Switzerland is making the US, China and the UK look a bit flat-footed in the deep tech money race.
The Swiss Deep Tech Report 2026 claims the country now directs a bigger share of venture capital into deep tech than any other nation. It puts Switzerland ahead of China and the US, and first in Europe for deep tech investment per head.
The report, published by Deep Tech Nation Switzerland, Founderful, Kickfund, Startupticker.ch and Dealroom.co, was launched at VivaTech in Paris on 17 June 2026.
It says 63 per cent of Swiss venture capital now goes into deep tech, the highest share in the world. That is nearly double the share seen in Germany and the UK, and ahead of France.
Switzerland invests $1,470 per person into deep tech, which puts it first in Europe and among the top three worldwide alongside Israel and the US.
Swiss deep tech startups raised a record $2.6 billion in 2025, roughly five times more than in 2015. For a country better known for watches, banks and suspiciously punctual trains, that is not too shabby.
The report says ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne are Europe’s top two universities for new deep tech spinouts. Their lead has apparently grown since 2023, with a fresh crop of startups now reaching the seed-to-series-A stage.
AI and machine learning now account for one in four newly founded Swiss deep tech outfits, more than double their previous share. Switzerland has the highest density of AI researchers globally, twice that of the UK and the US, according to the report. Robotics is moving faster, with Switzerland creating 3.5 times more venture-backed robotics startups per person since 2020 than the US, and five times more than the UK.
In future computing, 2026 is already a record funding year. Switzerland has seven times more patents per person than the European average, helped by microelectronics and high-precision sensor companies.
Cerebras Systems co-founder and chief system architect Jean-Philippe Fricker said: “For the first time, the companies spinning out of ETH and EPFL are staying, scaling and attracting serious capital.”
Fricker said the country’s international standing now matched the strength of its ecosystem.
LocalGlobe founding partner Saul Klein said: “The energy and talent dynamism reminded me of what we saw in Israel and the UK in the early 2000s.”
EPFL president Anna Fontcuberta i Morral said: “At EPFL we see it every day: the discoveries made in our laboratories become the deep tech companies of tomorrow.”
Founderful partner and Swiss Deep Tech Report co-author Alex Stöckl said: “Since we launched in 2019, we’ve never seen such a high density of ambitious entrepreneurs tackling globally relevant tech challenges as right now. The pace at which these founders execute reminds me of what people speak about when they refer to SF. In the coming decade Zurich will become home to at least a dozen global category leaders, I’m sure of that.”
The report says global technology companies are expanding their computing, robotics and AI research presence in Switzerland. The pitch is that talent now flows straight out of the universities into companies, which stay local rather than legging it abroad.
Foreign investors provide 88 per cent of Swiss deep tech funding in rounds of $100 million and above, compared with 75 per cent across Europe. Domestic capital drops to just 12 per cent at the late stage. That leaves Switzerland with world-class companies and a funding gap large enough for international money to ski through.
Kickfund partner and Swiss Deep Tech Report co-author Wanja Humanes said: “We built one of the world’s most deep tech-focused economies without a franc of public venture capital. In Germany, France and the UK, much of the late-stage money is state-backed through Bpifrance, British Patient Capital or the German Future Fund. In Switzerland that barely exists, and yet the world’s best investors now come here on their own initiative, with some setting up shop. No public money had to write the cheque to make this real.”
