October 20, 2026 | Boston & New York

Every September, New York, already one of the world’s most international cities, becomes the meeting point of the global climate community. Alongside the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Week, Climate Week NYC draws over 120,000 attendees to over 1,500 events across the city. That density presents a unique opportunity for Swiss startups who are looking to break into global markets. “Basically everybody is here,” said Stefan Kaspar, a member of the 2026 Climate Collider cohort.

From September 14 to 28, Climate Collider, the climatetech startup camp powered by Innosuisse and managed by Swissnex, brought eight Swiss startups to the East Coast to experience it for themselves. After a week of workshops and expert sessions in Boston, the cohort spent five days at Climate Week NYC connecting with investors, partners, and fellow founders.

For Kaspar, founder and CEO of BCHAR,  the international nature of Climate Week made it the ideal place to follow up on leads with US partners, but also potential customers in their other target markets. “I tried to spend 50% of my time meeting people that I was already chasing before,” he said. “People I met during Zurich Climate Week, or people I’ve known for two years or so, I just invite them and try to meet up… We’re pushing Brazil, we’re pushing India, and we’re pushing the US, and I was able to meet a lot of people.” Some connections were even closer to home — the Swiss Climatetech Showcase “helped me to connect with investors from Switzerland that were also here.”

The sheer scale of Climate Week created its own challenges. For Moritz Pill, COO/CFO of the geothermal drilling startup Borobotics, the biggest one was “the size of the city. You have to get around and really plan your movements in advance. No matter how close it is on a map, everything is half an hour minimum.” And once you get there, things don’t always go as planned. “I tried to do pre-prep for all of them,” said Mitchell Anderson, CEO of the fiberglass recycling startup Verretex. “I went into an investor event, I had targeted investors I wanted, and then when you get into the space, it’s a huge party basically, and you can’t find the people.” Facing the same problem, Patrycja Kucharczyk, CTO of the biomaterials startup Treeless learned to guard her time. “Sometimes you have to quickly take a decision. If it’s not okay, you just leave it,” she said. “I had one event, I went and after 10 minutes I decided okay, it doesn’t make sense, it’s better to go to the next event.”

Amid all the false starts, the founders discovered opportunities in unexpected places. “Those were the best ones, where there was no real reason to be there,” said Pill. “We did a boat ride to Staten Island and back, without any sort of program whatsoever, and that was really nice because you were chatting naturally, and you saw the Statue of Liberty going by. We did a birding session in Central Park — it was really nice because there was really no program around it.” For Anderson, the best networking took place at an event in an even less likely location, organized by the Finnish Consulate: “I actually met a lot of interesting investors in the sauna.”

Finding those gatherings among the more than 300 events per day took some digging, but some of the most useful weren’t even on the calendar. “In the evenings, there were different parties or networking events, and a lot of them, they’re not even on the official page. You have to try to find them,” said Kaspar. “The best thing for me was finding companies in the same field who publish their own insider’s guide that shows the private events.”

Throughout the program, the founders picked up ideas and insights from their US peers and other founders who’ve already made the jump. “It was very interesting to understand the dynamic of the market, and to hear about how they do partnerships, how they work with companies,” said Aurélien Ducrey, CEO of the industrial drying startup ProSeed, but the some of the most important takeaways were intangible ones: “I would say the best insights that I got were from American founders, just to get the feel and get their ambition.” Kaspar offered a similar perspective: “I think we know quite well how we need to pitch in Europe, but not so much in the US. You take more space here.” he said. The pitch practice sessions in Boston turned out to be preparation not only for the stage, but for every chance encounter that followed at Climate Week. “You basically build up your American confidence.” For founders used to letting their research speak for itself, that new outlook may be the most useful thing they bring home from New York.