based in Baden. We make open-pore metal foams, and we use them in two places where moving heat or fluids well makes a real difference.

The first is liquid cooling for high-performance computing. Servers keep getting denser and hotter, and our foams help pull that heat away. The second is green hydrogen: in electrolysis, our foams work as porous electrodes.

It's one material with two very different jobs, and that's the story we'll tell on the night.

The evening

Doors open at 18:30 at Google Zürich, with drinks and snacks until the welcome by Google and NZZ Connect at 19:15. From 19:25, the finalists pitch and the awards are presented in all three categories. Silvan Krähenbühl hosts. After that it's an apéro riche until 22:00.

The other finalists are BTRY, Skaaltec and UNOMR (Inventors), and Exitflex, HeiQ GrapheneX and Sefar (Industry Innovation). If you're there, come and say hello. If not, we'll post how it went.