Skip to main content

Security report for startup.ch

Venturelab Ltd. · Technology · Switzerland

Medium risk. 7 critical or high findings in Email security, Security headers and 2 other checks.

Security score

60/100

Risk levelMedium

0–100, higher is better. How it is calculated

Startup.ch is a Swiss-based online platform operated by Venturelab Ltd. that serves as a comprehensive radar for the Swiss startup ecosystem. It offers detailed profiles of startups and investors, tracks funding rounds, provides curated lists, job postings, and startup support resources. The platform targets entrepreneurs, investors, and ecosystem stakeholders interested in Swiss innovation and investment opportunities. Technically, the website leverages modern web technologies including jQuery, Bootstrap, and Select2, and is likely built on ColdFusion given the URL patterns. It is mobile-optimized and integrates Google Analytics and Google Ad Manager for tracking and advertising. Security-wise, the site enforces HTTPS and includes a cookie consent mechanism compliant with GDPR, but lacks explicit security headers and incident response contact information. Overall, the website is professional, trustworthy, and well-positioned in the Swiss startup ecosystem.

Scanned

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
68/ 100 · Medium
Checks completed
7of 7

NIS2 Art. 21(2)

  1. (a) Risk analysis and security policies: Not visible from outside
  2. (b) Incident handling: One indicator
  3. (c) Business continuity, backups and crisis management: Not visible from outside
  4. (d) Supply chain security: Not visible from outside
  5. (e) Secure acquisition, development and maintenance, including vulnerability handling: Partly checked
  6. (f) Assessing the effectiveness of security measures: Not visible from outside
  7. (g) Cyber hygiene and security training: Not visible from outside
  8. (h) Cryptography and encryption: Partly checked
  9. (i) HR security, access control and asset management: One indicator
  10. (j) Multi-factor authentication and secured communications: Not visible from outside

This scan rated NIS2 with an earlier keyword method that is no longer shown; rescan for the per-article view. Risk management, continuity, supply chain, training, MFA, management oversight (Art. 20) and incident reporting (Art. 23) need internal evidence, and Guard cannot tell whether NIS2 applies to this organisation.

GDPR is indicative only, based on publicly visible signals: Articles 7, 12, 13 and 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. Not a certification or legal assessment.

Priority findings

7 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Email security

    SPF, DKIM and DMARC stop others sending email that looks like it comes from your domain, a common route to phishing and invoice fraud.

    • Critical

      No email authentication configured

      Domain is vulnerable to email spoofing

      What to do: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC immediately

  2. Security headers

    Security headers are instructions your web server sends to every visitor’s browser. Missing ones leave visitors more exposed to attacks such as clickjacking and injected scripts.

    • High

      Missing Strict-Transport-Security header

      Forces HTTPS connections

      What to do: Add "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"

      • CWE-319
      • OWASP A04:2025
      • ASVS V3.4.1
    • High

      Missing X-Frame-Options header

      Prevents clickjacking attacks

      What to do: Add "X-Frame-Options: DENY" or "X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN"

    • High

      Missing Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…
  3. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • High

      No Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching startup.ch

This scan found 27 issues across 6 checks. Monitoring re-runs those checks daily, emails you when something material changes and records each fix, so you can show progress.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

€25per month

  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

Email alerts on material changes and an exportable JSON history of every change.

Billed monthly to your card. Cancel anytime. The full timeline opens with your unlock code.

Full report

€39.90one-time

  • The complete analysis as a PDF you can cite
  • Email delivery with an unlock code
  • Lifetime access to this report

Prices incl. 21% VAT. Secure checkout by Mollie; sold by SEQ SIA, Latvia.

Results by check

Each check with its score, findings and the evidence it collected.

How this score is calculated

The security score runs 0–100, higher is better. It is the plain average of the security checks that completed in this scan, each counted equally. A check that could not run is left out: it counts neither as a pass nor as a fail.

Counted in this score

SSL/TLS
62
Security headers
15
Email security
40
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
68
Average
60

Not counted

  • NIS2 outside view: Re-weights evidence from the TLS, email, DNS, network and hygiene checks, so counting it would count that evidence twice. Shown on its own.
  • OffSeq Observations: An AI reading of the site, useful context but not reproducible evidence. Shown on its own.

Findings that cap the score at 49

Each of these is serious on its own, so while any is present the site cannot rate better than high risk, however good the other checks are.

  • The certificate is not trusted by browsers
  • The website is not served over HTTPS
  • A database, remote desktop, file-sharing or Telnet service is reachable from the internet
  • The page loads a script from a compromised source
  • The domain registration has expired
  • SPF authorises every server to send mail as the domain

Partial scans

When the site blocks Guard or most checks cannot run, the score covers only the checks that ran (usually DNS and email), is capped at 75 and is shown as partial, without a risk level.

Risk levels

  • Critical0–25
  • High26–49
  • Medium50–75
  • Low76–100

Breach exposure

Leaked credentials and lookalike domains from OffSeq Breach. The counts are free; the detailed lists are paid add-ons.

Dark web exposure

Add-on

Leaked records that mention startup.ch, from OffSeq Breach.

