29 Jan 2019
In 2018, Swiss start-ups received almost CHF 1.24 billion in venture capital across 230 financing rounds.
Swiss Venture Capital Report 2019, published by the online news portal startupticker.ch in collaboration with the investor association SECA and with the support of HEG-FR, shows that in 2018 Swiss start-ups received almost CHF 1.24 billion in venture capital across 230 financing rounds.
An increasing number of start-ups are the source of new technologies and business models. Dynamism at the interface of entrepreneurship and science is an important indicator of the long-term growth prospects of a country. For years, Switzerland has lagged behind comparable countries, such as Israel and Sweden, but it is now catching up fast. In 2018, venture capital investment increased by CHF 299 million to more than CHF 1.23 billion, an increase of 32% on 2017.
ICT investment doubles
The strongest growth, at more than 120%, was in investment in companies working on solutions to the challenges of digital transformation of business and society. Last year, 131 Swiss ICT start-ups conducted financing rounds and collected CHF 685 million from domestic and foreign lenders. For the first time, more money was invested in ICT companies than in start-ups in the life sciences sectors – biotech (CHF 253 million), medtech (CHF 123 million) and digital health (CHF 45 million).