Their lunch box has a built-in mini steamer

Steasy was launched five years ago: the three founders developed a mobile steamer in the form of a box that quickly provides hot food during tight lunch breaks. This has convinced the market: the first orders will be delivered at the beginning of September.

The idea for the startup Steasy, a lunchbox with a built-in mini-steamer, came to the three founders Johannes Hofer, Claudio Ruiz and Reto Muhl during their studies while standing in line at one of the microwaves in the cafeteria. "Since people don't have much time during their lunch break, we thought about how to make better use of this time slot to heat up a delicious meal quickly and easily," says Johannes Hofer about Steasy's founding idea.

The idea for a mobile Steambox took concrete shape in 2017: Claudio Ruiz and Reto Muhl, both former students of the School of Engineering, won the ZHAW Startup Challenge. Together with Johannes Hofer, who studied General Management at the School of Management and Law, the idea for Steasy became more and more mature. They successfully applied to the Runway Startup Incubator of the ZHAW Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which provided them with space and infrastructure for six months.

Then, in 2018, Steasy was founded and a first prototype of the mobile lunchbox was created. The contents of the Steasy lunchbox can be heated within 15 minutes by means of a built-in steamer, which is filled with water beforehand, "no matter what kind of precooked food is inside," explains Johannes Hofer. The box itself can be closed leak-proof and via app you can set the desired time of heating.

"From the very beginning, we received valuable assistance in both the technical and business areas through informal exchanges with lecturers from the School of Engineering," Johannes Hofer recalls. After a successful financing round in early 2020, the young company moved into the Home of Innovation Center, which is located in a former Rieter-Werke factory building in Winterthur.

Finally, at the beginning of April, the time had come for the pre-sale of the first Steasy lunchbox to begin. "We are very satisfied so far, so far we have sold boxes in the triple digits," Hofer reports. Steasy will then be delivered to customers at the beginning of September - with which the entrepreneurs will enter the next major phase of their soon to be five-year company history.

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