Switzerland

Introduction

With a population of 8.8 million – roughly the same as New York City – and a GDP of $800B – comparable to Taiwan -, Switzerland consistently ranks at or near the top of Europe’s benchmarks when it comes to prosperity, quality of life and innovation.

An attractive destination for VC investment, with a track record of successful startup successes – 39 unicorns were born in Switzerland – and a rich pipeline of promising gems, the Swiss tech ecosystem nonetheless remains too often overlooked.

Switzerland is home to over 4.5k+ funded startups which have consistently raised billions of dollars in VC a year.

Venture Capital

By stage

Below we break venture capital into three distinct stages:

Startup stage ($0-15M rounds)
Breakout stage ($15-100M rounds)
Scaleup stage ($100M+ rounds).

This provides more consistent and timeless segmentation of the startup & venture capital landscape (more so than self-reported round labeling, which are applied inconsistently, especially between business cycles).

Early stage

Access early-stage funding rounds into Swiss startups here on the Dealroom platform.

Breakout stage

Access breakout-stage funding rounds into Swiss startups here on the Dealroom platform.

Scaleup stage

Access scaleup-stage funding rounds into Swiss startups here on the Dealroom platform.

By industry

Industry VC investment

The leading industries in Switzerland for VC investment include Health, Fintech, and Energy startups, with Health attracting almost two thirds of all VC investment in 2024.

Segment VC investment

On a more granular level, the top three segments for VC investment are oncology, industrial technology and neurology so far in 2024.

Sources of capital

Like many European countries, Swiss startups raise most of their VC investment from investors located domestically or within Europe itself with this making up on average 50% of their investor's source location.

However, 2022 and 2023 saw a notably strong year for investment coming from the US and Asian investors in comparison to that of others.

International comparisons

Country benchmarking

Switzerland currently ranks within the top 5 countries in terms of VC investment in Europe alongside the likes of the Sweden and the Netherlands.

Compare the Swiss ecosystem against other European ecosystems down below or here on the Dealroom platform.

City benchmarking

Leading cities such as Geneva and Zurich are amongst the top 50 city ecosystems in Europe in terms of VC investment.

Compare Swiss startup hubs against their European and global counterparts here on the platform.

Investment by industries benchmarking

Since 2020, there has been double the proportionate amounts of VC investment into Healthtech startups in Switzerland compared to the European average as seen below. Enterprise Software, Robotics and Security startups in Switzerland also attract more proportional investment compared to the European average.

Investors

The most active Swiss VC is the ZKB - Zürcher Kantonalbank. Foundation FIT. They are followed by Venture Kick, Verve Venture, Foundation FIT and Swiss ICT Investor Club (SICTIC).

Explore the data for the most active investors into the Swiss startup ecosystem as well as the most active Swiss investors here on the Dealroom platform.

Spotlight: Patents

The combination of leading research institutions, business-friendly climate, reliable infrastructure, quality workforce, existing technology landscape, and intellectual property protection makes Switzerland an exceptional hub for startups to flourish and foster groundbreaking innovation within its borders.

As of 2024, there are over 950+ companies with at least one patent.

In Dealroom's 2022 tech startup ecosystem benchmarking report, we found that three Swiss cities feature in the top 20 global hubs for Patent density, which can be seen in the table below.

Basel, Zurich and Geneva are the leading three ecosystems in Switzerland by patents. Zurich and Basel’s most registered patent category is Life Sciences while it is Information in Geneva.