Tech4Trust selects 30 start-ups to secure artificial intelligence

Trust Valley has unveiled the cohort for the eighth edition of its Tech4Trust accelerator: 30 start-ups from 11 countries, including 15 from Switzerland, working to make AI secure, governed and sovereign.

Trust Valley has announced the 30 start-ups selected for the eighth edition of Tech4Trust, its global accelerator dedicated to digital trust and cybersecurity. The cohort was unveiled at EPFL‘s SwissTech Convention Center during the Trust Valley Days 2026 by Raphaël Conz, head of economic affairs and innovation at the canton of Vaud. This edition focuses on securing AI against threats such as deepfakes, data breaches and malicious actors.

The cohort represents 11 countries across Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Latin America, with 15 start-ups from Switzerland and 15 from abroad. Most are at pre-seed or seed stage, and one has reached Series A. Eleven of the 15 Swiss start-ups are based in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva, including NativeAI, which is in the process of incorporating in Vaud.

Trusted AI as a defining theme

AI is the leading technology across the cohort, followed by cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, data protection and trust technologies. A first group of start-ups addresses the conditions for adopting AI safely. Anyway Systems enables companies to deploy large AI models on their own infrastructure in minutes, Deeplink offers a no-code AI platform hosted entirely in Switzerland for public administrations and SMEs, Adopt-AI builds a sovereign Swiss AI workspace for regulated professionals, and AIKEYOS deploys on-premise generative AI inside organizations that cannot let their data leave.

Others focus on the governance and quality of AI systems: skilder gives AI agents defined roles, clear limits and a traceable record of their actions, NativeAI keeps sensitive company data from leaking into AI tools, and Surelio provides AI quality assurance. The cohort also includes Smartibex AI, which develops an AI-native radiology information system, and Origin Gateway, which builds AI-native trade compliance infrastructure for small and medium-sized exporters.

From technology to market adoption

Over nine months, the start-ups will receive mentoring, strategic guidance and training from industry leaders, with support to secure funding, launch pilot projects and grow sustainably, through a package valued at CHF 100,000 per start-up. The program leads to the Global AI Summit, to be held in Geneva in June 2027. Trust Valley CEO Lennig Pedron called trust “the non-negotiable prerequisite for AI adoption” and said the cohort is delivering market-ready solutions.

Across its seven previous editions, Tech4Trust has supported 200 start-ups with 75 partners, and these companies have raised a total of CHF 450 million.