Which country holds the largest share of venture capital in deeptech in the world? Neither the United States nor China. According to the Swiss Deep Tech Report 2026, Switzerland allocates 63% of its venture capital to deeptech, ahead of China and the United States. This shift redistributes the landscape of the Swiss startup ecosystem and alters the profiles of companies that attract investors.
Deeptech Venture Capital in Switzerland: International Comparison
The Swiss Deep Tech Report 2026 provides a rare snapshot of funding concentration by country. The table below compares the shares of venture capital directed towards deeptech in the three largest economies.
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| Country | Share of venture capital in deeptech | Deeptech amount 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Switzerland | 63% | Approximately $2.6 billion |
| China | 56% | Not specified in the report |
| United States | 54% | Not specified in the report |
Swiss deeptech funding has been multiplied by five in ten years to reach this record. This trajectory is partly explained by the role of ETH Zurich and EPFL, which produce more venture capital-funded deeptech spin-offs than any other European university, ahead of Oxford and Cambridge.
Among Startup Café news, these funding data are regularly contextualized with the local fabric of tech entrepreneurship.
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Swiss Deeptech Startups: Accelerating Sectors
Deeptech does not form a homogeneous block. The Swiss Deep Tech Report 2026 identifies five sectors experiencing strong acceleration in Switzerland.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning, driven by the labs at EPFL and ETH Zurich that feed a continuous stream of specialized spin-offs
- Robotics, with industrial and medical applications attracting increasingly large funding rounds
- Climate and energy, a segment where Switzerland intersects its industrial tradition and European regulatory requirements
- Medtech, a historically strong sector in the Lake Geneva region, benefiting from proximity to university hospitals
- Future of compute, an emerging field covering quantum computing and alternative chip architectures
These five pillars stand out from previous waves (fintech, legaltech) due to their academic grounding. The startups that emerge from them often spend several years in the lab before seeking market access, which lengthens funding cycles but reduces entry competition.
Cleantech: A Sustained Creation Flow
The climate-energy segment deserves a closer look. According to Le Matin, a new cleantech company emerges in Switzerland every week. Three examples cited for 2026 illustrate the diversity of approaches.
SimpleTrain works on cross-border rail transport. Niatsu leverages satellite data. Thermal Transformer develops cooling solutions for data centers. These three startups operate in very different technical niches but share a common point: their model relies on measurable physical data, not on software platforms.
Rebalancing Startup Funding in 2026
The Swiss Venture Capital Report (first half of 2026) indicates an adjustment. Swiss startups raised 1.25 billion francs in the first half of 2026, a figure down from recent peaks. This decline in overall amounts masks a structural phenomenon: the emergence of what Startupticker calls a “fourth hardware pillar.”
Pure software is losing relative ground in Swiss venture capital allocations. In contrast, startups developing physical components (sensors, chips, advanced materials) are capturing an increasing share of funding rounds. This shift reflects the maturity of the ecosystem: investors are accepting longer cycles and higher capital needs because Swiss academic spin-offs have demonstrated their ability to reach the market.
Cybersecurity: An Expanding Radar
The Swiss Cybersecurity Startup Radar 2026 from Wavestone lists a growing number of young Swiss companies focused on cybersecurity. This segment benefits from two accelerators: European data protection regulation and the demand from Swiss financial companies for sovereign solutions.
Swiss cyber startups stand out for their specialization. While American or Israeli players often cover broad ranges, Swiss companies target specific niches (real-time deepfake detection, automated compliance auditing, post-quantum encryption).
Kickstart Innovation and Acceleration Programs in Switzerland
The Kickstart Innovation initiative celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2025. Its Open Innovation program selected 36 startups from 14 countries, including a quarter of Swiss startups. Partners include AXA, Coop, La Mobilière, Swisscom, and PostFinance, ensuring startups have direct access to real-world use cases.
Startups from previous Kickstart cohorts have raised over 2.8 billion francs by 2024. The key themes for the 2025 edition are deepfake detection, health prevention, and data-driven retail innovation.
Innosuisse, the federal agency for the promotion of innovation, complements this framework with its innovation projects for startups. This program targets companies that have not yet accessed the market and supports them from the application submission to project closure, including a pitch before an evaluation committee.
The Swiss startup ecosystem of 2026 is thus viewed through three structuring data points: an unparalleled global deeptech concentration, a rebalancing towards hardware, and acceleration programs backed by large groups. The 63% share of venture capital in deeptech is not a conjunctural accident but the result of ten years of investment in academic spin-offs.