As a record-breaking year for venture comes to a close, we’ve zoomed in on a fast-growing European startup ecosystem which punches above its weight.

Swiss startups, like those across all of Europe, have raised record levels of funding in 2021, with $3.1B raised to date.

The entire startup ecosystem in Switzerland is now worth a total $149B, up 3.7x sine 2016, with significant value driven by the country’s leading health and biotech startups, and university spinouts.

Switzerland, despite being a relatively small country by population, is particularly entrepreneurial, with more startups per capita than it’s bigger, more headline-grabbing startup neighbours. It has also created more unicorn startups per capita than anywhere else in Europe bar Sweden.