CHF 150k · Other round · Software · Zurich, Switzerland
Zurich-based Lupa, formerly Prismus, has secured CHF 150k in Venture Kick support after completing the programme's Stage III milestone. Venture Kick says the funding will help the company scale adoption across deep-tech markets, open the platform to more individual users and strengthen customer acquisition.
Venture Kick presents CHF 150k as the support secured through its three-stage programme. Earlier company-attributed material disclosed CHF 40k at Stage II, so the current figure is programme support to date rather than CHF 150k added on top of the earlier tranche.
Making technical markets searchable
Lupa is aimed at a research problem that also becomes a sales problem: scientific and industrial knowledge is distributed across papers, patents, grants, laboratories, companies, hiring and funding records. A technical supplier may know its product well but still struggle to identify which laboratories, research groups or industrial teams are moving into an application where that product fits.
The platform asks users for their scientific or commercial context, then uses agents to search and rank markets, labs, people and potential partners. Lupa says every result is tied back to a source, while its shared data layer connects publications, patents, researchers, companies and market signals. That provenance matters in technical sales, where a plausible lead is less useful than evidence showing why a prospect's current work is relevant.
Venture Kick reports that Lupa already serves 30 paying customers, while the company site names research and industry users and publishes testimonials from Menhir Photonics and MaxWell Biosystems. Those are company and investor claims rather than audited adoption metrics, but they point to an initial commercial wedge: replacing repeated browser research with a workflow that sales and strategy teams can query.
The next proof is repeatable adoption
The Stage III support is modest compared with a conventional venture round, so its significance lies in the milestone it funds. Lupa is moving from an early, company-led sales product toward broader access for individual users. That can lower the friction of trying the product and expose it to more scientific domains, but it also raises the bar for onboarding and relevance without hands-on support.
The execution test is whether Lupa can keep its source graph current and its rankings useful as it expands beyond the first 30 customers. If users can repeatedly connect technical signals to qualified commercial opportunities, the platform can become part of how deep-tech teams decide where to sell, partner or research. If each new domain still requires heavy manual configuration, growth will remain closer to specialist research services than scalable software.
Sources checked:
Venture Kick announcement · Lupa product and team · Lupa imprint · Prismus company profile · Tech.eu Funding Explorer
