ZURICH / PARIS, June 17. The technologies now driving the global economy, from advanced computing to artificial intelligence and robotics, are built patiently, over decades of sustained investment and deep scientific groundwork. Increasingly that work traces back to a country a fraction of the size of the giants it competes with.
Switzerland now directs a greater share of its venture capital to deep tech than any other nation, and commits more per head than any country in Europe, placing it among the top three worldwide. The finding anchors the Swiss Deep Tech Report 2026, published today by Deep Tech Nation Switzerland, Founderful, Kickfund, Startupticker.ch, and Dealroom.co, and launched at VivaTech in Paris.
The report sets out where the next decade of frontier technology will be engineered. The world’s most valuable companies are built on data centers, artificial intelligence and robotic automation, and Switzerland is among the few countries worldwide where that work is researched and commercialized at the frontier. What has changed is that its companies now stay to scale, and the world has taken notice. “For the first time, the companies spinning out of ETH and EPFL are staying, scaling and attracting serious capital,” says Jean-Philippe Fricker, Co-Founder and Chief System Architect of Cerebras Systems. The country’s international standing now matches the strength of its ecosystem.
Five findings that put Switzerland at the forefront of deep tech innovation
The pipeline is shifting toward the sectors that dominate global capital. AI and machine learning now account for one in four newly founded Swiss deep tech companies, more than double their previous share. Beyond startup creation, Switzerland has the highest density of AI researchers globally, twice that of the UK and the US. Robotics is moving even faster relative to peers: Switzerland has created 3.5 times more venture-backed robotics startups per capita since 2020 than the United States, and 5 times more than the UK. In Future of Compute, 2026 is already a record funding year, and Switzerland boasts 7 times more patents per capita than the European average, driven by its world-leading microelectronics and high-precision sensor industries.
The world’s most deep-tech-focused venture market. 63% of all Swiss venture capital flows to deep tech, the highest share of any country, ahead of China and the United States and nearly double the share of Germany and the UK, and well ahead of France.
First in Europe on intensity, top three globally. At $1,470 invested per capita, Switzerland commits more to deep tech per head than any country in Europe. Worldwide, that places it among the top three nations alongside Israel and the United States.
Funding is accelerating. Swiss deep tech funding has grown roughly fivefold since 2015 to reach a record $2.6B in 2025.
The strongest growth is still ahead. ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne are Europe’s leading universities for new deep tech spinouts. Building on a leading position, the two have extended their lead since 2023, and that cohort is only now reaching the seed-to-Series-A window, the stage at which company value and capital raised compound most sharply.
Momentum on the ground
Some of the clearest signals do not yet appear in the funding data. Among the report’s co-authors are several of the country’s most active deep tech investors, who describe a change in the character of the ecosystem over the past year. The world’s top funds no longer need persuading to look at Switzerland; they are arriving on their own initiative. “The energy and talent dynamism reminded me of what we saw in Israel and the UK in the early 2000s,” says Saul Klein, Founding Partner of LocalGlobe.
Global technology leaders are expanding their computing, robotics and AI research presence in the country. The pipeline feeding that activity runs straight from the universities. “At EPFL we see it every day: the discoveries made in our laboratories become the deep tech companies of tomorrow,” says Anna Fontcuberta i Morral, President of EPFL. And as deal flow deepens, founders are growing more selective about the investors they choose to work with.
“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.”
— Alex Stöckl, Partner at Founderful and Swiss Deep Tech Report co-author
Where the opportunity sits
Foreign investors supply 88% of Swiss deep tech funding at rounds of $100M and above, against 75% across Europe, while domestic capital falls to just 12% at late stage. In a top-ranked ecosystem, late-stage capital remains underweight relative to the quality of the companies being built, leaving clear room for new investors to enter early.
“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.”
— Wanja Humanes, Partner at Kickfund and Swiss Deep Tech Report co-author
What happens next
The seed-to-Series-A cohort now moving through the ecosystem is the largest Switzerland has produced, and it is only now reaching the stage where company value and capital raised compound most sharply. Deep tech funding has already grown roughly fivefold since 2015 to a record $2.6B. The companies are staying, and the funds are arriving on their own. The report sets out, sector by sector, the leaders and the startups most worth watching, and invites the investors who would rather arrive early than late.
