Investments in Swiss start-ups will increase by almost 24 percent in 2025

(CONNECT) For the first time since 2022, more money has flowed into Swiss start-ups than in the previous year. According to the recently published Swiss Venture Capital Report, the total amount of venture capital increased by 23.9 percent. Venture capital funds from Switzerland and abroad participated in 354 financing rounds (previous year: 357) with just under CHF 3 billion. In the first half of 2025, the report even recorded a year-on-year increase of 36%.

The Swiss Venture Capital Report is published every six months by the Lucerne-based Startupticker Foundation and its platform startupticker.ch and by Venturelab from Schlieren and its platform startup.ch. To this end, they cooperate with the Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association, the umbrella organization for Swiss venture capital firms.

The willingness to take risks also increased: investments in young and very young companies rose from CHF 864 million to over CHF 1.4 billion. The inflow of funds increased sharply, particularly in the ICT and biotech sectors. Less money flowed into cleantech start-ups. However, a third of the total volume of CHF 386 million generated in this area was attributable to Climeworks. The spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich recorded the second-largest financing round of the year with CHF 128 million.

Company valuations also developed positively: The transaction volume for two takeovers amounted to over CHF 1 billion and for a further seven more than CHF 100 million. Two Swiss start-ups went public: BioVersys and MindMaze Therapeutics.

Zurich leads the cantonal rankings in terms of both the number and volume of financing rounds, followed by Vaud and Basel-Stadt. According to the report, the majority of funds plan to further increase their investments in the coming months and years. ce/mm