Switzerland is renowned for its historical political neutrality, beautiful skiing locations and delicious chocolate, but in the land of business, it’s known as a haven for entrepreneurs and startups.
Boasting consistent economic stability, highly skilled talent and a convenient geographical location, among other things, Switzerland is an ideal destination for emerging businesses, and the figures are testament to this.
Not only are there plenty of new companies starting their journeys in Switzerland, but businesses based there are also attracting significant investment. According to Seed Blink, Switzerland made it into the top five European countries in terms of venture capital raised in 2023, demonstrating an incredible 36% growth over four years from 2019.
Is Switzerland a Good Place to Launch a Startup?
In short, yes, Switzerland is an excellent place to launch a startup. The cost of living may be high, but the quality of life, gorgeous landscapes and thriving economy make up for the high prices.
Some of the most significant advantages of launching a startup in Switzerland include:
- Supportive Government
- Stable Economic Landscape
- Convenient and Strategic Geographical Location
- Skilled Talent Pool
- High Quality of Life
- Attractive to Investors
With these qualities in mind, it’s no surprise that such a small country has managed to attract some really exciting and innovative startups.
Thus, in 2016, Switzerland was able to introduce to the world its first unicorn – Mindmaze, a startup that has developed software to help support patients in their recovery journeys after suffering strokes.
Since then, a wave of other successful companies have followed suit, increasing the number of Swiss unicorns to seven in total, although the number does change as new investment comes in and businesses switch from private to public ownership.
Top 7 Unicorns in Switzerland
Switzerland is not only an excellent choice for entrepreneurs and startups on paper. In fact, some argue that the country’s startup success can, in part, be traced back to academic endeavours, and this paired with the government’s immense support has created an excellent environment for thriving new businesses.
These are Switzerland’s seven unicorns.
1. Beqom: $15 Billion
Beqom is a cloud-based software company that was launched in Nyon in 2009. Its software manages employee compensation, including features such as salary management, long-term incentives, commissions, employee bonuses, non-cash rewards and more.
In addition, Beqom can be used to manage quotas and conduct performance evaluations. The software is appropriate for sectors such as finance, IT (information technology), telecommunication and automotive.
With fifteen-odd years of success, Beqom became a unicorn in 2022 and has received significant investment from powerful enterprises including Goldman Sachs and Idinvest Partners. With a most recent valuation of $15 million, Beqom is currently the highest-valued unicorn in Switzerland.
2. Sonar: $4.7 Billion
Sonar became a unicorn in 2022 after having received $412 million in its series D investment round. Founded in Vernier, Switzerland in 2008, Sonar provides customers with automated code quality analysis as well as solutions for code review. The company aims to provide services and applications that can help with the inspection of code quality.
By means of open-source software, Sonar provides users with a management platform that allows for the development and maintenance of software, including features such as data flow analysis, multi-language support and so much more.
Today, Sonar is worth an incredible $4.7 billion.
3. Acronis: $3.5 Billion
Acronis is a Swiss software company that offers users a cloud-based platform with enterprise endpoint management solutions. Founded in 2003, Acronis’ software is designed to help back up and restore data, as well as deal with boot management, partitioning, privacy, data migration, and general disaster recovery.
The software is geared towards providing cyber protection solutions including anti-malware protection, server backup, hosting services, the prevention of data loss and more.
Acronis achieved unicorn status in 2021 having raised $250 million in series C funding, resulting in its most recent valuation of $3.5 billion.
4. MindMaze: $1.5 Billion
MindMaze, the first Swiss company to become a unicorn in 2016, is a digital neurotherapeutic platform for digital assessments and therapeutics, including two major products. These products include a gamified neurorehabilitation system that can be used both in hospitals and homes, as well as a transportable neurorehabilitation system to be used in hospitals for the purpose of early moor rehabilitation.
Essentially, MindMaze’s products are able to provide patients with a plethora of different therapies that are scientifically advanced and engaging on an emotional level, all contributing to neurorehabilitation.
MindMaze was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2012 and it was valued at $1.5 billion after its most recent valuation in 2021.
5. Nexthink: $1.1 Billion
Nexthink was founded in Lausanne in 2004 and achieved a $1.1 billion valuation in 2021. The company has developed a platform for cloud-based digital employee experience, monitoring IT infrastructure and reporting failures, crashes, threats to security and issues with performance.
Nexthink’s software solutions deal with both virtual and standard infrastructure, as well as controlling IT budgets, capturing network activities in real time and transforming end-user data into actionable analytics.
After a series D funding round that brought in $180 million, led by Parmira, Nexthink achieved a $1.1 billion valuation at the beginning of 2021.
6. Climeworks: $1.08 Billion
Climeworks was founded in 2009 and officially joined the unicorn club in 2022, having received $650 million upon completion of series E funding, led by Partners Group and GIC. The company was founded by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, the company’s current co-CEOs.
Climeworks designs and manufactures advanced devices that are able to extract carbon dioxide from ambient air. They’ve created three models that differ based on the amount of C02 that’s extracted. The primary target market is greenhouse owners and businesses that make use of C02 for aeration in food processing.
7. Scandit: $1 Billion
Scandit is a software development kit (SDK) provider for the capture of smart data from locations including files, IDs, barcodes and more. Its mobile application allows retail employees to scan products using smartphones, improving efficiency in operations and more.
Additional features of the app include order management, various marketing tools, customer engagement and more. It also serves as a data capture platform while simultaneously offering cloud-based enterprise mobility.
Scandit makes use of advanced machine learning and augmented reality technologies, and it’s appropriate for use in industries other than retail, including manufacturing, healthcare, manufacturing and more.
Launched in Zurich in 2009, Scandit was most recently valued at $1 billion in 2022 after a successful Series D funding round that brought in $150 million.