Total records
86
Employees
0
Customers
86
Third parties
0
Weak passwords
28%

2 subdomains affected

See the 10 newest leaked credentials

A one-off add-on to this report that lists the most recent identifier and password pairs OffSeq Breach holds for startup.ch.

Select it in the checkout above.

Breach keeps ingesting new leaks, so these numbers can grow between scans.

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The platform holds a strong market position as a leading Swiss startup ecosystem hub, supported by its parent company Venturelab Ltd. It benefits from partnerships such as the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Award and maintains active social media channels to engage its audience. The business model revolves around providing valuable data and visibility to startups and investors, likely monetized through advertising and premium listings. The curated content and regular updates indicate a dynamic and growing platform. However, direct contact information is not prominently displayed, which may limit immediate user engagement. The platform's focus on multiple technology sectors including biotech, fintech, medtech, and cleantech reflects a broad and diversified ecosystem coverage.

Security posture

The website demonstrates a moderate to good security posture with mandatory HTTPS encryption and a GDPR-compliant cookie consent banner. However, it lacks advanced security headers such as Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options, which could enhance protection against common web attacks. No vulnerability disclosure policy or security.txt file is present, which limits transparency for security researchers. The absence of explicit incident response contacts is a gap in security readiness. The use of third-party scripts is standard but requires ongoing monitoring to prevent supply chain risks. Overall, the security measures are adequate for a content platform but could be improved to meet higher security standards.

Recommendations

  1. Implement comprehensive HTTP security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, and X-Frame-Options.
  2. Publish a dedicated security policy page including incident response contact information.
  3. Introduce a vulnerability disclosure policy and security.txt file to encourage responsible reporting.
  4. Enhance accessibility features to improve compliance and user experience for all users.
  5. Regularly audit and update third-party libraries and scripts to mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Venturelab Ltd.
Description
Startup.ch provides startup and investor profiles, news, investments and resources to help discover tomorrow’s opportunities in the Swiss startup ecosystem.
Key services
Startup profiles, Investor profiles, Funding rounds tracking, Job listings, Startup support tools, News and curated lists
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 3.5.1, Popper.js 1.16.0, Bootstrap 4.5.0, Select2 4.1.0-beta.1, Google Fonts (Montserrat), Google Analytics (gtag.js), Google Publisher Tags (GPT) for ads
Frameworks
Bootstrap 4
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
basic
SEO
good

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • HTTPS enforced
  • Cookie consent banner with opt-in
  • No exposed sensitive data in HTML
  • Use of integrity and crossorigin attributes on some external scripts

Analytics and tracking

Services
Google Analytics
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
good

Advertising

Ad networks
Google Ad Manager (DoubleClick)
Marketing tools
TermsFeed Cookie Consent
Transparency
good

Site quality

Design
good
User experience
good
Content relevance
good
Navigation
good
Professionalism
good
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is a professional platform for Swiss startups and investors
  2. Content is rich with startup profiles, funding data, curated lists, and ecosystem news
  3. Good use of modern web technologies and responsive design
  4. Cookie consent and privacy policy are implemented properly
  5. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the homepage or footer
  6. Social media presence is strong and consistent with the brand
  7. No visible security policy or incident response contact information
  8. No vulnerability disclosure or security.txt found
  9. Advertising is managed via Google Ad Manager with appropriate scripts
  10. No suspicious or malicious content detected
Technical notes

Notes

The website is built on a ColdFusion backend with a frontend leveraging Bootstrap 4, jQuery, Popper.js, and Select2 for UI components and interactivity. Google Fonts are used for typography, and Google Analytics and Google Publisher Tags manage analytics and advertising. The site is mobile responsive and includes SEO best practices such as meta descriptions, keywords, and Open Graph tags. Performance is moderate, with some reliance on external CDNs for libraries. The absence of a modern JavaScript framework suggests potential for modernization to improve maintainability and performance. No CMS is explicitly detected, indicating a custom or legacy platform. Overall, the technical infrastructure supports the business needs but could benefit from modernization and enhanced security configurations.
Standards and sources

Reference chips under each finding point to the standard, regulation or specification the finding relates to. They are taken from the official datasets below and mapped conservatively: a finding with no defensible link shows none. NIS2 and GDPR references mark where a finding is relevant evidence, not a compliance verdict. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690 binds digital infrastructure and digital service providers; for other entities it is the most detailed public reading of the Article 21 measures. WCAG, EN 301 549, European Accessibility Act and Web Accessibility Directive references name the requirement an automated accessibility rule relates to; they are not a conformance verdict.

Retrieved 2026-10-25

Reviews of this site

Share your experience with startup.ch. Every review is verified by email and published after moderation.

Overall rating
Select a rating
4000 characters remaining

We’ll email you to confirm your review and keep your details private.

Community rating

No published reviews yet. Be the first to review startup.ch.

Feedback on this report

Rate this report, add an optional comment, and tell us if you want a security specialist to follow up.

Overall report quality
Select a rating
2000 characters remaining

We only use your feedback to improve Guard reports. Contact details are never shared.